Boldness, the willingness of an individual to take risks in a novel situation, has been investigated across various taxa, including fish (Frost et al. Personality traits are measured along a continuum on a number of axes, e.g., boldness/shyness, proactive/reactive, explorative/less explorative (Sih and Del Giudice 2012 Carazo et al. 2007) and predation pressure (Brown et al. Despite the underlying genetic component, the development of personality traits can also be heavily influenced by environmental factors, such as behavior of conspecifics (Frost et al. 2007) and subject to both natural and sexual selection (Smith and Blumstein 2008 Van Oers et al. Animal personality has been shown to be heritable (Brown et al. The term ‘personality’ describes differences in behavioral traits between individual animals of the same species that are consistent over time and across contexts (Carere and Eens 2005). Within a species, differences in personality could influence how individual animals respond to human-induced climate change with different personalities more successful under different conditions (Koolhaas et al. Behavioral plasticity may allow species to combat the effects of human-induced climate change and allow them the time to develop the genetic diversity required in their new environment (Pigliucci 2001). Changes in behavior allow an organism to adapt to its environment in a rapid and efficient manner. Often, the first response that an animal can make in the face of environmental change is behavioral (Tuomainen and Candolin 2011). Human-induced environmental change, such as global warming, is increasingly affecting the habitats of animals worldwide. The results revealed that incubation temperature did impact upon ‘boldness’ but only in the short term and suggests that, rather than influencing personality, incubation temperature may have an effect on the development of behavioral of oviparous reptiles at different stages across ontogeny. Each test was repeated in both the short term and the long term. Novel object and novel environment tests were used to assess personality. After hatching the lizards were raised under the same environmental conditions. Eggs, from one clutch, were incubated at two different average temperatures within the normal range. Thus, we investigated the impact of incubation temperature upon the boldness on an oviparous reptile, the bearded dragon ( Pogona vitticeps). Currently, we know very little about the role that early environmental factors have upon personality. Personality traits, defined as differences in the behavior of individual animals of the same species that are consistent over time and context, such as ‘boldness,’ have been shown to be both heritable and be influenced by external factors, such as predation pressure.
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