Evolution of Animal Personality

Birds and other animals differ in their behaviour like humans differ in personality. Certain individuals are consistently more aggressive, explorative, and bold compared to other animals from the same population, and this variation is in part genetically determined. The department of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics studies individual variation in behaviour with the aim of i) revealing why animal personality has evolved and ii) learning how this variation might be maintained, using wild passerine bird populations (great tits) as an experimental model system.