Aggressive Behaviour in Fish: Integrating Information about Contest Costs

Abstract

As the introductory chapter to the first edition of this book (Brown et al. 2006) noted, fish behaviour has long been viewed as stereotyped and not strongly influenced by context or experience. The recognition that experience and learning can influence fish behaviour coupled with observations of considerable variation in behaviour within and between individuals has led to an increasing awareness of the complexity of fish behaviour. Behavioural ecologists are interested in understanding the causes and effects of behavioural variation within individuals (e.g. over time), among individuals of a population and among populations. These causes and effects are related to the benefits and costs of the behaviour that influence the evolutionary success (fitness) of the individual.Over 40 years ago Tinbergen (1963) noted that behavioural variation could be examined from multiple perspectives. This variation could result, for example, from differences within and among individuals in genetics, age, size, sex, developmental history and morphological and physiological constraints. The variation could also be related to environmental situations encountered by an individual in the present or past and could result from the individual's past experiences. Behavioural variation presumably results from how each of these factors influences the benefits and costs of behaviour at a particular time and place. However, a more comprehensive understanding of behavioural variation will emerge only by integrating these different perspectives.Experiences could influence variables such as size, developmental history and physiological state that are predicted or observed to lead to behavioural differences. Experiences could also influence the individual's perception of its current environmental situation. For example, a fish that recently encountered a predator in a particular location may be less likely to engage in intense aggressive behaviour (Brick 1998(Brick , 1999 and spend more time scanning for potential predators than another fish at the same place that has never encountered a predator there.

The use of multiple sources of social information in contest behavior: testing the social cognitive abilities of a cichlid fish

“…Our third experiment clearly showed that winner/loser effects do not operate in this species. In our fourth experiment, the operation of social eavesdropping alone was ruled out, as we observed no differences in the responses of the observing fish against winner of an observed contest (Oliveira et al, 1998;Hsu et al, 2006Hsu et al, , 2011. In Experiment 5, the focal male (B), which had no direct contact with the winning male (C) behaved submissively against C in test phase, suggesting transitive inference by the focal male.…”

“…Any effects of physical characteristics on competition outcomes can also be ruled out because fish were of equal size and sex, and there are no other phenotypic indicators of dominance in this species (e.g., "status badges"; Møller, 1987;Beani and Turillazzi, 1999). Thus, our fifth experiment shows that male J. transcriptus infer the relative social status of an unknown stranger without physical interaction, using transitive inference (Whitehouse, 1997;Hsu et al, 2006Hsu et al, , 2011Oliveira et al, 2009). …”

“…Experiment 4 was conducted to test whether fish that were allowed to observe fighting contests of other fish altered their behavior when they engaged those fish in subsequent fighting contests (eavesdropping hypothesis; Oliveira et al, 1998;Hsu et al, 2006Hsu et al, , 2011. An observer fish C (in a separate observer tank) was allowed to observe interactions between two fish in an arena tank for 30 min (pre-phase I in Figure 2D).…”

“…While transitive inference is typically observed in animals with highly organized societies, the pattern of co-occurrence of other cognitive abilities such as social eavesdropping and winner/loser effects is not well understood (Hsu et al, 2006(Hsu et al, , 2011. Despite this, analyses of the contributions of different components of cognition are rare, with studies most often focussing on a single component of cognitive ability (Hsu et al, 2011).…”

“…While the general cognitive abilities of fish are not fully understood, there are reports of cognitive capacity in some fish that mirror those in higher vertebrates, e.g., social eavesdropping, individual recognition and winner/loser effects (Hsu et al, 2006(Hsu et al, , 2011Alfieri and Dugatkin, 2011;. The social intelligence hypothesis predicts that highly increased cognitive ability, e.g., recognizing group members and transitive inference will be favored in highly organized, large societies (Byrne and Whiten, 1988;Bshary et al, 2002;Bond et al, 2003;Bshary, 2011).…”