First links between self-feeding behaviour and personality traits in European seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax

• European seabass personality (i.e. bold–shy and motivation to escape stressful situation) was characterized.
• Latency to emerge from a shelter and latency to escape during a restraint test were correlated.
• Placed under self-feeding, individual triggering activity level was higher in shy individuals.

Most studies carried out with seabass under self-feeding conditions report an intriguing social structure that is built around the device and the food dispenser with three coexisting triggering categories: high-triggering (HT), low-triggering (LT) and zero-triggering (ZT) fish. However, neither sex nor feeding motivation or hierarchy can explain the establishment of this specialization. We characterized the personality of seabass with the commonly used restraint and open field tests and assessed the link between personality traits and individual triggering activity towards the self-feeder apparatus. We found no differences between triggering categories during the restraint test but high triggering fish were characterized as shyer than low- and zero-triggering fish during the open field test. Triggering activity was negatively correlated with exploratory capacities and boldness. This experiment provides for the first time evidence that high triggering status in seabass is correlated with personality traits, which could partly explain the social structure that builds around a self-feeder device.