Changed behavior in the house cricket Acheta domesticus : predetermined or an effect of learning?

Sammanfattning: The interest in animal personality have increased the last couple of decades and several studies have been made trying to explain why these differences in behaviour exist between individuals. Some of these studies have found that an individual’s personality changes as it ages and to explain these, theories focusing on genetic and phenotypic aspects has been used. Predictions that an organism’s experiences would change its behaviour have however ben made. To test if learning was a reason for the animals changed behaviour, I tested if repeated behavioural would cause behaviour in the House cricket Acheta domesticus, to change. The personality trait measured was boldness, an individual’s willingness to expose itself to risks. To measure boldness in the crickets, behavioural trails where a cricket´s willingness to exit out of a tube and into a novel environment was tested. The time it took for crickets to exit the tube was measured in two groups, one control group and one test group. The control group was tested once at the start of the experiment and once at the end while the test group that was tested multiple times throughout the experiment. Results showed that a cricket´s emergence time decreased with repeated test trails in the test group. While no clear decrees could be seen in the control group. These results indicate that crickets did become bolder whit time in the test group but not in the control group. These differences between groups indicates that there might be a learning process going on.