How does environment influence fighting? The effects of tidal flow on resource value and fighting costs in sea anemones

Palaoro, Alexandre V.; Velasque, Mariana; Santos, Sandro; Briffa, Mark

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2017.0011

Cited by 17 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…If individuals with similar body or weapon sizes were paired, we excluded that study from our analysis because pairing influences the relative importance of fighting ability on fight outcome (Palaoro & Briffa, 2017). Another source of confounding effect might come from resource value ( sensu (Arnott & Elwood, 2008)): individuals that value more a resource often fight harder regardless of their fighting ability (e.g., (Palaoro, Velasque, Santos, & Briffa, 2017)). To avoid any bias, we only included the treatments in which there was no evidence that individuals had different motivations to fight.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The importance of animal weapons and fighting style in animal contests

Palaoro

Peixoto

2020

Preprint

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SUMMARYIn many species that fight over resources, individuals use specialized structures to overpower their rivals (i.e. weapons). Despite their similar roles for contest settlement (i.e. affecting the winning chances), weapons are highly diverse morphological structures across species. However, the comprehension on how this diversity evolved is still open for debate.Unfortunately, most studies on how weapons are used during contests focus on size asymmetries between winners and losers. Although such information is important to understand, it does not provide much information regarding the mechanisms promoting weapon diversification. In addition, in many situations, the effect of weapon size on contest resolution may be confounded with the effect of body size due to allometric correlations.One way to decompose the relative importance of weapon and body size on contest outcome is to focus on the functional role of weapons. That is, investigate the function of the weapon during contests, and how size should affect its function.We propose two hypotheses that explicitly associate how weapon function may determine the relative importance of weapon and body size in affecting rivals during contests. One based on the internal morphology of the weapon – whether muscles are within the weapon or not – and the other based on fighting style – whether the weapon is used to injure the rival or not.To test our hypotheses, we developed a meta-analysis spanning 31 genera across the animal kingdom.We found that internal morphology and fighting style are important to determine the relative importance of weapon and body size on contest resolution. Weapons that do not have muscles within them (e.g., horns) affect more the chance of winning than weapons that have muscles within them (e.g., claws). Similarly, weapons used to throw/push rivals away (e.g., oversized mandibles) affect more the chance of winning than those used to make the rival flee (e.g., jaws).Overall, we have shown that weapon usage (i.e. weapon function) may affect weapon evolution in predictable ways: weapons without muscles and using for pushing may be selected for size, while muscled weapons used for injuring may be selected for strength.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The importance of animal weapons and fighting style in animal contests

Palaoro

Peixoto

2020

Preprint

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“…Furthermore, the way that this might be further impacted by extrinsic factors has been largely neglected, with only few recent examples (e.g. water-flow and oxygen-concentration effects on sea anemone territorial contests [ 11 , 12 ]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extrinsic stressors modulate resource evaluations: insights from territoriality under artificial noise

2021

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Background Competition is considered to rely on the value attributed to resources by animals, but the influence of extrinsic stressors on this value remains unexplored. Although natural or anthropogenic environmental stress often drives decreased competition, assumptions that this relies on resource devaluation are without formal evidence. According to theory, physiological or perceptual effects may influence contest behaviour directly, but motivational changes due to resource value are expected to manifest as behavioural adjustments only in interaction with attainment costs and resource benefits. Thus, we hypothesise that stressor-induced resource devaluations will impose greater effects when attainment costs are high, but not when resource benefits are higher. Noise may elicit such effects because it impacts the acoustic environment and imposes physiological and behavioural costs to animals. Therefore, we manipulated the acoustic environment using playbacks of artificial noise to test our hypotheses in the territorial male Siamese fighting fish, Betta splendens. Results Compared to a no-playback control, noise reduced defense motivation only when territory owners faced comparatively bigger opponents that impose greater injury costs, but not when territories also contained bubble nests that offer reproductive benefits. In turn, nest-size decreases were noted only after contests under noise treatment, but temporal nest-size changes relied on cross-contest variation in noise and comparative opponent size. Thus, the combined effects of noise are conditional on added attainment costs and offset by exceeding resource benefits. Conclusion Our findings provide support for the hypothesised modulation of resource value under extrinsic stress and suggest implications for competition under increasing anthropogenic activity.

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“…Environmental variation may affect the perceived costs and benefits of signals and developmental plasticity has been suggested as a mechanism that breaks down signal reliability (Ingleby et al, 2010;Hunt & Hosken, 2014). Although contest behaviour has evolved in fluctuating natural environments, few studies have considered the effect of different developmental environments on contest behaviour later in life (Royle et al, 2005;Palaoro et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predatory developmental environments shape loser behaviour in animal contests

Meuthen

Bakker

Thünken

2019

Behav.

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High predation risk during development induces phenotypic changes in animals. However, little is known about how these plastic responses affect signalling and competitiveness during contests. Herein, we have studied the consequences of anti-predator plasticity during the intra-sexual competition of Pelvicachromis taeniatus, a cichlid fish with mutual mate choice. We staged contests between adult size-matched siblings of the same sex derived from different environments: one fish was regularly exposed to conspecific alarm cues since the larval stage (simulating predator presence), the other fish to control conditions. Rearing environment did not affect the winner of contests or total aggression within a fight. However, contest behaviour differed between treatments. The effects were especially pronounced in alarm cue-exposed fish that lost a contest: they generally displayed lower aggression than winners but also lower aggression than losers of the control treatment. Thus, perceived predator presence modulates intra-sexual competition behaviour by increasing the costs associated with fighting.

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How does environment influence fighting? The effects of tidal flow on resource value and fighting costs in sea anemones

Cited by 17 publications

References 15 publications

The importance of animal weapons and fighting style in animal contests

The importance of animal weapons and fighting style in animal contests

Extrinsic stressors modulate resource evaluations: insights from territoriality under artificial noise

Predatory developmental environments shape loser behaviour in animal contests

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