Personality and pace-of-life: Ecological lessons learnt from free-ranging lemon sharks

Abstract

In Focus: Dhellemmes, F., Finger J.S., Smukall M.J., Gruber S.H., Guttridge T.L., Laskowski K.L., & J. Krause. (2020) Personality-driven life-history trade-offs differ in two subpopulations of free-ranging predators. Journal of Animal Ecology, 90, 260–272. Life-history theory predicts that explorative individuals live-fast-but-die-young as they take risks to rapidly accumulate resources. Dhellemmes et al. (2020) show that fast-exploring sharks forage in risky habitats, where they grow-fast-but-die-young. In higher risk environments, however, this personality-related pace-of-life-syndrome does not exist because neither fast- nor slow-exploring types venture out into risky areas. The study thereby reveals the key role of ecology as a mediator of personality-related pace-of-life-syndromes in the wild.