Data from: When the mean no longer matters: developmental diet affects behavioral variation but not population averages in the house cricket (Acheta domesticus)

Despite recent progress in elucidating the genetic basis for behavioral
variation, the effects of the developmental environment on the maintenance
and generation of behavioral variation across multiple traits remain
poorly resolved. We investigated how nutritional status during development
affected behavioral variation and covariance between activity in an open
field test and response to cues of predator presence in the house cricket
(Acheta domesticus). We provided 98 juvenile crickets with either a high
or low quality diet during development, throughout which we measured body
mass, activity in a modified open-field, and response to predator excreta
twice every week for 3 weeks. Diet quality affected growth rate but not
average activity or response to cues of predator presence, nor the
correlation between the 2. However, repeatability (τ) in response to cues
of predator presence was reduced by 0.24 in individuals exposed to the
high quality diet versus the low quality diet. Larger individuals also
increased their response to predator cues when reared on a high quality
diet, suggesting negative feedbacks between growth rate and antipredator
behaviors. Our results also indicate that changes in the developmental
environment are not sufficient to collapse behavioral syndromes,
suggesting a genetic link between activity and predator cue response in
house crickets, and that nutritional stress early in life can lead to more
consistent behavioral responses when individuals faced predatory threats.
Our results demonstrate that subtle differences in the quality of the
environment experienced early in life can influence how individuals
negotiate behavioral and life-history trade-offs later in life.