Red zebra cichlid scratching how to#
Previous studies on foraging behaviour mainly focused on the choice of patch type, the time budgets in patches, and how to move between patches. Exploring the factors influencing foraging behaviour may help to understand how animals adapt to the environment and improve their fitness. Survival is therefore dependent on performing successful foraging strategies. When individual forage optimally, they can increase their success at collecting food and minimising energetic costs. Our study provides insights into the impact of personality traits on animal’s foraging behaviour by influencing their food-searching strategies. These findings suggest that personality traits affect the food-scratching behaviour and, thus, the food intake of quails. The correlation between personality traits and temporary food intake during every 2 min varied over time and was sex dependent, with females exhibiting a positive correlation during the first half of the foraging stage and males after the initial stage.
Individuals that scratched more frequently had a longer foraging time and a higher food intake. More proactive, that is, bolder and more explorative, individuals scratched the ground more frequently for food and began scratching earlier in a patch. The quails exhibited significant repeatability in boldness and exploration, which also constituted a behavioural syndrome. In this study, we aimed to investigate how personality traits (i.e., boldness and exploration) affect the food-scratching behaviour and food intake of the domestic Japanese quail Coturnix japonica during the foraging process. Considering the consistent inter-individual behavioural differences, personality may have a fundamental impact on animal food-scratching behaviour, which remains largely unknown. Overall foraging success and ultimate fitness of an individual animal is highly dependent on their food-searching strategies, which are the focus of foraging theory. In conclusion, our study suggests that personality traits have significant effects on animals’ food-searching strategies which may be correlated with their foraging success and fitness. Proactive females had more food intake during the first half of the foraging process and the correlation became weak as time went on. The correlation between personality and food intake was sex dependent. Frequent and longer food-scratching may motivate longer foraging time in proactive quails which can get more food intake. When entering a food patch, proactive (i.e., bolder and more explorative) quails scratched for food earlier and more frequently with a longer time.
We found that boldness and exploration were repeatable, respectively, and were correlated. This study tested the impacts of personality traits (i.e., boldness and exploration) on food-scratching behaviour and food intake of Japanese quail ( Coturnix japonica).
Due to the existence of animal personality, individuals within a population may exhibit different food-scratching patterns. Scratching can help animals find more buried food and thus is an important food-searching behaviour for ground-feeding birds such as gamebirds.
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