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Genomic tools for behavioural ecologists to understand repeatable individual differences in behaviour

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, pages 944–955 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Behaviour is a key interface between an animal’s genome and its environment. Repeatable individual differences in behaviour have been extensively documented in animals, but the molecular underpinnings of behavioural variation among individuals within natural populations remain largely unknown. Here, we offer a critical review of when molecular techniques may yield new insights, and we provide specific guidance on how and whether the latest tools available are appropriate given different resources, system and organismal constraints, and experimental designs. Integrating molecular genetic techniques with other strategies to study the proximal causes of behaviour provides opportunities to expand rapidly into new avenues of exploration. Such endeavours will enable us to better understand how repeatable individual differences in behaviour have evolved, how they are expressed and how they can be maintained within natural populations of animals.

The stunning diversity of behaviour within a species has become a thriving area of research for behavioural ecologists. As a result, we now know that repeatable individual differences in behaviour among animals within populations is ubiquitous. Studies under the umbrella of animal personality (reliable differences in behaviours across contexts or time) and behavioural syndromes (correlated behavioural traits)1,2,3,4 have yielded thousands of publications, particularly during the past decade, and lay a solid foundation for understanding the evolution and effect of repeatable variations in behaviour both theoretically and empirically. Nevertheless, fundamental questions remain unresolved. (1) Why are individuals consistent at all? In other words, why is behaviour not infinitely plastic? (2) Why are some behaviours correlated? And why do correlations sometimes vary among individuals and populations? (3) What explains individual differences in developmental plasticity (effects of earlier experiences on subsequent behavioural tendencies)? Differences in contextual plasticity (effects of current conditions on behaviour)? (4) And finally, why do individuals have different behavioural types? Indeed, knowing how and whether selection acts on consistent among-individual differences in behavioural traits has important implications for our understanding of the maintenance of variation within natural populations, a central problem in evolutionary biology.

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Fig. 1: A flowchart of a hypothetical study emphasizing the benefit of integrating multiple tools to understand repeatable behavioural variation; in this case, combining RNA-Seq and ChIP-Seq to investigate differences in behavioural plasticity.

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Acknowledgements

The workshop that led to this series of papers was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF-IOS 1623898; PI: A.M.B.), the NSF Sociogenomics Research Coordination Network and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. We wish to thank other workshop participants for their feedback in the development of these ideas and comments on drafts of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of BioSciences, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Sarah E. Bengston

  2. School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA

    Romain A. Dahan

  3. Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, and Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Zoe Donaldson

  4. Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Steven M. Phelps

  5. Department of Animal Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Kees van Oers

  6. Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    Andrew Sih

  7. Department of Animal Biology, The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Alison M. Bell

  8. Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Alison M. Bell

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S.E.B. contributed to conception of the manuscript, drafted sections of the manuscript, contributed to the conceptualization and generation of figures and tables, edited the manuscript and facilitated the collaboration between authors. R.A.D. drafted sections of the manuscript, contributed to the conceptualization and generation of figures and tables and provided feedback. Z.D. contributed to conception of the manuscript, drafted sections of the manuscript and provided feedback. S.M.P. contributed to conception of the manuscript, drafted sections of the manuscript and provided feedback. K.v.O. contributed to conception of the manuscript and provided feedback. A.S. contributed to conception of the manuscript and provided feedback. A.M.B. contributed to the conception of the manuscript, drafted sections of the manuscript, provided feedback and edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Sarah E. Bengston.

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Bengston, S., Dahan, R., Donaldson, Z. et al. Genomic tools for behavioural ecologists to understand repeatable individual differences in behaviour. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 944–955 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0411-4

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