Animal behavior regularly has substantial effects on the outcomes of reintroduction efforts. Reintroduction involves capturing a subset of individuals from a source population and releasing them into novel environments where variation in retention rates, predation, and territory acquisition could affect the age-class structure, sex ratio, and genetic and phenotypic characteristics of restored populations. Exploratory behavior, quantified as the rate that individuals explore novel settings, is one such heritable trait that might be affected by translocation, especially given recent studies suggesting that exploratory behavior can predict the survival and retention of individuals in unfamiliar environments. To assess the potential effects that translocation may have on exploratory behavior, we compared exploratory behavior for three Brown-headed Nuthatch (Sitta pusilla) populations: (1) a population reintroduced to Everglades National Park in 1998; (2) a population close to the original source population, and (3) a distant control population in north Florida. Exploratory behavior was quantified by placing individuals (n=17 per population) in an exploratory chamber and comparing flights/hops, scanning events, thoroughness of exploration, and other movement behaviors. We found that individuals in the reintroduced population scanned less, conducted fewer flights/hops, and were more sedentary than individuals in the other populations. Our findings suggest a shift in the prevalence of personality types toward slow explorers has taken place in the 20 years since reintroduction, adding to other studies suggesting that slow explorers fare better in novel environments. Although the reintroduced population contained fewer fast-exploring individuals relative to the other populations studied, fast-explorer phenotypes may increase over time if they convey the fitness benefits described in other studies.

中文翻译：

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五子雀和野兔：二十年后，缓慢的探险家在重新建立的棕头五子雀（Sitta pusilla）种群中占主导地位

动物行为经常对放归努力的结果产生重大影响。重新引入涉及从源种群中捕获一部分个体，并将它们释放到新环境中，在这些环境中，保留率、捕食和领土获取的变化可能会影响恢复种群的年龄级结构、性别比例以及遗传和表型特征。探索行为，量化为个体探索新环境的速率，是一种可能受易位影响的遗传特征，特别是考虑到最近的研究表明探索行为可以预测个体在陌生环境中的生存和保留。为了评估易位可能对探索行为产生的潜在影响，我们比较了三个褐头五子雀 (Sitta pusilla) 种群的探索行为：（1）1998 年重新引入大沼泽地国家公园的种群；(2) 接近原始源种群的种群，以及 (3) 佛罗里达州北部的远距离控制种群。通过将个体（每个群体 n = 17）放入探索室并比较飞行/跳跃、扫描事件、探索的彻底性和其他运动行为来量化探索行为。我们发现，与其他人群相比，重新引入的人群中的个体扫描较少，飞行/跳跃次数较少，并且久坐不动。我们的研究结果表明，在重新引入后的 20 年里，性格类型向缓慢探索者的流行程度发生了转变，其他研究表明，缓慢的探险者在新环境中表现更好。尽管重新引入的人群相对于所研究的其他人群包含较少的快速探索个体，但如果它们传达了其他研究中描述的健康益处，则快速探索者表型可能会随着时间的推移而增加。