Environmental, social, morphological, and behavioral constraints on opportunistic multiple paternity

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Spearfishing-induced behavioral changes of an unharvested species inside and outside a marine protected area.

By prohibiting fishing, marine protected areas (MPAs) provide a refuge for harvested species. Humans are often perceived as predators by prey and therefore respond fearfully to humans. Thus, fish responses to humans inside and outside of an MPA can provide insights into their perception of humans as a predatory threat. Previous studies have found differences in the distance that harvested species of fish initiate flight (flight initiation distance-FID) from humans inside and outside an MPA, but less is known about unharvested species. We focused on whether the lined bristletooth Ctenochaetus striatus, an unharvested surgeonfish, can discriminate between a snorkeler and a snorkeler with a spear gun inside and outside of a no-take MPA in Mo'orea, French Polynesia. Additionally, we incorporated starting distance (the distance between the person and prey at the start of an experimental approach), a variable that has been found to be important in assessing prey escape decisions in terrestrial species, but that has not been extensively studied in aquatic systems. Lined bristletooth FID was significantly greater in the presence of a spear gun and varied depending on if the spear gun encounter was inside or outside of the MPA. These results imply a degree of sophistication of fish antipredator behavior, generate questions as to how a nontargeted species of fish could acquire fear of humans, and demonstrate that behavioral surveys can provide insights about antipredator behavior

Genetic basis of between-individual and within-individual variance of docility

Funded by Alces Software UCLA Academic Senate Division of Life Sciences National Geographic Society National Science Foundation. Grant Numbers: IDBR-0754247, DEB-1119660, DBI-0242960, DBI-0731346 University of Aberdeen Data deposited at Dryad: doi:10.5061/dryad.11vf0.Peer reviewedPostprin

Development of boldness and docility in yellow-bellied marmots

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Transient LTRE analysis reveals the demographic and trait-mediated processes that buffer population growth.

Temporal variation in environmental conditions affects population growth directly via its impact on vital rates, and indirectly through induced variation in demographic structure and phenotypic trait distributions. We currently know very little about how these processes jointly mediate population responses to their environment. To address this gap, we develop a general transient life table response experiment (LTRE) which partitions the contributions to population growth arising from variation in (1) survival and reproduction, (2) demographic structure, (3) trait values and (4) climatic drivers. We apply the LTRE to a population of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) to demonstrate the impact of demographic and trait-mediated processes. Our analysis provides a new perspective on demographic buffering, which may be a more subtle phenomena than is currently assumed. The new LTRE framework presents opportunities to improve our understanding of how trait variation influences population dynamics and adaptation in stochastic environments

Heritability and genetic correlations of personality traits in a wild population of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris)

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Acknowledgments We thank all the marmoteers that helped collect data over the years, and specifically Amanda Lea for help with the pedigree and Leon Chong for help in the field. The comments of two anonymous reviewers helped us improve our original MS. M.B.P. was funded by two U.S. Department of Education GAANN Fellowships, an NSF GK-12 Fellowship, and the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. J.G.A.M. was supported by a Marie-Curie Fellowship. D.T.B was supported by the National Geographic Society, UCLA (Faculty Senate and the Division of Life Sciences), a Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory research fellowship and by the NSF (IDBR-0754247 and DEB-1119660 to D.T.B., as well as DBI 0242960 and 0731346 to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory).Peer reviewedPostprin

Environmentally induced phenotypic variation in wild yellow-bellied marmots

We thank all the marmoteers who helped in data collection and 2 anonymous reviewers who helped us to clarify our message. AM-C was supported by a Fulbright Fellowship, and JGAM was supported by Fond Québécois de Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies. KBA was supported by the National Science Foundation between 1962 and 2000. DTB was supported by the National Geographic Society, UCLA (Faculty Senate and the Division of Life Sciences), a Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory research fellowship, and by the National Science Foundation (IDBR-0754247 and DEB-1119660 to DTB as well as DBI 0242960 and 0731346 to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory).Peer reviewedPostprin