Dispersing brush mice prefer habitat like home

Structural consistency of exploratory behaviour of sub-adult and adult spiny mice (Acomys cahirinus) in seven different tests

The genus Acomys is of growing importance to many research fields. Previous research has shown that individuals differ when exploring new environments and that these behavioural strategies are consistent in time. In this study, we subjected 60 commensal Acomys cahirinus (37 males, 23 females) to a series of seven tests (free exploration, forced exploration under bright illumination, forced exploration under low illumination, hole board test, vertical activity test, elevated plus maze, and voluntary wheel running) to acquire independent behavioural traits and investigate whether and how personality develops in spiny mice. The full series of experiments was performed twice during ontogeny: once in the sub-adult stage (tested at 62-72 days of age) and once in the adult stage (102-112 days of age). We found that behaviour of the animals was repeatable both within (range of R values from 0.155 to 0.726) and across the two life-stages (0.238 to 0.563). While the structure of behaviour in adults was rather clear, it had not been fully crystalized in sub-adults, suggesting personality changes during maturation, even though some individual traits might be repeatable across ontogeny. Notably, the most consistent behavioural traits across the different tests were jumping and rearing, which are not commonly reported.

Influence of natal habitat preference on habitat selection during extra-home range movements in a large ungulate

Natal habitat preference induction (NHPI) occurs when animals exhibit a preference for new habitat that is similar to that which they experienced in their natal environment, potentially leading to post-dispersal success. While the study of NHPI is typically focused on post-settlement home ranges, we investigated how this behavior may manifest during extra-home range movements (EHRMs), both to identify exploratory prospecting behavior and assess how natal habitat cues may influence path selection before settlement. We analyzed GPS collar relocation data collected during 79 EHRMs made by 34 juvenile and subadult white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) across an agricultural landscape with highly fragmented forests in Illinois, USA. We developed a workflow to measure multidimensional natal habitat dissimilarity for each EHRM relocation and fit step-selection functions to evaluate whether natal habitat similarity explained habitat selection along movement paths. Across seasons, selection for natal habitat similarity was generally weak during excursive movements, but strong during dispersals, indicating that NHPI is manifested in dispersal habitat selection in this study system and bolstering the hypothesis that excursive movements differ functionally from dispersal. Our approach for extending the NHPI hypothesis to behavior during EHRMs can be applied to a variety of taxa and can expand our understanding of how individual behavioral variation and early life experience may shape connectivity and resistance across landscapes.

Early life experience influences dispersal in coyotes (Canis latrans)

Natal dispersal plays an important role in connecting individual animal behavior with ecological processes at all levels of biological organization. As urban environments are rapidly increasing in extent and intensity, understanding how urbanization influences these long distance movements is critical for predicting the persistence of species and communities. There is considerable variation in the movement responses of individuals within a species, some of which is attributed to behavioral plasticity which interacts with experience to produce interindividual differences in behavior. For natal dispersers, much of this experience occurs in the natal home range. Using data collected from VHF collared coyotes (Canis latrans) in the Chicago Metropolitan Area we explored the relationship between early life experience with urbanization and departure, transience, and settlement behavior. Additionally, we looked at how early life experience with urbanization influenced survival to adulthood and the likelihood of experiencing a vehicle related mortality. We found that coyotes with more developed habitat in their natal home range were more likely to disperse and tended to disperse farther than individuals with more natural habitat in their natal home range. Interestingly, our analysis produced mixed results for the relationship between natal habitat and habitat selection during settlement. Finally, we found no evidence that early life experience with urbanization influenced survival to adulthood or the likelihood of experiencing vehicular mortality. Our study provides evidence that early life exposure influences dispersal behavior; however, it remains unclear how these differences ultimately affect fitness.

Early evidence of natal-habitat preference: Juvenile loons feed on natal-like lakes after fledging

Many species show natal habitat preference induction (NHPI), a behavior in which young adults select habitats similar to those in which they were raised. However, we know little about how NHPI develops in natural systems. Here, we tested for NHPI in juvenile common loons (Gavia immer) that foraged on lakes in the vicinity of their natal lake after fledging. Juveniles visited lakes similar in pH to their natal lakes, and this significant effect persisted after controlling for spatial autocorrelation. On the other hand, juveniles showed no preference for foraging lakes of similar size to their natal one. When lakes were assigned to discrete classes based on size, depth, visibility, and trophic complexity, both juveniles from large lakes and small lakes preferred to visit large, trophically diverse lakes, which contained abundant food. Our results contrast with earlier findings, which show strict preference for lakes similar in size to the natal lake among young adults seeking to settle on a breeding lake. We suggest that NHPI is relaxed for juveniles, presumably because they select lakes that optimize short-term survival and growth. By characterizing NHPI during a poorly studied life stage, this study illustrates that NHPI can take different forms at different life stages.

Testing the influence of habitat experienced during the natal phase on habitat selection later in life in Scandinavian wolves

Natal habitat preference induction (NHPI) occurs when characteristics of the natal habitat influence the future habitat selection of an animal. However, the influence of NHPI after the dispersal phase has received remarkably little attention. We tested whether exposure to humans in the natal habitat helps understand why some adult wolves Canis lupus may approach human settlements more than other conspecifics, a question of both ecological and management interest. We quantified habitat selection patterns within home ranges using resource selection functions and GPS data from 21 wolf pairs in Scandinavia. We identified the natal territory of each wolf with genetic parental assignment, and we used human-related characteristics within the natal territory to estimate the degree of anthropogenic influence in the early life of each wolf. When the female of the adult wolf pair was born in an area with a high degree of anthropogenic influence, the wolf pair tended to select areas further away from humans, compared to wolf pairs from natal territories with a low degree of anthropogenic influence. Yet the pattern was statistically weak, we suggest that our methodological approach can be useful in other systems to better understand NHPI and to inform management  about human-wildlife interactions.

Temporal plasticity in habitat selection criteria explains patterns of animal dispersal

Patterns of dispersal behavior are often driven by the composition and configuration of suitable habitat in a matrix of unsuitable habitat. Interactions between animal behavior and landscapes can therefore influence population dynamics, population and species distributions, population genetic structure, and the evolution of behavior. Spatially explicit individual-based models (IBMs) are ideal tools for exploring the effects of landscape structure on dispersal. We developed an empirically parameterized IBM in the modeling framework SEARCH to simulate dispersal of translocated American martens in Wisconsin. We tested the hypothesis that a time-limited disperser should be willing to settle in lower quality habitat over time. To evaluate model performance, we used a pattern-oriented modeling approach. Our best model matched all empirical dispersal patterns (e.g., dispersal distance) except time to settlement. This model incorporated a required search phase as well as the mechanism for declining habitat selectivity over time, which represents the first demonstration of this hypothesis for a vertebrate species. We suggest that temporal plasticity in habitat selectivity allows individuals to maximize fitness by making a tradeoff between habitat quality and risk of mortality. Our IBM is pragmatic in that it addresses a management need for a species of conservation concern. However, our model is also paradigmatic in that we explicitly tested a theory of dispersal behavior. Linking these 2 approaches to ecological modeling can further the utility of individual-based modeling and provide direction for future theoretical and empirical work on animal behavior.

No place like home? A test of the natal habitat-biased dispersal hypothesis in Scandinavian wolves

Natal dispersal is an important mechanism for the viability of populations. The influence of local conditions or experience gained in the natal habitat could improve fitness if dispersing individuals settle in an area with similar habitat characteristics. This process, defined as 'natal habitat-biased dispersal' (NHBD), has been used to explain distribution patterns in large carnivores, but actual studies evaluating it are rare. We tested whether grey wolf Canis lupus territory establishment was influenced by the habitat characteristics of the natal territory using the long-term monitoring of the Scandinavian wolf population. We paired the locations of natal and established territories, accounted for available habitats along the dispersing route, and compared their habitat characteristics for 271 wolves during 1998-2012. Wolves with the shortest dispersal distances established in natal-like habitat types more than expected by chance, whereas wolves that dispersed longer distances did not show NHBD. The pattern was consistent for male and female wolves, with females showing more NHBD than males. Chances to detect NHBD increased with the size of habitat defined as available. This highlights the importance of considering the biological characteristics of the studied species when defining habitat availability. Our methodological approach can prove useful to inform conservation and management to identify habitats to be selected by reintroduced or naturally expanding populations.

Invasive exotic shrub modifies a classic animal-habitat relationship and alters patterns of vertebrate seed predation

Recent evidence suggests that invasive exotic plants can provide novel habitats that alter animal behavior. However, it remains unclear whether classic animal-habitat associations that influence the spatial distribution of plant-animal interactions, such as small mammal use of downed woody debris, persist in invaded habitats. We removed an invasive exotic shrub (buckthorn, Rhamnus cathartica) from 7 of 15 plots in Wisconsin. In each plot, we deployed 200 tagged Quercus rubra seeds in November 2014. After five months, tags were recovered to track spatial patterns of small mammal seed predation. Most recovered tags were associated with consumed seeds (95%); live-trapping, ancillary camera-trapping, and previous behavioral studies suggest that white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) were responsible for most seed predation. In habitats without R. cathartica, most seed predation occurred near woody debris. In habitats with R. cathartica, small mammals rarely consumed seeds near woody debris, and seed predation occurred farther from the plot center and was less spatially clustered. Our results illustrate that invasive exotic shrubs can disrupt an otherwise common animal-habitat relationship. Failing to account for changes in habitat use may diminish our ability to predict animal distributions and outcomes of species interactions in novel habitats created by invasive exotic plants.

Evidence of natal habitat preference induction within one habitat type

Natal habitat preference induction (NHPI) is a mechanism for habitat selection by individuals during natal dispersal. NHPI occurs in wild animal populations, and evidence suggests it may be a common, although little studied, mechanism for post-dispersal habitat selection. Most tests of NHPI examine the influence of distinct, contrasting natal habitat types on post-dispersal habitat selection. We test the hypothesis that NHPI can occur within a single habitat type, an important consideration for habitat specialists. The Mount Graham red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus grahamensis) is an endangered forest obligate restricted to a single mountain primarily within mixed-conifer forest. We test for NHPI by comparing intra-individual differences in natal and settlement habitat structure and composition to expected random pairwise differences. Dispersing juveniles appear to select settlement locations that are more similar to natal areas than expected in several forest structure and composition variables that include canopy cover and live basal area. Our results provide support for NHPI as a mechanism for post-dispersal habitat selection in habitat specialists that occupy a single vegetation community type.

Spatial variation in the parasite communities and genomic structure of urban rats in New York City

Brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) are a globally distributed pest. Urban habitats can support large infestations of rats, posing a potential risk to public health from the parasites and pathogens they carry. Despite the potential influence of rodent-borne zoonotic diseases on human health, it is unclear how urban habitats affect the structure and transmission dynamics of ectoparasite and microbial communities (all referred to as "parasites" hereafter) among rat colonies. In this study, we use ecological data on parasites and genomic sequencing of their rat hosts to examine associations between spatial proximity, genetic relatedness and the parasite communities associated with 133 rats at five sites in sections of New York City with persistent rat infestations. We build on previous work showing that rats in New York carry a wide variety of parasites and report that these communities differ significantly among sites, even across small geographical distances. Ectoparasite community similarity was positively associated with geographical proximity; however, there was no general association between distance and microbial communities of rats. Sites with greater overall parasite diversity also had rats with greater infection levels and parasite species richness. Parasite community similarity among sites was not linked to genetic relatedness of rats, suggesting that these communities are not associated with genetic similarity among host individuals or host dispersal among sites. Discriminant analysis identified site-specific associations of several parasite species, suggesting that the presence of some species within parasite communities may allow researchers to determine the sites of origin for newly sampled rats. The results of our study help clarify the roles that colony structure and geographical proximity play in determining the ecology of R. norvegicus as a significant urban reservoir of zoonotic diseases. Our study also highlights the spatial variation present in urban rat parasite communities, indicating that rats across New York City are not reservoirs for a homogenous set of parasites and pathogens. As a result, the epidemiological risks may be similarly heterogeneous for people in urban habitats.

Affinity for natal environments by dispersers impacts reproduction and explains geographical structure of a highly mobile bird

Understanding dispersal and habitat selection behaviours is central to many problems in ecology, evolution and conservation. One factor often hypothesized to influence habitat selection by dispersers is the natal environment experienced by juveniles. Nonetheless, evidence for the effect of natal environment on dispersing, wild vertebrates remains limited. Using 18 years of nesting and mark-resight data across an entire North American geographical range of an endangered bird, the snail kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis), we tested for natal effects on breeding-site selection by dispersers and its consequences for reproductive success and population structure. Dispersing snail kites were more likely to nest in wetlands of the same habitat type (lacustrine or palustrine) as their natal wetland, independent of dispersal distance, but this preference declined with age and if individuals were born during droughts. Importantly, dispersing kites that bred in natal-like habitats had lower nest success and productivity than kites that did not. These behaviours help explain recently described population connectivity and spatial structure across their geographical range and reveal that assortative breeding is occurring, where birds are more likely to breed with individuals born in the same wetland type as their natal habitat. Natal environments can thus have long-term and large-scale effects on populations in nature, even in highly mobile animals.

Individual differences in behavioural plasticities

Interest in individual differences in animal behavioural plasticities has surged in recent years, but research in this area has been hampered by semantic confusion as different investigators use the same terms (e.g. plasticity, flexibility, responsiveness) to refer to different phenomena. The first goal of this review is to suggest a framework for categorizing the many different types of behavioural plasticities, describe examples of each, and indicate why using reversibility as a criterion for categorizing behavioural plasticities is problematic. This framework is then used to address a number of timely questions about individual differences in behavioural plasticities. One set of questions concerns the experimental designs that can be used to study individual differences in various types of behavioural plasticities. Although within-individual designs are the default option for empirical studies of many types of behavioural plasticities, in some situations (e.g. when experience at an early age affects the behaviour expressed at subsequent ages), 'replicate individual' designs can provide useful insights into individual differences in behavioural plasticities. To date, researchers using within-individual and replicate individual designs have documented individual differences in all of the major categories of behavioural plasticities described herein. Another important question is whether and how different types of behavioural plasticities are related to one another. Currently there is empirical evidence that many behavioural plasticities [e.g. contextual plasticity, learning rates, IIV (intra-individual variability), endogenous plasticities, ontogenetic plasticities) can themselves vary as a function of experiences earlier in life, that is, many types of behavioural plasticity are themselves developmentally plastic. These findings support the assumption that differences among individuals in prior experiences may contribute to individual differences in behavioural plasticities observed at a given age. Several authors have predicted correlations across individuals between different types of behavioural plasticities, i.e. that some individuals will be generally more plastic than others. However, empirical support for most of these predictions, including indirect evidence from studies of relationships between personality traits and plasticities, is currently sparse and equivocal. The final section of this review suggests how an appreciation of the similarities and differences between different types of behavioural plasticities may help theoreticians formulate testable models to explain the evolution of individual differences in behavioural plasticities and the evolutionary and ecological consequences of individual differences in behavioural plasticities.

DNA Dispose, but Subjects Decide. Learning and the Extended Synthesis

Adaptation by means of natural selection depends on the ability of populations to maintain variation in heritable traits. According to the Modern Synthesis this variation is sustained by mutations and genetic drift. Epigenetics, evodevo, niche construction and cultural factors have more recently been shown to contribute to heritable variation, however, leading an increasing number of biologists to call for an extended view of speciation and evolution. An additional common feature across the animal kingdom is learning, defined as the ability to change behavior according to novel experiences or skills. Learning constitutes an additional source for phenotypic variation, and change in behavior may induce long lasting shifts in fitness, and hence favor evolutionary novelties. Based on published studies, I demonstrate how learning about food, mate choice and habitats has contributed substantially to speciation in the canonical story of Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands. Learning cannot be reduced to genetics, because it demands decisions, which requires a subject. Evolutionary novelties may hence emerge both from shifts in allelic frequencies and from shifts in learned, subject driven behavior. The existence of two principally different sources of variation also prevents the Modern Synthesis from self-referring explanations.

Experimental evaluation of imprinting and the role innate preference plays in habitat selection in a coral reef fish

When facing decisions about where to live, juveniles have a strong tendency to choose habitats similar to where their parents successfully bred. Developing larval fishes can imprint on the chemical cues from their natal habitat. However, to demonstrate that imprinting is ecologically important, it must be shown that settlers respond and distinguish among different imprinted cues, and use imprinting for decisions in natural environments. In addition, the potential role innate preferences play compared to imprinted choices also needs to be examined. As environmental variability increases due to anthropogenic causes these two recognition mechanisms, innate and imprinting, could provide conflicting information. Here we used laboratory rearing and chemical choice experiments to test imprinting in larval anemonefish (Amphiprion percula). Individuals exposed to a variety of benthic habitat or novel olfactory cues as larvae either developed a preference for (spent >50% of their time in the cue) or increased their attraction to (increased preference but did not spend >50% of their time in the cue) the cue when re-exposed as settlers. Results indicate not only the capacity for imprinting but also the ability to adjust innate preferences after early exposure to a chemical cue. To test ecological relevance in the natural system, recruits were collected from anemones and related to their parents, using genetic parentage analysis, providing information on the natal anemone species and the species chosen at settlement. Results demonstrated that recruits did not preferentially return to their natal species, conflicting with laboratory results indicating the importance imprinting might have in habitat recognition.

Can settlement in natal-like habitat explain maladaptive habitat selection?

The study of habitat selection has long been influenced by the ideal free model, which maintains that young adults settle in habitat according to its inherent quality and the density of conspecifics within it. The model has gained support in recent years from the finding that conspecifics produce cues inadvertently that help prebreeders locate good habitat. Yet abundant evidence shows that animals often fail to occupy habitats that ecologists have identified as those of highest quality, leading to the conclusion that young animals settle on breeding spaces by means not widely understood. Here, we report that a phenomenon virtually unknown in nature, natal habitat preference induction (NHPI), is a strong predictor of territory settlement in both male and female common loons (Gavia immer). NHPI causes young animals to settle on natal-like breeding spaces, but not necessarily those that maximize reproductive success. If widespread, NHPI might explain apparently maladaptive habitat settlement.

Unfolding personalities: the importance of studying ontogeny

We aim to stimulate an ontogenetic approach to personalities. We explain the importance of studying development for understanding proximate and ultimate aspects of personality and critically discuss, partly by perhaps provocative statements, our current lack of knowledge and potential approaches to the study of personality development. We first clarify some terminology and argue for a difference between behavioral profiles (BP; at the descriptive level) and personality (at the explanatory level). We then focus on the issue of temporal stability of personality, arguing that based on evolutionary theory, neurophysiological knowledge, and recent findings, personality is probably less stable than often thought. Next we consider the potential influence of genes, discussing gene by environment correlations and interactions and argue that developmental changes in the regulation of DNA expression are probably more relevant than individual differences in DNA sequence. We end by suggesting perspectives for future research.

Natal experience and conspecifics influence the settling behaviour of the juvenile terrestrial isopod Armadillidium vulgare

Cues used by dispersing juveniles to assess habitat quality can be based on public information available to all individuals or on private information obtained from experience in the natal habitat. The presence of conspecifics (public information) and natal habitat quality (private information) have been shown to influence habitat preferences in many species, but the relative importance of these two cue types is seldom investigated. We examined whether habitat quality relative to the natal habitat had a stronger influence on the settling decisions of the juvenile terrestrial isopod Armadillidium vulgare (Latreille, 1804), than sign of conspecifics. We raised juvenile A. vulgare in either high- or low-quality habitats and then observed how the presence of conspecific sign influenced their preference for each of these habitats. When conspecific sign was absent, juveniles preferred high-quality habitat, regardless of their natal habitat. When the low-quality habitat was treated with conspecific sign, juveniles born on low-quality habitat continued to prefer the high-quality habitat, but juveniles raised on high-quality habitat displayed no preference. This suggests juvenile isopods respond to these cues hierarchically: they first search for habitats higher in quality than their natal habitat and then cue into conspecific sign when the preferred habitat is unavailable.

How different types of natal experience affect habitat preference

In many animals, exposure to cues in a natal habitat increases disperser preferences for those cues (natal habitat preference induction [NHPI]), but the proximate and ultimate bases for this phenomenon are obscure. We developed a Bayesian model to study how different types of experience in the natal habitat and survival to the age/stage of dispersal interact to affect a disperser's estimate of the quality of new natal-type habitats. The model predicts that the types of experience a disperser had before leaving its natal habitat will affect the attractiveness of cues from new natal-type habitats and that favorable experiences will increase the level of preference for natal-type habitats more than unfavorable experiences will decrease it. An experimental study of NHPI in Drosophila melanogaster provided with "good" and "bad" experiences in their natal habitats supports these predictions while also indicating that the effects of different types of natal experience on NHPI vary across genotypes. If habitat preferences are modulated by an individual's experience before dispersal as described in this study, then NHPI may have stronger effects on sympatric speciation, metapopulation dynamics, conservation biology, and pest management than previously supposed.

Phenotype-dependent native habitat preference facilitates divergence between parapatric lake and stream stickleback

Adaptive divergence between adjoining populations reflects a balance between the diversifying effect of divergent selection and the potentially homogenizing effect of gene flow. In most models of migration-selection balance, gene flow is assumed to reflect individuals' inherent capacity to disperse, without regard to the match between individuals' phenotypes and the available habitats. However, habitat preferences can reduce dispersal between contrasting habitats, thereby alleviating migration load and facilitating adaptive divergence. We tested whether habitat preferences contribute to adaptive divergence in a classic example of migration-selection balance: parapatric lake and stream populations of three-spine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Using a mark-transplant-recapture experiment on morphologically divergent parapatric populations, we showed that 90% of lake and stream stickleback returned to their native habitat, reducing migration between habitats by 76%. Furthermore, we found that dispersal into a nonnative habitat was phenotype dependent. Stream fish moving into the lake were morphologically more lake-like than those returning to the stream (and the converse for lake fish entering the stream). The strong native habitat preference documented here increases the extent of adaptive divergence between populations two- to fivefold relative to expectations with random movement. These results illustrate the potential importance of adaptive habitat choice in driving parapatric divergence.

Independent colonization of multiple urban centres by a formerly forest specialist bird species

Urban areas are expanding rapidly, but a few native species have successfully colonized them. The processes underlying such colonization events are poorly understood. Using the blackbird Turdus merula, a former forest specialist that is now one of the most common urban birds in its range, we provide the first assessment of two contrasting urban colonization models. First, that urbanization occurred independently. Second, that following initial urbanization, urban-adapted individuals colonized other urban areas in a leapfrog manner. Previous analyses of spatial patterns in the timing of blackbird urbanization, and experimental introductions of urban and rural blackbirds to uncolonized cities, suggest that the leapfrog model is likely to apply. We found that, across the western Palaearctic, urban blackbird populations contain less genetic diversity than rural ones, urban populations are more strongly differentiated from each other than from rural populations and assignment tests support a rural source population for most urban individuals. In combination, these results provide much stronger support for the independent urbanization model than the leapfrog one. If the former model predominates, colonization of multiple urban centres will be particularly difficult when urbanization requires genetic adaptations, having implications for urban species diversity.

Coral reef fish smell leaves to find island homes

Recent studies have shown that some coral reef fish larvae return to natal reefs, while others disperse to distant reefs. However, the sensory mechanisms used to find settlement sites are poorly understood. One hypothesis is that larvae use olfactory cues to navigate home or find other suitable reef habitats. Here we show a strong association between the clownfish Amphiprion percula and coral reefs surrounding offshore islands in Papua New Guinea. Host anemones and A. percula are particularly abundant in shallow water beneath overhanging rainforest vegetation. A series of experiments were carried out using paired-choice flumes to evaluate the potential role of water-borne olfactory cues in finding islands. Recently settled A. percula exhibited strong preferences for: (i) water from reefs with islands over water from reefs without islands; (ii) water collected near islands over water collected offshore; and (iii) water treated with either anemones or leaves from rainforest vegetation. Laboratory reared-juveniles exhibited the same positive response to anemones and rainforest vegetation, suggesting that olfactory preferences are innate rather than learned. We hypothesize that A. percula use a suite of olfactory stimuli to locate vegetated islands, which may explain the high levels of self-recruitment on island reefs. This previously unrecognized link between coral reefs and island vegetation argues for the integrated management of these pristine tropical habitats.

Informed dispersal, heterogeneity in animal dispersal syndromes and the dynamics of spatially structured populations

There is accumulating evidence that individuals leave their natal area and select a breeding habitat non-randomly by relying upon information about their natal and future breeding environments. This variation in dispersal is not only based on external information (condition dependence) but also depends upon the internal state of individuals (phenotype dependence). As a consequence, not all dispersers are of the same quality or search for the same habitats. In addition, the individual's state is characterized by morphological, physiological or behavioural attributes that might themselves serve as a cue altering the habitat choice of conspecifics. These combined effects of internal and external information have the potential to generate complex movement patterns and could influence population dynamics and colonization processes. Here, we highlight three particular processes that link condition-dependent dispersal, phenotype-dependent dispersal and habitat choice strategies: (1) the relationship between the cause of departure and the dispersers' phenotype; (2) the relationship between the cause of departure and the settlement behaviour and (3) the concept of informed dispersal, where individuals gather and transfer information before and during their movements through the landscape. We review the empirical evidence for these processes with a special emphasis on vertebrate and arthropod model systems, and present case studies that have quantified the impacts of these processes on spatially structured population dynamics. We also discuss recent literature providing strong evidence that individual variation in dispersal has an important impact on both reinforcement and colonization success and therefore must be taken into account when predicting ecological responses to global warming and habitat fragmentation.