Using ternary plots to investigate continuous variation in animal contest strategies

Briffa, Mark; Lane, Sarah; Chapin, Kenneth James; Peixoto, Paulo Enrique Cardoso

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.06.006

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…The evolution of personalities can be favoured when individuals repeatedly expressing the same behaviour decreases its cost [14]. However, genetic control of a trait could also be favoured if the environment is difficult to accurately assess, or if there are other costs to phenotypic plasticity [64], and accurate assessment is critical for making an appropriate investment in risky competitive behaviour [65,66]. Future investigation on this topic would at minimum need to include a parameter that controls an individual's degree of adjustment to local environmental conditions as well as a function that maps environmental conditions onto phenotype.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling migration in birds: competition's role in maintaining individual variation

Kikuchi

Reinhold

2021

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Animals exhibit extensive intraspecific variation in behaviour. Causes of such variation are less well understood. Here, we ask when competition leads to the maintenance of multiple behavioural strategies. We model variability using the timing of bird migration as an example. Birds often vary in when they return from non-breeding grounds to establish breeding territories. We assume that early-arriving birds (counting permanent residents as ‘earliest’) select the best territories. But arriving before the optimal (frequency-independent) breeding date incurs a fitness penalty. Using simulations, we find stable sets of return dates. When year-round residency is viable, the greatest between-individual variation occurs when a small proportion of permanent residents is favoured, and the rest of the population varies in their return times. However, when fitness losses due to year-round residency exceed the benefits of breeding in the worst territory, all individuals migrate, although their return dates often vary continuously. In that case, individual variation is inversely related to fitness risks and positively related to territory inequality. This result is applicable across many systems: when there is more to gain through competition, or when its risks are small, a diversity of individual strategies prevails. Additionally, stability can depend upon the distribution of resources.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling migration in birds: competition's role in maintaining individual variation

Kikuchi

Reinhold

2021

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…When rivals contest ownership of a limited resource the encounter does not necessarily involve dangerous fighting. Rather, many contests begin with, and may even exclusively in this way and from those that have, only one has been demonstrated to be a potential evolutionarily stable strategy (see Briffa et al, 2020;Parker, 2019;Leimar, 2019 characterized by striking ornamentation and colouration. Nevertheless, variation in the expression of such traits cannot (on its own) always adequately explain variation in mating success and mate choice operates in many species that lack ornaments entirely (e.g.…”

Section: Signallingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, investigating the dynamic aspects of agonistic signals and other agonistic behaviour has been an area of intense focus in studies of animal contests. This is likely due to a body of contest theory that makes ready predictions, primarily about rates of escalation (see Briffa et al, 2020 for a review). Thus, a typical approach for testing agonistic behaviour has been to stage real fights (i.e.…”

Section: Performance During Fights and Courtshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Skilful mating? Insights from animal contest research

Lane

Briffa

2022

Animal Behaviour

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“…According to theory, these costs can be managed by strategic decisions regarding the resource's value and the contestants' fighting ability, termed resource holding potential (RHP) [2,3]. Thus, while winning contests enables access to resources, contestants may adopt strategic decisions to modulate behaviour during contests to minimize the costs [1][2][3][4][5]. Most studies of strategic decisions tend to focus on either resource value or RHP assessment rules, determining strategies in terms of whether contest duration or outcome relies on one's own capacities or also on Open Access the opponent's, be it morphology or behaviour [2][3][4][5][6][7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complex strategies: an integrative analysis of contests in Siamese fighting fish

Kareklas¹,

Kunc²,

Arnott³

2022

BMC Zool

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Background Animals use contests to attain resources and employ strategic decisions to minimise contest costs. These decisions are defined by behavioural response to resource value and competitive ability, but remain poorly understood. This is because the two factors are typically studied separately. Also, their study relies on overgeneralised assumptions that (i) strategies are fixed, (ii) modulated by the motivation or drive to fight and (iii) used to manage costs proportional to the timing of the loser’s retreat. To address these problems, we adopt an integrative sequential analysis that incorporates competitive ability and resource value factors, to characterise territorial contest decisions in male Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens). Results Individuals exhibited a chronological organisation of behaviour, engaging opponents first with frontal display, then switching to lateral display before deciding to attack, and reserved retreats for later stages. Using asymmetries in retreats as a proxy for outcome, the likelihood of winning was found to be mostly dependent on display. However, resource and contest conditions affected initiation latency, display, attack and retreat, suggesting that strategic decisions influence all behaviour. Overall, sequential behaviour varied consistently with individual aggressiveness and resource-value factors, and increasingly with information on competitive ability collected during the contest. This enabled shifts in tactics, such as disadvantaged individuals responding first with aggression and later with submission. Motivation to continue fighting, after interruption by startle, was also adjusted to information gathered during the contest and progressively with energetic state. Two clusters of correlated behaviours were identified, cost-mitigation (display and retreat) and escalation (initiation and attack), but changes in motivation were associated only with cost mitigation. Conclusions Our findings contrast dominant assumptions that strategic decisions are fixed, controlled by motivational state and sufficiently described by outcome-dependent measures. We instead demonstrate that strategic decisions are complex, comprising functional changes in assessment, information use and motivational effects, which are not always inter-dependent.

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Using ternary plots to investigate continuous variation in animal contest strategies

Abstract: Using ternary plots to investigate continuous variation in animal contest strategies.Briffa, M

Cited by 9 publications

References 49 publications

Modelling migration in birds: competition's role in maintaining individual variation

Modelling migration in birds: competition's role in maintaining individual variation

Skilful mating? Insights from animal contest research

Complex strategies: an integrative analysis of contests in Siamese fighting fish

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