Lovers, not fighters: docility influences reproductive fitness, but not survival, in male Cape ground squirrels, Xerus inauris

Over their lifetime, individuals may use different behavioural strategies to maximize their fitness. Some behavioural traits may be consistent among individuals over time (i.e., ‘personality’ traits) resulting in an individual behavioural phenotype with different associated costs and benefits. Understanding how behavioural traits are linked to lifetime fitness requires tracking individuals over their lifetime. Here, we leverage a long-term study on a multi-year living species (maximum lifespan ~ 10 years) to examine how docility (an individual’s reaction to trapping and handling) may contribute to how males are able to maximize their lifetime fitness. Cape ground squirrels are burrowing mammals that live in social groups, and although males lack physical aggression and territoriality, they vary in docility. Males face high predation risk and high reproductive competition and employ either of two reproductive tactics (‘natal’ or ‘band’) which are not associated with different docility personalities. We found that although more docile individuals sired more offspring on an annual basis, docility did not affect an individual’s long-term (lifetime) reproductive output. Survival was not associated with docility or body condition, but annual survival was influenced by rainfall. Our findings suggest that although docility may represent a behavioural strategy to maximize fitness by possibly playing a role in female-male associations or female mate-choice, variations in docility within our study population is likely maintained by other environmental drivers. However, individual variations in behaviours may still contribute as part of the ‘tool kit’ individuals use to maximize their lifetime fitness.