Exploration correlates with dietary choosiness and avoidance learning style in a generalist predator

Abstract

Abstract The hypothesis of slow–fast syndromes predicts a correlation between personality type and learning style; fast explorers would have a more proactive (fast but inflexible) learning style whereas slow explorers would be more reactive (slow but flexible) learners. Empirical evidence for this personality-cognition coupling remains inconclusive and heavily biased toward birds. Moreover, most studies did not examine the personality-cognition correlation when the cognitive task is discerning food quality, a scenario directly related to energy acquisition that underpins the evolution of slow–fast syndromes. In this study, we examined the exploration–cognition correlation in the context of avoidance learning in an opportunistic predator—the common sun skink Eutropis multifasciata. We quantified exploration tendencies of individuals in an unfamiliar environment and compared foraging behaviors when lizards associated prey color and taste during the initial learning trials and subsequent reverse learning trials, where the color–taste associations were switched. We found that fast explorers were less choosy and modified their foraging behaviors less with experience, conforming to a more proactive cognitive style. In contrast, slow explorers were reactive learners and were able to change foraging behaviors in both learning and reverse learning phases, even though the ability to do so depended on the color–taste treatment. Contrary to conventional predictions, the proactive–reactive learning styles in our focal species were not differentiated by a learning speed-flexibility trade-off. Our findings offer nuanced support to the slow–fast syndromes and suggest that the two types of exploration–cognition correlations could be different responses to fast-changing environmental predictability.