How Invertebrate Personalities Unfold

Individuals within a species perceive and respond to their environment differently, and each inhabits and creates its own unique Umwelt. Consistent differences in behaviour between individuals of the same species that persist over time or through contexts are known in behavioural ecology and comparative psychology as animal personalities. They arise as a result of random processes occurring during individual development and as a result of processing and integrating information transmitted from ancestors and collected throughout one’s life. To emphasize the role of the interaction of these factors operating on different time scales, it is proposed in this article to look at invertebrate personalities using Nikolaas Tinbergen’s four questions, but tracing evolution, ontogeny, cause and function along the axis of time and information flow. The insight into the literature presented here is also intended to support the acceptance of this common biological phenomenon and the term describing it.