Individual Behavioral Phenotypes of the Cliff Chipmunk (Tamias Dorsalis): Effects on Female Reproductive Success and Juvenile Habitat Selection
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Individual Behavioral Phenotypes of the Cliff Chipmunk (Tamias dorsalis): Effects on Female Reproductive Success and Juvenile Habitat Selection Item Type text; Electronic Thesis Authors Kilanowski, Allyssa LeAnn Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 27/09/2021 19:39:05 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/582370 INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIORAL PHENOTYPES OF THE CLIFF CHIPMUNK (TAMIAS DORSALIS): EFFECTS ON FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS AND JUVENILE HABITAT SELECTION by Allyssa LeAnn Kilanowski ________________________ A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the SCHOOL OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE ENVIRONMENT In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTERS OF SCIENCE WITH A MAJOR IN NATURAL RESOURCES In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2015 2 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED: _Allyssa LeAnn Kilanowski_______ APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below: _________________________________________ _8/7/15______ John L. Koprowski Date Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Science 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank John Koprowski for his mentoring and guidance throughout this project. Without feedback from John and the Koprowski lab, this project would not have been successful. I sincerely appreciate all the time my fellow graduates spent reviewing my grant proposals and manuscripts. I also wish to thank my family for their unwavering support and faith in my abilities throughout this project. I also want to thank the Tucson tennis community for providing an emotional support network and allowing me to use the courts as a place to work through graduate school trials. This research would be impossible without funding from the University of Arizona, T & E, Inc, the American Society of Mammalogists, the C. P. Patrick Reid Scholarship, and the Arrington Memorial scholarship. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES 5 LIST OF FIGURES 6 ABSTRACT 8 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 9 CHAPTER 2: PRESENT STUDY 17 APPENDIX A: Behavioral phenotypes, female reproductive success, and juvenile dispersal: Insights from a semi-fossorial, social rodent 19 ABSTRACT 19 INTRODUCTION 20 METHODS 23 Study Area and Species 23 Individual Behavioral Phenotypes 24 Repeatability of Personality 25 Factors Influencing Personality 26 Maternal Reproductive Success 26 Natal Habitat Preference Induction and Personality 27 RESULTS 29 Individual Behavioral Phenotypes 30 Repeatability of Personality 31 Factors Influencing Personality 31 Maternal Reproductive Success 32 Natal Habitat Preference Induction and Personality 32 DISCUSSION 33 Reversed Sexual Dimorphism 33 Behavioral Phenotypes and Repeatability 34 Factors Affecting Personality 35 Maternal Reproductive Success 36 Natal Habitat Preference Induction and Personality 36 TABLES AND FIGURES 39 REFERENCES 47 5 LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1. PCA loadings for behaviors in two behavior tests (Open Field and Mirror Image Stimulation) in cliff chipmunks, Mt. Graham, AZ, USA. Only the first two components were used in analyses. Units are proportion of time spent on each activity during the 7-min tests. Bold values indicate behaviors that were interpreted to contribute to a component. 43 TABLE 2. Estimated coefficients and confidence intervals of generalized linear models for the two principal components of the mirror image stimulation behavioral test (sociality and image engagement) for cliff chipmunks (Tamias dorsalis) on Mt. Graham, Arizona, USA in 2014. Bold values indicate significance (p < 0.05) and italicized values indicate potential biological significance (p < 0.1). 45 TABLE 3. Estimated coefficients and confidence intervals of linear models for the litter size and female home range models of cliff chipmunks (Tamias dorsalis) on Mt. Graham, Arizona, USA in 2014. Two models are a 50% and 95% kernel density home range. Bold values indicate significance (p < 0.05) and italicized values indicate potential biological significance (p < 0.1). 46 6 LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1. Principal components analyses of behavioral phenotypes observed in a population of cliff chipmunks (Tamias dorsalis) on Mt. Graham, Arizona, USA based on two tests, the Open Field (OF, left) and Mirror Image Stimulation (MIS, right) tests. Circles indicate a group of individuals with similar behavioral responses. Sex and age included to illustrate differences. OF PC 1 represents activity (loadings are low [i.e. unmoving] to high [i.e. locomotion], left to right); PC 2 represents vigilance (loadings are not alert to alert [i.e. unmoving with head up and aware of surroundings], bottom to top. The MIS PC 1 represents sociality (loadings are low [i.e. wary of image] to high [i.e. unconcerned with image], left to right); PC 2 represents image engagement (loadings are unengaged [i.e. positioned away from image] to highly engaged [i.e. touching mirror], bottom to top). 39 FIGURE 2. Boxplot displaying the mean and range (1st and 3rd quartiles, including outliers) of novel vigilance, the first principal component of behavioral response clusters for the Open Field (left), and sociality, the first principal component of behavioral response clusters for the Mirror Image Stimulation (right) behavior tests performed on a population of cliff chipmunks (Tamias dorsalis) on Mt. Graham, Arizona, USA in 2014. Letters above boxplots represent Tukey’s HSD post-hoc test. 40 FIGURE 3. Difference between natal and settled nest site characteristics for a population of cliff chipmunks (Tamias dorsalis) on Mt. Graham, Arizona, USA. 41 FIGURE 4. Mean of the observed individual differences between natal and settled nest site habitat characteristics for a population of juvenile cliff chipmunks (Tamias dorsalis) on Mt. Graham, Arizona, USA. The zero line indicates no difference between natal and 7 settled sites. Bars above the line occur when the natal nest site characteristic is greater than the settled site characteristic and points below the line occur when the natal site characteristic is less than the settled site characteristic. 42 8 ABSTRACT Differences among individual responses to behavioral stimuli have been observed throughout a variety of taxa and these individual differences can affect female reproductive success and juvenile settlement decisions. In this study, we examined the effect of reversed sexual dimorphism on behavior phenotype and the effect of behavior on maternal reproductive success and juvenile dispersal of a fossorial rodent (Tamias dorsalis) in southeastern Arizona. We found that multiple behavioral phenotypes existed within this population and female litter size was not affected by behavioral type. We also found that natal habitat preference induction (NHPI) does occur at the population level, but only weakly occurs for the individual. We also found no effect of personality on site selection. Our results indicate that sex and mass may explain differences in behavioral phenotypes; however, individual behavioral differences are weakly related to female reproductive success and settlement decisions during juvenile dispersal. 9 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The movement of organisms away from their birthplace, termed natal dispersal (Ronce 2007), primarily occurs because juveniles cannot remain with their parents as adults; however, natal dispersal also reduces local density of conspecifics (Byrom and Krebs 1999), increases gene flow (Bohonak 1999), and affects individual fitness, both positively (Van Vuren and Armitage 1994) and negatively (Dingemanse et al. 2004). Three stages of dispersal are recognized: 1) emigration, 2) exploration and travel, and 3) settlement (Bowler and Benton 2005, Ronce 2007). The first stage of dispersal, emigration, is well studied, however, the second and third stages require more research (Bowler and Benton 2005, Ronce 2007, Mabry and Stamps 2008) as knowledge of these stages is critical to understanding the consequences of dispersal on individual fitness and population viability (Clobert et al. 2001). Crucial decisions made by individuals during dispersal are influenced by individual personality (Dingemanse et al. 2003, Sih et al. 2012), therefore it is important to consider the effect of individual behavioral variation on juvenile dispersal. Personality Differences among individual responses to behavioral stimuli have been observed throughout a variety of taxa (i.e. mammals [Martin & Réale 2007, Boon et al. 2007, 2008], fish [Dingemanse et al. 2007], reptiles [Cote and Colbert, 2007], invertebrates [Sinn et al. 2006, Briffa and Greenaway 2011], birds [Dingemanse et