The ecological context of individual specialization

Abstract

Ecologists often consider conspecific individuals to be ecologically equivalent. However, there can be considerable variation in resource use among individuals from the same local population. Such intraspecific variation can have important ecological consequences for both communities and individuals. Although this pattern of individual specialization has been documented across multiple taxa, less is known about the ecological contexts that promote the development of individual resource specializations. My dissertation addresses this gap by experimentally testing how environmental complexity, resource abundance, resource discriminability, and resource quality affect the development of individual specialization in the cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae). Broadly, my results show that ecological context can shape the challenges animals face while searching for resources and that these challenges influence specialization at the individual level.