Animals often interact aggressively when competing over limited resources. Aggressive decisions can be complex and may result from multiple sources of behavioral variation. The outcome of contests may be explained through contest theory and personality by considering conjointly plasticity and individual consistency. This integrative approach also allows investigating individual differences in responsiveness to environmental changes. Here, we observed multiple agonistic interactions occurring among eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus) competing for food resources supplied at different distances from their burrows. Using an individual reaction norm approach, we found that the probability of winning a contest depended on an individual’s intrinsic characteristics (mass and age but not sex) but was also adjusted to characteristics of its opponents. Winning a contest also depended on extrinsic environmental characteristics, such as distance to the contestants’ burrows, but not the order of arrival at the feeding patch. We found consistent individual differences in the probability of winning, potentially related to differences in aggressiveness and territoriality. We also found that individuals differed in their plasticity level in response to changes in different characteristics of their social and physical environments. Plasticity, personality, and individual differences in responsiveness may thus all play a role in predicting contest outcome and in the evolution of animal contests.

中文翻译：

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自然竞赛中的行为差异：整合可塑性和个性

当争夺有限的资源时，动物通常会进行积极的互动。激进的决策可能很复杂，可能是由行为变异的多种来源导致的。竞赛的结果可以通过竞赛理论和人格结合共同的可塑性和个人一致性来解释。这种综合方法还可以调查对环境变化的反应能力的个体差异。在这里，我们观察到东部花栗鼠（Tamias striatus）争夺与洞穴不同距离的食物资源。使用个人反应规范方法，我们发现赢得比赛的概率取决于个人的内在特征（年龄和年龄，而不是性别），但还根据其对手的特征进行了调整。赢得比赛还取决于外部环境特征，例如与参赛者洞穴的距离，而不是到达补给场的顺序。我们发现获胜的概率存在个体差异，这可能与侵略性和地域性差异有关。我们还发现，由于社会和自然环境的不同特征发生变化，个体的可塑性水平也有所不同。可塑性，个性，