Scatter-hoarding small mammals act as both seed predators and seed dispersers in forest ecosystems. Their choices regarding consuming or caching seeds must balance the risk of predation with the energy rewards gained from immediate or delayed consumption of seeds. Several factors influence their interaction with seeds, including the individual's personality. Little is known about how personality affects foraging decisions in response to predation risk. This missing information is critical because if foraging decisions differ among individuals in response to perceived risk, then varying combinations of personality types in a population (and varying risks of predation across forest types) may have diverse effects on forest regeneration. Further, land-use change may influence the interplay of personality, risk perception and foraging decisions by altering the distribution of personality types in the landscape and the risk perceived by individuals. To contribute to filling these knowledge gaps, we designed a large-scale field experiment to evaluate how personality, perceived predation risk and land-use change affect the interaction of deer mice Peromyscus maniculatus and seeds. Using infrared cameras, we recorded the choices of individuals of known personality at paired experimental sites with high versus low perceived predation risk (n = 2389 observations from 74 individuals). We found that personality influenced multiple foraging decisions, and perceived risk affected how individuals with different personalities responded to those decisions. Specifically, exploration/activity influenced seed choice, boldness affected the number of seeds selected and docility influenced both foraging site selection and whether mice immediately consumed or removed seeds. Since personality only affected foraging microsite selection in unmanaged forests, our results show that land-use change decreased the importance of personality in affecting risk perception. We demonstrate the importance of considering personality on foraging decisions under varying levels of risk, and more generally, underscore the importance of considering individual variation in affecting ecological processes.

中文翻译：

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恐惧环境中小型哺乳动物的种子捕食和传播：个性、捕食风险和土地利用变化的影响

分散囤积的小型哺乳动物在森林生态系统中既是种子捕食者，也是种子传播者。他们关于食用或储存种子的选择必须平衡捕食风险与立即或延迟食用种子所获得的能量回报。有几个因素会影响他们与种子的互动，包括个人的个性。关于个性如何影响捕食风险的觅食决策，我们知之甚少。这种缺失的信息至关重要，因为如果个体之间的觅食决定因感知风险而不同，那么人口中不同的性格类型组合（以及不同森林类型的不同捕食风险）可能对森林再生产生不同的影响。此外，土地利用的变化可能会影响个性的相互作用，通过改变景​​观中人格类型的分布和个人感知的风险来做出风险感知和觅食决策。为了填补这些知识空白，我们设计了一个大规模的现场实验来评估性格、感知的捕食风险和土地利用变化如何影响鹿鼠的相互作用手足鲈和种子。使用红外摄像机，我们记录了具有高感知捕食风险和低感知捕食风险的配对实验地点的已知性格个体的选择（n = 74 个人的 2389 次观察）。我们发现，性格影响了多项觅食决定，而感知风险会影响不同性格的人对这些决定的反应。具体来说，探索/活动影响种子选择，大胆影响选择的种子数量，而温顺影响觅食地点的选择以及小鼠是否立即食用或移除种子。由于个性仅影响未管理森林中的觅食微型站点选择，因此我们的结果表明，土地利用的变化降低了个性在影响风险感知方面的重要性。