Personality traits and Pan I locus data of Atlantic cod juveniles

Animals show among-individual variation in behaviours, including migration behaviours, which are often repeatable across time periods and contexts, commonly termed "personality". These behaviours can be correlated, forming a behavioural syndrome. In this study, we assessed the repeatability and correlation of different behavioural traits i.e., boldness, exploration, and sociality and the link to feeding migration patterns in Atlantic cod juveniles. To do so, we collected repeated measurements within two short-term (three days) and two long-term (two months) intervals of these personality traits and genotypes of the Pan I locus, which is correlated to feeding migration patterns in this species. We found high repeatabilities for exploration behaviour in the short- and long-term intervals, and a trend for the relationship between exploration and the Pan I locus. Boldness and sociality were only repeatable in the second short-term interval indicating a possible development of stability over time and did not show a relation with the Pan I locus. We found no indication of behavioural syndromes among the studied traits. We were unable to identify the existence of a migration syndrome for the frontal genotype which is the reason that the link between personality and migration remains inconclusive, but we demonstrated a possible link between exploration and the Pan I genotype. This supports the need for further research that should focus on the effect of exploration tendency and other personality traits on cod movement, including the migratory (frontal) ecotype to develop management strategies based on behavioural units, rather than treating the population as a single homogeneous stock.