Garamszegi, László Zsolt and Markó, Gábor and Herczeg, Gábor (2012) A meta-analysis of correlated behaviours with implications for behavioural syndromes: mean effect size, publication bias, phylogenetic effects and the role of mediator variables. EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY, 26 (5). pp. 1213-1235. ISSN 0269-7653
|
Text
2056057.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (452kB) | Preview |
Abstract
In evolutionary and behavioural ecology, increasing attention is being paid to the fact that functionally distinct behaviours are often not independent from each other. Such phenomenon is labelled as behavioural syndrome and is usually demonstrated by phenotypic correlations between behaviours like activity, exploration, aggression and risktaking across individuals in a population. However, published studies disagree on the strength, and even on the existence of such relationships. To make general inferences from this mixed evidence, we quantitatively reviewed the literature using modern meta-analytic approaches. Based on a large dataset, we investigated the overall relationship between behaviours that are expected to form a syndrome and tested which factors can mediate heterogeneities in study outcomes. The average strength of the phenotypic correlation between behaviours was weak; we found no effect of the phylogeny of species but did observe significant publication bias. However, even accounting for this bias, the mean effect size was positive and statistically different from zero (r = 0.198). Effect sizes showed considerable heterogeneity within species, implying a role for population-specific adaptation to environmental factors and/or between-study differences in research design. There was a significant positive association between absolute effect size and repeatability of behaviours, suggesting that within-individual variation of behavioural traits can set up an upper limit for the strength of the detected phenotypic correlations. Moreover, spatial overlap between the contexts in which different behaviours were assayed increased the magnitude of the association. The small effect size for the focal relationship implies that a huge sample size would be required to demonstrate a correlation between behaviours with sufficient statistical power, which is fulfilled only in very few studies. This suggests that behavioural syndromes often remain undetected and unpublished. Collectively, our metaanalysis revealed a number of points that might be worth to consider in the future study of behavioural syndromes.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Estación Biológica de Doñana-CSIC, c/Americo Vespucio, s/n, 41092 Seville, Spain Behavioural Ecology Group, Department of Systematic Zoology and Ecology, Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter sétany 1/c, 1117 Budapest, Hungary Department of Plant Pathology, Corvinus University of Budapest, Ménesi út 44, 1118 Budapest, Hungary Ecological Genetics Research Unit, Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 65, 00014 Helsinki, Finland Cited By :76 Export Date: 5 December 2019 CODEN: EVECE Correspondence Address: Garamszegi, L. Z.; Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Estación Biológica de Doñana-CSIC, c/Americo Vespucio, s/n, 41092 Seville, Spain; email: laszlo.garamszegi@ebd.csic.es Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Estación Biológica de Doñana-CSIC, c/Americo Vespucio, s/n, 41092 Seville, Spain Behavioural Ecology Group, Department of Systematic Zoology and Ecology, Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter sétany 1/c, 1117 Budapest, Hungary Department of Plant Pathology, Corvinus University of Budapest, Ménesi út 44, 1118 Budapest, Hungary Ecological Genetics Research Unit, Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 65, 00014 Helsinki, Finland Cited By :76 Export Date: 9 December 2019 CODEN: EVECE Correspondence Address: Garamszegi, L. Z.; Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Estación Biológica de Doñana-CSIC, c/Americo Vespucio, s/n, 41092 Seville, Spain; email: laszlo.garamszegi@ebd.csic.es Funding Agency and Grant Number: Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas-CSIC); "Plan Nacional'' program of the Spanish government [CGL2009-10652, CGL2009-09439]; Academy of FinlandAcademy of FinlandEuropean Commission [128716]; [TAMOP-4.2.1./B-09/1-KMR-2010-0005]; [TAMOP-4.2.2./B-10/1-2010-0023] Funding text: We thank S. Nakagawa for the invitation for this special volume and for his help with the random effect modelling based on Bayesian approaches. N. Dingemanse and another referee provided constructive comments. We are grateful to those authors (Peter Biro, Neeltje J. Boogert, Alecia J. Carter, Eleanor Cole, Niels Dingemanse, Sinead English, Rebecca Fox, Todd M. Freeberg, Lauren Highfill, Katri Korpela, William James Loughry, Mark C. Mainwaring, Katherine A. Miller, Ariane Mutzel, Vladimir V. Pravosudov, Denis Reale, Alexandre Roulin, Heiko G. Rodel, Holger Schielzeth, Jessica Stapley, Jana Uher, Kees van Oers) who provided useful explanations or unpublished information for calculating effect sizes. ManuSTAT Central offered statistical help. J. Rifkin helped improve the readability of the final version. LZG was supported by a "Ramon y Cajal'' research grant of the Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas-CSIC) and by the "Plan Nacional'' program of the Spanish government (LZG, ref. no. CGL2009-10652 and CGL2009-09439). GM was supported by the TAMOP-4.2.1./B-09/1-KMR-2010-0005 and the TAMOP-4.2.2./B-10/1-2010-0023 grants and GH by the Academy of Finland (#128716). |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | natural selection; Personality; TEMPERAMENT; TIT PARUS-MAJOR; ZEBRA FINCHES; CONSISTENCY; STICKLEBACKS GASTEROSTEUS-ACULEATUS; LIFE-HISTORY; behavioural type; QUANTITATIVE GENETICS; EXPLORATORY-BEHAVIOR; WILD GREAT TITS; ADAPTIVE PERSONALITY-DIFFERENCES; CONSISTENT INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES; RISK-TAKING BEHAVIOR; Phylogenetic meta-analysis; |
| Subjects: | Q Science / természettudomány > QL Zoology / állattan |
| SWORD Depositor: | MTMT SWORD |
| Depositing User: | MTMT SWORD |
| Date Deposited: | 19 Oct 2026 08:19 |
| Last Modified: | 19 Oct 2026 08:19 |
| URI: | https://real.mtak.hu/id/eprint/248936 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
