For the past decade, the study of personality has become a topic on the frontier of behavioral
ecology. However, most studies have focused on exploring inter-individual behavioral …

Dispersal and migration are superficially similar large‐scale movements, but which appear
to differ in terms of inter‐individual behavioural synchronization. Seasonal migration is a …

Behavioural ecologists often note that one or a few group members appear to shape the
collective behaviour of social groups differentially. Our understanding of these keystone …

Despite widespread interest in the potential adaptive value of individual differences in
cognition, few studies have attempted to address the question of how variation in learning …

Biodiversity is one of the most important concepts in contemporary biology, with a broad
range of applications. In November 1995, South Africa ratified the Convention on Biological …

The social niche specialization hypothesis predicts that repeated social interactions will
generate social niches within groups, thereby promoting consistent individual differences in …

The collective behaviour of social groups is often strongly influenced by one or few
individuals, termed here 'keystone individuals'. We examined whether the influence of …

Highlights•We used computer vision to automatically track individual cockroaches over
several weeks.•Groups of cockroaches were better than individuals at avoiding light …

Highlights•Social spider responses to predators depend on colony personality composition.•
Defensive behaviour was higher for mixed colonies than for monotypic colonies.•Bold-only …

The initial stages of a disease outbreak can determine the magnitude of the ensuing
epidemic. Though rarely tested in unison, two factors with important consequences for the …