Under the influence: sublethal exposure to an insecticide affects personality expression in a jumping spider

1. Consistent behavioural differences between individuals have far-reaching implications for ecology and evolution, including how populations cope with increasing anthropogenic changes, notably pesticides. Although sublethal doses of insecticides are known to alter behaviour, current studies on the relationship between toxicants and behaviour tend to ignore effects on individual variation.
2. Our objective was to determine whether sublethal exposure to an organophosphate insecticide could affect the consistency of individual behaviour and disrupt behavioural correlations, in a jumping spider occurring in agroecosystems. Adults of the jumping spider Eris militaris (Araneae: Salticidae) were scored by an open-field and a prey-capture assay, each conducted as pre- and post-insecticidal exposure to the organophosphate phosmet. Half of the individuals received no exposure to the insecticide to provide a control group. We then estimated the changes in repeatability, a measure of the extent o...