The impact of personality, morphotype and shore-height on temperature-mediated behavioural responses in the beadlet anemone (Actinia equina)

1. Between-individual variation in behavioural phenotype, termed personality, is an important determinant of how populations cope with acute environmental fluctuation related to climate change.
2. Personality in the beadlet sea anemone (Actinia equina) is linked to genetically distinct morphotypes, which are associated with different heights on the shore. In the intertidal zone, high-shore environments experience more environmental fluctuation due to longer periods of exposure, and animals adapted to live in these environments are predicted to deal more effectively with environmental perturbation than their low-shore counterparts.
3. We collected beadlet anemones of two different morphotypes from three different shore-heights. We investigated variation in two behaviours at three different temperatures and in a temporal control treatment where the temperature was not changed: startle response-time, the time it took an anemone to re-extend its tentacles after a threatening stimulus, and ...