Date of Award

2018

Publisher

North Dakota State University

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Awarded

Master of Science (MS)

Program

Biological Sciences

Department

Biological Sciences

College

Science and Mathematics

Faculty Advisor

Gillam, Erin H.

Description

As the study of animal personality has significant expanded in the last decade, a growing amount of research has focused on the impacts of sociality and group dynamics on behavioral repeatability. The research presented here focused on examining personality in a captive colony of a common bat species, the big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus). Chapter 1 focused on calculating repeatability along common personality axes, as well as examining relationships between these axes (behavioral syndromes). High repeatabilities were observed for two behavioral axes (exploration and activity) and a significant correlation was found between these axes, confirming a common behavioral syndrome. Chapter 2 focused on examining if individuals exhibit reduced repeatability of behavior when regularly switching between social groups. We found little evidence for increased plasticity in regards to changing social group composition, indicating that animals have relatively fixed behavioral types, exhibiting limited plasticity despite the composition of their social group.

Rights

NDSU Policy 190.6.2

Rights Link

https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf

Handle Identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/10365/29273

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