Abstract
To determine whether animals assess each other's fighting ability in contests, researchers usually regress contest duration over the sizes of the contestants. The predominant trend in recent studies is for the contest duration to correlate positively with the size of the smaller opponent but to have no obvious relationship with the size of the larger opponent. This indicates that animals make contest decisions based on their own abilities ('self assessment') and displaces the once-popular belief that they assess their opponents ('mutual assessment'). These tests, however, are based on the implicit but never stated assumption that animals adopt only one assessment approach throughout an entire contest. By examining the contest behaviours of a killifish, we show that (1) the fish adopt mutual assessment at earlier stages when deciding whether to escalate the contest from the mutual display to the attack phase and (2) once a contest is escalated, the fish switch to self assessment to decide how long to escalate. Our results show that individuals may adopt multiple assessment approaches in one contest; contest behaviours in different stages (where applicable) of a contest should be analysed separately to better elucidate animal contest assessment strategies.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1641-1649 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Animal Behaviour |
| Volume | 75 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2008 May 1 |
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Keywords
- animal contests
- decision making
- fighting ability
- killifish
- Kryptolebias marmoratus
- mutual assessment
- self assessment
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
- Animal Science and Zoology
Cite this
Switching assessment strategy during a contest : fighting in killifish Kryptolebias marmoratus. / Hsu, Yuying; Lee, Shih Pin; Chen, Meng Hsin; Yang, Shi Yi; Cheng, Kuang Chou.
In: Animal Behaviour, Vol. 75, No. 5, 01.05.2008, p. 1641-1649.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Switching assessment strategy during a contest
T2 - fighting in killifish Kryptolebias marmoratus
AU - Hsu, Yuying
AU - Lee, Shih Pin
AU - Chen, Meng Hsin
AU - Yang, Shi Yi
AU - Cheng, Kuang Chou
PY - 2008/5/1
Y1 - 2008/5/1
N2 - To determine whether animals assess each other's fighting ability in contests, researchers usually regress contest duration over the sizes of the contestants. The predominant trend in recent studies is for the contest duration to correlate positively with the size of the smaller opponent but to have no obvious relationship with the size of the larger opponent. This indicates that animals make contest decisions based on their own abilities ('self assessment') and displaces the once-popular belief that they assess their opponents ('mutual assessment'). These tests, however, are based on the implicit but never stated assumption that animals adopt only one assessment approach throughout an entire contest. By examining the contest behaviours of a killifish, we show that (1) the fish adopt mutual assessment at earlier stages when deciding whether to escalate the contest from the mutual display to the attack phase and (2) once a contest is escalated, the fish switch to self assessment to decide how long to escalate. Our results show that individuals may adopt multiple assessment approaches in one contest; contest behaviours in different stages (where applicable) of a contest should be analysed separately to better elucidate animal contest assessment strategies.
AB - To determine whether animals assess each other's fighting ability in contests, researchers usually regress contest duration over the sizes of the contestants. The predominant trend in recent studies is for the contest duration to correlate positively with the size of the smaller opponent but to have no obvious relationship with the size of the larger opponent. This indicates that animals make contest decisions based on their own abilities ('self assessment') and displaces the once-popular belief that they assess their opponents ('mutual assessment'). These tests, however, are based on the implicit but never stated assumption that animals adopt only one assessment approach throughout an entire contest. By examining the contest behaviours of a killifish, we show that (1) the fish adopt mutual assessment at earlier stages when deciding whether to escalate the contest from the mutual display to the attack phase and (2) once a contest is escalated, the fish switch to self assessment to decide how long to escalate. Our results show that individuals may adopt multiple assessment approaches in one contest; contest behaviours in different stages (where applicable) of a contest should be analysed separately to better elucidate animal contest assessment strategies.
KW - animal contests
KW - decision making
KW - fighting ability
KW - killifish
KW - Kryptolebias marmoratus
KW - mutual assessment
KW - self assessment
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U2 - 10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.10.017
DO - 10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.10.017
M3 - Article
VL - 75
SP - 1641
EP - 1649
JO - Animal Behaviour
JF - Animal Behaviour
SN - 0003-3472
IS - 5
ER -