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Understanding/predicting ecological invasions is an important challenge in modern ecology because of their immense economical and ecological costs. Recent studies have revealed that within-species variation in behaviour (i.e. animal personality) can shed light on the invasion process. The general hypothesis is that individuals' personality type may affect their colonization success, suggesting that some individuals might be better invaders than others. We have recently shown that, in the invasive mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis), social personality trait was an important indicator of dispersal distance, with more asocial individuals dispersing further. Here, we tested how mean personality within a population, in addition to individual personality type, affect dispersal and settlement decisions in the mosquitofish. We found that individual dispersal tendencies were influenced by the population's mean boldness and sociability score. For example, individuals from populations with more asocial individuals or with more bold individuals are more likely to disperse regardless of their own personality type. We suggest that identifying behavioural traits facilitating invasions, even at the group level, can thus have direct applications in pest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socially acquired information is widespread in the animal kingdom. Many individuals make behavioral decisions based on such social information. In particular, individuals may decide to leave or select their habitat based on social information. Few studies have investigated the role of density-related information, a potential social cue about habitat quality in dispersal. Here, we tested for the possibility that the phenotype of intruder common lizards (Lacerta vivipara) may inadvertently carry information about their natal population density. We found that such information use is likely. The behavior of focal lizard was influenced by the natal population density of the intruder it was interacting with. This suggests that individuals may use the behavior of others to acquire appropriate information about surroundings and to base spatial decisions on this information. Density-related information may then affect individual movement decisions and thus metapopulation dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]