Personality underground: evidence of behavioral types in the solitary subterranean rodent Ctenomys talarum

ZENUTO, ROXANA R.; FANJUL, MARÍA SOL

PeerJ

Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0

Año: 2020 vol. 8

Background: Animal personalities have been studied in a wide variety of taxa, butamong rodents, available studies are relatively scarce and have focused mainly onsocial species. In this study, we evaluated the existence of personality in the solitarysubterranean rodent Ctenomys talarum. Specifically, we aimed to test individualdifferences in behavior that are stable over time and context in males of C. talarumcaptured in the wild.Methods: Our experimental design included two series of three behavioral tests each,carried out with a 35 day time interval. Each series included an Open Field test, aSocial Encounter test, and an Open Field test with a predator stimulus.Results: Of the total recorded behaviors, 55.55% showed temporal consistency.Principal component analysis of consistent behaviors grouped them into fourdimensions that explain inter individual behavioral variability, in order ofimportance: activity, socioaversion, boldness and exploration. Therefore, our resultssuggest that the concept of animal personality is applicable to C. talarum and thedimensions found are in accordance with the ecological and behavioralcharacteristics of this species.