A Workshop in Ecology and Behaviour seminar hosted by the School of Biological Sciences
We now know that animal personality variation is ubiquitous - but how important is it? What functional significance does personality variation really have within populations? And to what extent might non-adaptive evolutionary processes drive observed patterns of variation. I will present some of our work on guppy personality, moving from detailed single population studies of behavioural stress response to more comparative approaches investigating the role of predation regime. I will argue that the personality approach can provide a lot of insight into behavioural evolution, but also that we should be wary of accepting of adaptations viewpoints uncritically.