Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction to animal contests
- 2 Dyadic contests: modelling fights between two individuals
- 3 Models of group or multi-party contests
- 4 Analysis of animal contest data
- 5 Contests in crustaceans: assessments, decisions and their underlying mechanisms
- 6 Aggression in spiders
- 7 Contest behaviour in butterflies: fighting without weapons
- 8 Hymenopteran contests and agonistic behaviour
- 9 Horns and the role of development in the evolution of beetle contests
- 10 Contest behaviour in fishes
- 11 Contests in amphibians
- 12 Lizards and other reptiles as model systems for the study of contest behaviour
- 13 Bird contests: from hatching to fertilisation
- 14 Contest behaviour in ungulates
- 15 Human contests: evolutionary theory and the analysis of interstate war
- 16 Prospects for animal contests
- Index
- References
10 - Contest behaviour in fishes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction to animal contests
- 2 Dyadic contests: modelling fights between two individuals
- 3 Models of group or multi-party contests
- 4 Analysis of animal contest data
- 5 Contests in crustaceans: assessments, decisions and their underlying mechanisms
- 6 Aggression in spiders
- 7 Contest behaviour in butterflies: fighting without weapons
- 8 Hymenopteran contests and agonistic behaviour
- 9 Horns and the role of development in the evolution of beetle contests
- 10 Contest behaviour in fishes
- 11 Contests in amphibians
- 12 Lizards and other reptiles as model systems for the study of contest behaviour
- 13 Bird contests: from hatching to fertilisation
- 14 Contest behaviour in ungulates
- 15 Human contests: evolutionary theory and the analysis of interstate war
- 16 Prospects for animal contests
- Index
- References
Summary
Summary
Fishes have been central to our understanding of many of the major aspects of contest behaviour, extending from Tinbergen's early work on social releasers to some of the initial tests of assessment models and now to the neuroendocrine and genomic regulation of aggression and dominance. In this chapter, we focus on some exciting areas of research in fish contest behaviour that promise to shed light on the multidimensionality of resource holding potential (RHP), sex- and size-related differences in decision-making during contests, whole-organism performance and fight outcomes, selection and potential constraints on contest behaviour; and the role of developmental plasticity in driving RHP-related phenotypic variation. We have developed this chapter more as a prospectus than a review, using the concrete foundation laid down by numerous researchers to highlight areas that could be of great import in the years to come. This approach, of course, leaves us with many unanswered questions that we hope will serve as a springboard for rigorous hypothesis testing using an integrative framework for fish contest behaviour.
Introduction
The formal study of fish aggression has a long and prolific history dating back at least 70 years to a curious observation of three-spined sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus, responding intensely to a red postal truck that would occasionally pass the window of Niko Tinbergen's laboratory (Kruuk 2003, p. 87). What triggered aggression in the sticklebacks, of course, was not the truck but rather the colour red, a trait that males boast on their throat and ventral surface during the breeding season (ter Pelwijk & Tinbergen 1937), and that might indicate an imminent threat to a resident male's territory (Bolyard & Rowland 1996). Tinbergen and his contemporaries subsequently made significant efforts to identify behavioural, morphological and chromatic ‘releasers’ of aggression (e.g. Seitz 1940, Tinbergen 1948 and references in Earley et al. 2000).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Animal Contests , pp. 199 - 227Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013
References
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