Size, species and audience type influence heterospecific female–female competition

A community context for aggression? Multi‐species audience effects on territorial aggression in two species of Paridae

“…The role that aggression plays in structuring social groups and communities is relatively well known (Mac Nally & Timewell, 2005; Peiman & Robinson, 2010). However, the community richness context as it affects aggression among individuals is just beginning to be explored in animals (Kok et al., 2016; Makowicz et al., 2020), and studies of heterospecific audience effects on aggression are exceedingly rare (Thanh et al., 2005). This is due primarily to historical development of the topic, beginning with human sociology and then primarily sexual selection work animals; hence, the vast majority of studies on audience effects is limited to the conspecific context.…”

Foundations and Frontiers in Mate Choice Review of: Rosenthal, G. 2017. Mate Choice: The Evolution of Sexual Decision Making from Microbes to Humans. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, NJ, 648 pp. ISBN: 978‐0‐691‐15067‐3; $US55.00 HB

“…Similarly, the presence of courters can affect chooser aggression toward conspecifics and/or heterospecifics (Makowicz et al. 2020) or signal their current mating status (Ota et al. 2018).…”

“…For instance, an "audience" of potential competitors can influence a chooser's preference (Plath et al 2008), or the intensity of fights among courters (Dzieweczynski et al 2005). Similarly, the presence of courters can affect chooser aggression toward conspecifics and/or heterospecifics (Makowicz et al 2020) or signal their current mating status (Ota et al 2018). To our knowledge, current work on audience effects has considered networks of only three or four individuals.…”

Cascading indirect genetic effects in a clonal vertebrate

“…This accumulation of genetic diversity in a gynogenetic species produces groups in which social interactions occur on multiple levels: within-clone interactions, among-clone interactions, and interspecies interactions between Amazons and their sexual hosts. While the interactions between Amazons and their hosts have been the focus of many investigations over the past forty years [e.g., 33,[38][39][40][41], little attention has focused on the social interactions within [42] and among the different clonal lineages; however, previous research does suggest that clonal lineages vary in the social behaviors [43].…”

“…One of the first studies to investigate social behaviors among different clones reported that females could distinguish between lineages, associate preferentially with fish of their own lineage, and were more aggressive toward unrelated clones [43]. Other studies have reported that different features of the social environment can influence social behavior, especially aggression, within and among clonal lineages, including early dominance interactions [47] and the degree of familiarity among individuals [42,48]. These data suggest that individual behavior depends in part on the clonal composition of the social environment; that is, IGE likely regulate phenotypic variation and social dynamics in natural populations.…”