When personality matters: personality and social structure in wild bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus
Section snippets
Study Population and Site
Data were obtained from a long-term study of a social community of bottlenose dolphins on the northeastern coast of Sardinia, Italy (Fig. 1). Bottlenose dolphins live in this coastal environment, subject to significant use by humans, and interact with the fisheries, tourism and aquaculture industries (Díaz López, 2019).
The current study used data from 1017 bottlenose dolphin groups encountered from 2004 to 2013. This long-term data set allowed a good understanding of the abundance, community
Shy–Bold Continuum in Bottlenose Dolphins
Measurements of the individual response to novelty, as a proxy for the shy–bold continuum, were performed on 192 trials between 2004 and 2011 (N = 96 trials in the presence of an AHD and N = 96 trials in the presence of a UOb). Appendix Table A1 shows measurements of the reaction of each bottlenose dolphin to the novel and potentially threatening situations collected at various time intervals. The time interval between two consecutive trials ranged between 1 and 112 days for trials with an AHD
Discussion
The current study presents for the first time consistent (repeatable) individual differences in behavioural response to novelty, as a proxy for the shy–bold continuum, in wild bottlenose dolphins. The results also revealed novel evidence for a phenotypic link between boldness and sociability (i.e. boldness–sociability syndrome) in bottlenose dolphins. By controlling for multiple factors that bring individual bottlenose dolphins into groups, I found that association patterns vary as a function
Data Availability
All analyses were carried out, and can be reproduced, in the open-source programs SOCPROG 2.8 (Whitehead, 2009), in v. 3.6.0 QGIS Geographic Information System software (QGIS Development Team 2019), and in v. 1.8.1. of the statistics and graphics tool R (R Development Core Team, 2012). Data about the reaction of each individual bottlenose dolphin to the novel and potentially threatening situations are provided in the Appendix. Other data will be made available by the authors upon request.
Conflict of Interest
The author of this study declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
I thank the members of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute (BDRI) team between 2004 and 2013 who generously gave their time to help with field and photoidentification work. Many thanks are also extended to the BDRI students and volunteers who assisted with fieldwork. Special thanks also to Séverine Methion for her insightful comments and reviewing the manuscript and to Ariel for her support. I also thank Damien Farine, Ken Wilson, Hal Whitehead and the anonymous referees who provided
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