Behavioural syndromes and trappability in free-living collared flycatchers, Ficedula albicollis La ´ szlo ´ Zsolt Garamszegi a, * , Marcel Eens a , Ja ´nos To ¨ro ¨k b,1 a Department of Biology, University of Antwerp b Behavioural Ecology Group, Department of Systematic Zoology and Ecology, Eo ¨tvo ¨s Lora ´nd University article info Article history: Received 12 September 2008 Initial acceptance 24 October 2008 Final acceptance 17 December 2008 Published online 1 February 2009 MS. number: 08-00585R Keywords: adaptation collared flycatcher coping style Ficedula hypoleuca personality temperament trappability The concept of behavioural syndromes hypothesizes that consistent behaviours across various situations mediate important life history trade-offs, and predicts correlations among behavioural traits. We studied the consistency of behavioural responses across three ecological situations (exploration of an environ- ment altered with a novel object, aggression towards conspecifics, risk taking) in male collared flycatchers. We developed behavioural tests that could be applied in the birds’ natural habitat, thus not requiring the capture of animals. Across individuals, we found positive covariation between exploration, aggression and risk taking, but the magnitude of these relationships varied. Variation in behaviour was also related to capture probability. Exploratory and risk-taking individuals were more likely to enter a trap than individuals with averse characteristics. Moreover, with the trapped birds, there was an association between the time needed for successful capture and exploration, and we found stronger correlations between behaviours in comparison with effects calculated from the whole sample of indi- viduals. These patterns were independent of territory quality, male age, condition and breeding expe- rience. Consequently, behavioural responses to different ecosocial challenges are determined by individual-specific characteristics that are manifested in correlative behaviours. Hence, behavioural types may be potential subjects for reproductive and life history adaptations. Our results have important implications for field studies of animals, because they suggest that capturing protocols may not randomly sample the observed population. Ó 2009 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Behavioural syndrome (sometimes referred to as personality, temperament or coping style in the human and ecological litera- ture, terms that we avoid using here to circumvent confusing terminologies) is defined as the consistency of behavioural responses that individuals display in different situations (Sih et al. 2004a, b). Correlated behaviours respond to selection pressures simultaneously, which may determine how animals generally cope with challenges in their physical and social environment. Recently, the phenomenon has been recognized as ecologically and evolu- tionarily relevant in many animals, because consistent individual variation in a suite of behavioural traits may drive important life history trade-offs (e.g. Hedrick 2000; Bell 2005; Sinn & Moltscha- niwskyj 2005; Duckworth 2006; Bell & Sih 2007; Duckworth & Badyaev 2007; Wolf et al. 2007; Smith & Blumstein 2008). For example, one response may be advantageous in a given context, while its correlated response in another context may involve costs (e.g. aggressive individuals may achieve high social dominance on the one hand, but may be subject to frequent predation on the other; Sih et al. 2004a, b). Behavioural types, at least in some species, have been linked to mating and/or reproductive success and/or survival via integrated component traits such as dispersal, parental quality and/or dominance, and may thus have conse- quences for fitness (Re ´ale et al. 2007). Birds are important models in this line of research, because extensive field data on their behavioural ecology are available These data can be fruitfully amalgamated with the concepts of behavioural syndromes (Groothuis & Carere 2005). In fact, the most comprehensive study of the adaptive significance of correlated behaviours comes from studies on a single species, the great tit, Parus major (Drent 2006). Initial investigations demonstrated that subject animals cope with novel objects and environments in an individual-specific manner. Such individual variation remained consistent across experimental situations, and predicted the degree of aggression (Verbeek et al. 1996). Subsequently, artificial selection experiments in combination with field studies separated different variance components for behavioural types, and showed that these are significantly heritable and genetically correlated (Dingemanse et al. 2002; Drent et al. 2003; Carere et al. 2005; van Oers et al. 2005). A recent study revealed a relationship between individual * Correspondence: L. Z. Garamszegi, Department of Biology, University of Ant- werp, Campus Drie Eiken, Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Antwerp, Belgium. E-mail address: laszlo.garamszegi@ua.ac.be (L.Z. Garamszegi). 1 J. To ¨ ro ¨ k is at the Department of Systematic Zoology and Ecology, Eo ¨ tvo ¨ s Lora ´ and University, H-1117 Budapest, Hungary. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Animal Behaviour journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/yanbe 0003-3472/$38.00 Ó 2009 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.12.012 Animal Behaviour 77 (2009) 803–812