Individual (co)variation of field behavior and locomotor
performance in curly tailed lizards
K. Diamond
1
, D. Trovillion
2
, K. E. Allen
3
, K. M. Malela
4
, D. A. Noble
5
, R. Powell
6
, D. A. Eifler
7
&
M. E. Gifford
8
1 Department of Biology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
2 Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA
3 Department of Biology, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO, USA
4 Department of Environmental Health, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana
5 Department of Biology, Hendrix College, Conway, AR, USA
6 Department of Biology, Avila University, Kansas City, MO, USA
7 Erell Institute, Lawrence, KS, USA
8 Department of Biology, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR, USA
Keywords
honest signaling; individual gambit;
behavioral syndrome; repeatability;
Leiocephalus carinatus.
Correspondence
Matthew E. Gifford, Department of Biology,
University of Central Arkansas, 201
Donaghey Ave., Conway, AR 72035, USA.
Email: megifford@uca.edu
Editor: Nigel Bennett
Received 25 June 2014; revised 6 August
2014; accepted 12 August 2014
doi:10.1111/jzo.12175
Abstract
Animal communication among competitors often relies on honest signaling
such that displays of aggression accurately reflect an individual’s performance
abilities. Moreover, the maintenance of honest signaling should be enhanced by
the existence of consistent individual differences in behavior and performance,
and individual-level correlations between them. Despite this, researchers studying
honest signaling rarely measure behavioral repeatability. Here, we demonstrate
that field behaviors of free-ranging lizards and a measure of locomotor perfor-
mance in the laboratory are consistent among individuals (i.e. they were repeat-
able), although the magnitude of repeatability varies among traits. In addition,
endurance appears to be correlated with display frequency in the field at the
individual level, suggesting that display frequency is an honest signal of endur-
ance. Interestingly, this correlation was strong for males, and non-existent for
females. Our results extend previous studies of behavior–performance relation-
ships by identifying a sex-specific correlation between traits and by partitioning
phenotypic correlations into between- and within-individual components. This
analytical approach is emerging as a powerful tool for studying individual vari-
ation in behavior and physiology.
Introduction
Laboratory measurements of physiological performance are
used frequently to understand and predict how organisms
interact with their environment and to provide a functional
perspective for interpreting the fitness consequences of mor-
phological variation (Arnold, 1983; Wainwright & Reilly,
1994). Arnold’s (1983) landmark paper set up a framework for
measuring selection on morphological traits in two steps: the
first measures the effects of morphological variation on per-
formance and the second measures the effects of performance
on fitness. Since this time, researchers have expanded and
modified the morphology-performance-fitness framework to
consider how behavior might be included in this framework
(Garland & Losos, 1984; Irschick & Losos, 1998; Husak &
Fox, 2006). The relationship between performance (e.g. loco-
motion, bite force) and behavior is important in the context of
honest signaling, in which certain behaviors (movements, pos-
tures, sounds) involved in agonistic and sexual interactions are
thought to indicate reliable information about the signaler
with regard to, for example, fighting capacity, energy reserves
or fitness (Zahavi, 1975, 1977; Leal, 1999; Keyser & Hill, 2000;
Akçay et al., 2011; Lailvaux, Gilbert & Edwards, 2012).
Animal behavior was traditionally considered highly plastic
and quickly responsive to an organism’s physiological state
and environmental context (Emlen, 1966; Stephens & Krebs,
1986). Contrary to this view, researchers have increasingly
demonstrated that behaviors are often quite consistent among
individuals, even across different contexts (both in the labora-
tory and in the field, reviewed in Bell, Hankison & Laskowski,
2009); observations that have led to the development of a
considerable literature on behavioral syndromes and animal
personalities (Koolhaas et al., 1999; Gosling, 2001; Sih,
Bell & Johnson, 2004; Reale et al., 2007). Despite the rapid
Journal of Zoology
Journal of Zoology. Print ISSN 0952-8369
248 Journal of Zoology 294 (2014) 248–254 © 2014 The Zoological Society of London