Personality interacts with habitat quality to govern individual mortality and dispersal patterns

Individual phenotypic differences are increasingly recognized as key drivers of ecological processes. However, studies examining the relative importance of these differences in comparison with environmental factors or how individual phenotype interacts across different environmental contexts remain lacking. We performed two field experiments to assess the concurrent roles of personality differences and habitat quality in mediating individual mortality and dispersal. We quantified the predator avoidance response of mud crabs, Panopeus herbstii, collected from low- and high-quality oyster reefs and measured crab loss in a caging experiment. We simultaneously measured the distance crabs traveled as well as the stability of personalities across reef quality in a separate reciprocal transplant experiment. Habitat quality was the primary determinant of crab loss, although the distance crabs traveled was governed by personality which interacted with habitat quality to control the fate of crabs. Here, crabs on low-quality reefs rapidly emigrated, starting with the boldest individuals, and experienced modest levels of predation regardless of personality. In contrast, both bold and shy crabs would remain on high-quality reefs for months where bolder individuals experienced higher predation risk. These findings suggest that personalities could produce vastly different population dynamics across habitat quality and govern community responses to habitat degradation.