The ontogeny of individual specialization

Individual dietary specialization, where individuals occupy a subset of a populations wider dietary niche, is a key factor determining a species resilience against environmental change. However, the ontogeny of individual specialization, as well as associated underlying social learning, genetic, and environmental drivers, remain poorly understood. Using a multigenerational dataset of female European brown bears (Ursus arctos) followed since birth, we discerned the relative contributions of environmental similarity, genetic heritability, maternal effects, and offspring social learning from the mother to individual specialization. Individual specialization accounted for 43% of phenotypic variation and spanned half a trophic position, with individual diets ranging from omnivorous to carnivorous. The main determinants of dietary specialization were social learning during rearing (13%), environmental similarity (9%), maternal effects (11%), and permanent between-individual effects (8%), whereas the contribution of genetic heritability was negligible. The trophic position of offspring closely resembled the trophic position of their mothers during the first 3-4 years of independence, but this relationship ceased with increasing time since separation. Our study shows that social learning and maternal effects are as important for individual dietary specialization as environmental composition. We propose a tighter integration of social effects into future studies of range expansion and habitat selection under global change that, to date, are mostly explained by environmental drivers.