Scientists suspect that various personality traits may be important to the survival of the birds. The study has been published in the journals PeerJ and Animal Behavior.
The Magnificent Fairy Tail (Malurus cyaneus) is a species of songbird found in Australia and Tasmania. The males of the birds, which can reach up to 20 centimeters in length during the breeding season, are characterized by colorful, blue-weighted feathers. The animals live in small groups, which also breed together and help to feed and defend the offspring together.
For their work, researchers led by Diane Colombelli-Négrel of Flinders University and Sonia Kleindorfer of the Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology at the University of Vienna, and the Konrad Lorenz Research Center in Grünau im Almtal (Upper Austria) studied their behavior. the animals are both free in the Australian bush and in short-term imprisonment.
In their study, the scientists write that such studies linking personality differences measured in captivity with ecologically relevant social behaviors in the wild have so far been sparse.
Captured birds were evaluated for personality traits such as courage, spirit of exploration, and aggression. On the one hand, an assessment was made of how long they resisted being caught by the researchers while measuring. On the other hand, they were observed to move in a new environment (lattice) and face a mirror.
In the field, the birds faced the call of a harmless songbird (garden fantail) and a potential predator, the sooty starling (Strepera versicolor), to assess how well they were defending their territory or nest.
Birds, especially those that were very aggressive towards their reflection in the cage, also reacted more harshly to the call of the predator in the wild. Conversely, Magnificent Seasontails, who largely ignored the mirror in the cage, also paid less attention to the potential threat of a sooty starling.
Also, individuals who explored a new environment – in the study, the cage – were very active and close, responding more aggressively to predator calls than those who showed little interest in the new environment.
For researchers, the research results support “a growing number of studies showing the importance of animal personalities for survival-related response strategies and social behavior.” They emphasize that “personality traits in animals may have an adaptive utility for survival.”
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.08.015; Tutorial at PeerJ: https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14011
(SDA)