Personality and ectoparasitic mites (Hemipteroseius adleri) in firebugs (Pyrrhocoris apterus)

Individuals of the same species often consistently differ in their behaviour across time and context. These stable differences are usually termed 'animal personality'. Parasitism is known to significantly influence the evolution of animal personality at least in part because more explorative individuals may meet parasites more frequently than less explorative ones. Previously, we have demonstrated that consistent individual differences (i.e. boldness, activity, exploration) can be measured in firebugs. As continuation, we examined here the relationship between firebug personality traits and their ectoparasitic mite loads in a wild population. We showed that bugs that behaved in a more explorative way have more mites and we also found a marginally significant interaction between sex, boldness and activity: bolder and more active female firebugs were more infected. In addition, we experimentally tested whether an artificial infection causes any alteration in the bug's behaviour and whether there is any relationship between firebug personality and immune response. This treatment did not induce any alteration in bugs' personality. We found that bugs become more explorative but less active when repeating the experiment, but at the same time all personality traits (boldness, activity and exploration) were repeatable. Furthermore, firebugs with a stronger immune response behaved more boldly but also less actively.