Animal personality adds complexity to the processes of adaptive divergence and speciation.

Abstract

Divergent selection is a powerful driver of speciation and has been widely studied in relation to the physical characters of organisms. Because evolution of behavioural traits may contribute to evolutionary processes, we explored how consistent variation in behaviours may affect the process of adaptive divergence and speciation. We studied whether two sympatric morphs of Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) have recently evolved genetically-based differences in personality that conform to their respective ecological niches, and whether these differences contribute to reproductive isolation by generating maladaptive hybrid behaviours. Studying three aspects of behavioural variation (average trait value, consistent individual differences and trait covariance), we assessed the sociality and risk-taking propensity of hybrid and pure-morph offspring reared in common conditions. Contrary to expectations, the two morphs did not differ in the average values of these traits but showed different behavioural syndromes (trait covariances). While the hybrids did not differ from either morph in their average behavioural responses, they showed less individual consistency in these behaviours and a different set of behavioural syndromes. Differences between morphs and their hybrids in other behavioural aspects than their average behavioural responses suggest that our understanding of speciation processes can benefit from an integrative view of behavioural variation.