Abstract
Animal personality has received increasing interest and acknowledgement
within ecological research over the past two decades. However, some
areas are still poorly studied and need to be developed. For instance,
field studies focused on invertebrates are currently highly
underrepresented in the literature. More studies including a wider
variety of traits measured and species tested is needed to improve our
understanding of trait-correlation patterns and generalities. We studied
nine behavioural traits, in the damselfly Calopteryx splendens,from an array of three experiments: (i) courtship, (ii) aggressiveness
and (iii) boldness, and calculated their repeatability. The behaviours
were measured twice, in two different contexts: (i) undisturbed
territory and (ii) partially deteriorated territory. All behavioural
traits measured, except for two, were repeatable across the two
contexts. This work demonstrates, for the first time, the presence of
within population personality differences in an adult damselfly in the
wild. We further propose Calopteryx splendens as a promising
model species for testing personality in the wild under highly
controlled environmental conditions.
Key words: personality, field experiments, studies in the wild,
Calopteryx splendens, repeatability