Personality affects female mate choice: frogs displaying more consistent bold behaviors are choosier

Mate choice is an important cause of natural and sexual selection, and drives the evolution and elaboration of male ornaments. Yet mate choice decisions are often neither consistent nor uniform, and a range of factors have been identified to influence variation between and within individuals. A potential source of variation influencing preferences and/or choosiness is animal personality, i.e., repeatable among-individual differences in behaviors. Not only may individuals differ in average personality phenotype, but also vary in how consistently they display said personality. Distinguishing between personality and consistency is important because both aspects are potentially naturally selected traits that may yet influence how sexually selected ornaments are evaluated. Here we use a predator evasion assay to test whether there is variation in boldness among female gray treefrogs (Hyla versicolor), and then examine whether personality traits (spectrum of shy to bold) are correlated with c...