| dc.description |
Exploration and activity are often described as trade-offs between the fitness benefits of gathering
information and resources, and the potential costs of increasing exposure to predators and para-
sites. More exploratory individuals are predicted to have higher rates of parasitism, but this
relationship has rarely been examined for virus infections in wild populations. Here, we used the
multimammate mouse Mastomys natalensis to investigate the relationship between exploration,
activity, and infection with Morogoro virus (MORV). We characterized individual exploratory behav-
ior (open field and novel object tests) and activity (trap diversity), and quantified the relationship
between these traits and infection status using linear regression. We found that M. natalensis
expresses consistent individual differences, or personality types, in exploratory behavior (repeat-
ability of 0.30, 95% CI: 0.21–0.36). In addition, we found a significant contrasting effect of age on ex-
ploration and activity where juveniles display higher exploration levels than adults, but lower field-
activity. There was however no statistical evidence for a behavioral syndrome between these 2
traits. Contrary to our expectations, we found no correlation between MORV infection status and
exploratory behavior or activity, which suggests that these behaviors may not increase exposure
probability to MORV infection. This would further imply that variation in viral infection between
individuals is not affected by between-individual variation in exploration and activity. |
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