A positive relationship between ownership and contest success is widespread among territorial butterflies. We tested the hypothesis that owners win simply because they have a longer experience occupying a given territory than do intruders in territorial butterflies. Using the lycaenid butterfly Chrysozephyrus smaragdinus, we staged contests between two males that had experienced different residency periods at the same contested territory, similar to owners and intruders in natural contests. We found that males that had occupied the contested territory for a longer period (a day) always defeated the shorter occupancy males (15 min). Therefore, residency period plays a key role in settling territorial contests. As residency confers advantages in a time‐dependent manner, the mechanism of owner dominance could be an increase in motivation to fight as local familiarity increases. Moreover, this result predicts a population‐level territorial dynamics. If residency period per se confers advantages in each contest, males arriving at a territory early in their adult season should acquire territorial dominance because they can remain there for a certain period with only a few rivals; late‐appearing males do not have this advantage. As predicted, we found that males appearing at territory sites early in the season were more likely to hold their territories. This finding provides new evidence for the evolution of protandry in butterflies.
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