Personality tests predict responses to a spatial-learning task in mallards, Anas platyrhynchos

International audienceBehaviours are the result of the interaction between genetic factors, past experiences, and labile environmentaland social influences. Usually, the behavioural variability of an individual is smaller than thebehavioural range of its species, but stable over time and contexts. This intraindividual consistency hasbeen termed animal personality, and is found in a wide range of taxa. Personality types have variousfitness and behavioural consequences. In particular, proactive individuals seem to perform better inmost, but not all, learning tasks. Furthermore, personality types may also influence behavioural reactiontowards the task at hand. For instance, in the literature, reactive individuals are expected to explore newenvironments more slowly, but to respond better to changes in their environment than proactive individuals.Here, we report the characterization of personality profiles in mallards over a period of 8months, as well as their reactions towards a spatial-learning task. Mallards' exploration scores wererepeatable both in novel environment and in novel object tests. Even though they did not differ in theirbaseline cortisol levels, fast-exploring birds had lower cortisol levels 30 min after the occurrence of astressor than slow-exploring birds. Irrespective of their personality, all our birds successfully learned tofind a food location within a maze. Yet, fast-exploring individuals took longer to accomplish the task,potentially because they habituated faster to stress and could engage earlier in other activities within themaze. Our results contrast with recent views of the respective consequences of being reactive or proactive.They thus highlight the importance of considering the habituation to stress when investigatingthe relative advantages of the reactive e proactive continuum, as well as taking into account the personalitybias when conducting cognitive experiments