1 Scientific RepoRts | 5:15490 | DOi: 10.1038/srep15490 www.nature.com/scientificreports personality and morphological traits afect pigeon survival from raptor attacks Carlos D. santos 1,2 , Julia F. Cramer 1,3 , Liviu G. Pârâu 1,3 , Ana C. Miranda 1,2,3 , Martin Wikelski 1,3 & Dina K. N. Dechmann 1,3 Personality traits have recently been shown to impact ftness in diferent animal species, potentially making them similarly relevant drivers as morphological and life history traits along the evolutionary pathways of organisms. Predation is a major force of natural selection through its deterministic efects on individual survival, but how predation pressure has helped to shape personality trait selection, especially in free-ranging animals, remains poorly understood. We used high-precision GPS tracking to follow whole focks of homing pigeons (Columba livia) with known personalities and morphology during homing fights where they were severely predated by raptors. This allowed us to determine how the personality and morphology traits of pigeons may afect their risk of being predated by raptors. Our survival model showed that individual pigeons, which were more tolerant to human approach, slower to escape from a confned environment, more resistant to human handling, with larger tarsi, and with lighter plumage, were more likely to be predated by raptors. We provide rare empirical evidence that the personality of prey infuences their risk of being predated under free- ranging circumstances. Evolutionary biologists have recently drawn attention to individually consistent animal behaviours as potential targets of natural selection 1 . Individual behavioural variation has been classically treated as non-adaptive noise of potentially adaptive population averages 2 . However, there is now growing evidence that individual variation in behaviour is ofen distributed in a non-random manner, refecting systematic responses of individuals to their surrounding environment 3 . Tese consistent behaviours are commonly named personality traits, coping styles, or temperaments 2 , and have been documented in more than 100 species across various taxonomic groups 4 . Personality traits were found to have a genetic component in a number of cases 5 and to impact individual ftness (individual survival and reproductive success 6 ), thus potentially driving evolutionary pathways of organisms. Predation is a major force of natural selection. Predators ofen have marked preferences for certain traits of their prey, thus shaping trait frequency in the prey population 7 . Te variability of individual prey behaviour have long been treated as non-adaptive, in contrast with that of morphological and life history traits 2 . However, recent studies have shown that prey do exhibit individual consistency regarding predator avoidance behaviour across time and contexts, thus creating the potential for diferential selec- tion driven by predation 8–10 . Several studies have found, for example, that exploratory behaviour of prey under predation threat is highly consistent within individuals and variable across individuals 11–13 . Similar fndings were described for other predator avoidance behaviours. Individuals were found to respond consistently to the presence of a predator in their levels of vigilance 14 , escape strategies 9,15,16 , and even aggression towards the predator 9,10 . Nevertheless, the evidence that these personality traits afect prey 1 Department of Migration and immuno-ecology, Max Planck institute for Ornithology, Am Obstberg 1, 78315 Radolfzell, Germany. 2 Departamento de Biologia, centro de ciências Biológicas e da Saúde, Universidade federal do Maranhão, campus do Bacanga, 65080-040, São Luís, MA, Brazil. 3 Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany. correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to c.D.S. (email: cdsantos@orn.mpg.de) Received: 01 April 2015 Accepted: 28 September 2015 Published: 22 October 2015 OPEN Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS) URL: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-0-305679 Erschienen in: Scientific Reports ; 5 (2015). - 15490 https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep15490