Reactions of captive adult great tits towards aposematic prey: Effects of personality

Individual variation in reactions to novel aposematic prey is common in avian predators. In wild adults, this variation may be caused by differences among individuals in experience with various prey, but similar variation exists in naive juveniles, and this is linked to personality – a complex of correlated, partly heritable behavioral traits that are consistent across time. Along the extremes on an axis of early exploratory behavior in great tits (Parus major), fast explorers are bold, aggressive, and routine-forming, whereas slow explorers are shy, less aggressive, and more innovative. We tested the effect of personality on innate wariness towards aposematic prey in adult hand-reared great tits from two lines selected for opposite levels of early exploratory behavior (fast versus slow). The birds were offered aposematic firebugs (Pyrrhocoris apterus) over two days. Birds from both selection lines showed a similar degree of innate wariness towards the firebugs on the first day, but on ..., , # Data from: Reactions of captive adult great tits towards aposematic prey: Effects of personality

For more details, contact: Dana Adamová, Department of Environmental Security, Faculty of Logistics and Crisis Management, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Studentské nám. 1532, 68601 Uherské Hradiště, Czech Republic, [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])

Date of data collection: 1.11.2007 - 19.11.2007

Geographic location of data collection: Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Heteren, 51.9560739N, 5.7573625E (all experiments were carried out indoors)

Information about funding sources that supported the collection and curation of the data: The work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (grant number 206/07/0507) and Creativity, Intelligence & Talent for the Zlín Region.

The study shows that personality influences how adult great tits react to warning-colored (aposematic) prey. Even though all birds were cautious at first, fast-exploring, bold indi...,