Individual differences in behaviour explain variation in survival: a meta-analysis

Research focusing on among-individual differences in behaviour (“animal personality”) has been blooming for over a decade. One of the central theories explaining the maintenance of such behavioural variation posits that individuals expressing greater “risky” behaviours should suffer higher mortality. Here, for the first time, we synthesize the existing empirical evidence for this key prediction. Our results did not support this prediction as there was no directional relationship between riskier behaviour and greater mortality; however there was a significant absolute relationship between behaviour and survival. In total, behaviour explained a significant, but small, portion (5.8%) of the variance in survival. We also found that risky (versus “shy”) behavioural types live significantly longer in the wild, but not in the laboratory. This suggests that individuals expressing risky behaviours might be of overall higher quality but the lack of predation pressure and resource restrictions mas...

针对个体间行为差异（即"动物个性（animal personality）"）的研究在过去十余年间蓬勃发展。解释这类行为变异维持机制的核心理论之一提出：表现出更强"冒险性"行为的个体，其死亡率应当更高。本研究首次针对这一核心预测，对现有实证证据进行了整合分析。研究结果并未支持该预测：冒险行为与更高死亡率之间不存在方向性关联，但行为与存活之间存在显著的绝对关联。总体而言，行为对存活变异的解释度虽具有统计学显著性，但占比仅为5.8%。此外我们还发现，在野外环境中，冒险型（相较于"害羞型"）个体的存活寿命显著更长，但这一现象在实验室环境中并未出现。这表明表现出冒险行为的个体可能整体质量更高，但缺乏捕食压力与资源限制会掩...