Meeting Abstract
Animals living in a seasonal environment cope with changing biotic and abiotic conditions over lifetime. To be successful, they have to adjust their behavior and physiology to changing conditions. Siberian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus) acclimated to winter develop two phenotypes, one responding to seasonal changes, and the other not. In winter responders decrease body mass, regress gonads, change fur to white, and eventually enter torpor. We asked whether hamsters behavior also changes seasonally, and whether it shows consistent among-individual differences throughout the year. 80 male and 80 female hamsters were acclimated for ~3 months to summer and then to winter. Each season hamsters were tested twice in an open field and then their nest-building activity was measured. During 5 minute open field test we measured total distance covered, maximum speed, total duration of scratching the arena, rearing, grooming, wall climbing, time spent in the center of the arena or in the corners, or near the walls. Nest building activity was measured in hamster home cage as the extent of toilet paper tube destruction. Hamsters showed consistent among-individual differences in all measured behavioral traits; the repeatability ranged between 10 and 40% (in all cases p<0.05). However, when responders and non-responders were analyzed separately, a clear difference between these phenotypes emerged. Nine out of ten behavioral traits were consistently different throughout the year in non-responders, while in responders only half was repeatable. These results suggest that photo-responding hamsters develop winter phenotype which differs behaviorally from the summer one, and that behavior of non-responders is consistent throught the year. The study was supported by the grant #NCN 2014/13/B/NZ8/04698.
