An Evolutionary View on Conflict Escalation in Team Sports Competitions

Gregarious mammals interact to varying degrees and in a variety of ways with neighboring groups. Since navigating this wider social environment via conventional means (social knowledge) may be challenging, we hypothesize that between-group socio-spatial dynamics have exerted strong selection on phenotypic markers of individual identity, quality, and competitive ability. Ornaments are sexually selected decorative traits with far-reaching signaling potential. Here, we examined the links between sexual dimorphism in ornamentation, home range use and encounter rates across 144 primate species in a Bayesian framework. We show that home range overlap (shared space among neighbors), an indicator of the complexity of between-group interactions (but not necessarily male-male competition), is positively associated with dimorphism in ornamentation. We find no clear effect for between-group encounter rates. We also find that inter-group interactions were less agonistic when there was greater home range overlap. Taken together, these findings indicate that ornaments play a hitherto underappreciated role in signaling to conspecifics outside the realms of their home groups.

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An Evolutionary View on Conflict Escalation in Team Sports Competitions

Abstract: It has been theorized that escalated aggression in animal intergroup

Cited by 4 publications

References 11 publications

Low familiarity and similar ‘group strength’ between opponents increase the intensity of intergroup interactions in mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei)

Low familiarity and similar ‘group strength’ between opponents increase the intensity of intergroup interactions in mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei)

Dynamics of Intergroup Relationships in Primates: Introduction to the Special Issue

The role of between-group signaling in the evolution of primate ornamentation

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