Meeting Abstract
Personality has been identified in several different ecological contexts. However, the physiological mechanisms underlying different animal personalities are still poorly understood. Different personalities have been correlated with different patterns of activity and reactivity of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis and the resulting plasma corticosteroid levels. Amphibian studies in personality literature are scant. The objective of this study was to broaden the literature on amphibian personality and understand how it correlates with plasma levels of corticosterone (CORT) and testosterone (T), as well as to identify how a chronic high temperature stress might affect behaviour and physiology. Thirty male American bullfrogs were brought from a local farm into laboratory conditions – summer photoperiod (13:11 LD), 28±1°C. Blood was sampled after 15 days of habituation to assess each individual’s basal plasma levels of CORT and T. Animals were then submitted to behavioral tests and we assessed activity, bold, and exploratory behavior. After this initial phase (42 days), animals were divided into two groups: control (28±1°C (n = 15)) and experimental (34±1°C (n = 15)). Blood was sampled again from both groups 12 hours, 25 days, and 46 days after animals from the experimental group were transferred to the high temperature treatment. Furthermore, all 30 animals were resubmitted to the behavioural tests 1 month after the temperature treatment began, in order to verify if personality traits remained the same through time and through the experimental treatment. All tests were video recorded and will be analyzed in a tracking software. We will test for the existence of behavioural syndromes, for the association between personality and physiology, and how increment temperature modulates these associations.
