Individual Variation and Social Influence of Risk-taking Behavior in Bottlenose Dolphins

Individual Variation and Social Influence of Risk-taking Behavior in Bottlenose Dolphins | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Individual Variation and Social Influence of Risk-taking Behavior in Bottlenose Dolphins Muhammad Mahmudur Rahman, Jennifer S. Lewis, Kyra Bankhead, Mauricio Cantor This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7908880/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 4 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Taking risk is a fundamental aspect of decision-making, shaped by trade-offs between potential costs and benefits. Across taxa, animals often engage in risky behaviors to gain access to critical resources, such as food and mating opportunities. While risk-sensitive foraging has been more extensively studied in terrestrial species, the drivers and social consequences of risk-taking in marine animals remain poorly understood. We investigate individual variation and population-level consequences of risk-taking among bottlenose dolphins in the Lower Florida Keys, where risk-taking is expressed as foraging in extremely shallow waters and in areas with high vessel traffic, which increase the likelihood of stranding and injury, respectively. Using over a decade of photo-identification, foraging and social data collected under focal sampling protocols, we estimated individual-level probabilities of engaging in each risky behavior through assessment of behavioral repeatability. We found consistent individual differences among dolphins that suggest stable risk-taking tendencies. We then used a social network approach to test whether individuals with similar risk-taking profiles were more likely to associate socially. We found that dolphins that are similar in risk-taking tendencies formed stronger associations within cohesive social communities. These findings highlight the importance of risk-taking behavior in shaping social dynamics and, more broadly, provide insights into how behavioral variation may influence the adaptability of dolphin populations in increasingly human-impacted marine environments. Behavioral repeatability Boat traffic Individual variation Shallow-water foraging Social network Tursiops truncatus Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files RahmanetalSupplementaryMaterial.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 12 Nov, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 11 Nov, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 11 Nov, 2025 First submitted to journal 20 Oct, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7908880","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":532697599,"identity":"29af798c-5cfa-409d-bc5b-065e16f72845","order_by":0,"name":"Muhammad Mahmudur Rahman","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Oregon State University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Muhammad","middleName":"Mahmudur","lastName":"Rahman","suffix":""},{"id":532697602,"identity":"9be4d202-7af3-490b-a1dc-01e4a80afe76","order_by":1,"name":"Jennifer S. 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