Lateralisation in agonistic encounters: do mirror tests reflect aggressive behaviour? A study on a West African cichlid

Scherer, Ulrike; Buck, Michael; Schuett, Wiebke

doi:10.1111/jfb.13069

Cited by 20 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Interestingly, we did not detect a general effect of the opponent's behaviour on the focal fish's behaviour, which is contrary to our previous finding with this same model species of fish (Scherer et al., ). Aggressive behaviour of live stimulus males was relatively similar (i.e.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Scherer et al. () have shown that the aggressive behaviour of P. pulcher males covaries positively with an opponent's aggressiveness. Similarly, the difference in activity between live and animation trials could be caused by differences in the activity of live vs. animated opponents.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Aggressive behaviour was assessed manually for all focal and stimulus fish from the videos taken from the side. Following Riebli et al (2011) and Scherer, Buck, and Schuett (2016), we recorded the number of all restrained (fast approach towards the opponent, frontal display, left lateral display, right lateral display, s-shaped body bending) and overt (bites, i.e. mouth contact with aquarium glass wall in front of opponent) aggressive behaviours for 10 min, starting 2 min after the beginning of the video playback.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Validation of 2D‐animated pictures as an investigative tool in the behavioural sciences: A case study with a West African cichlid fish,Pelvicachromis pulcher

Scherer¹,

Godin

Schuett³

2017

Ethology

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Virtual stimuli represent an increasingly popular tool in the study of animal behaviour. Modern techniques have the potential to simplify and improve traditional experiments using live stimuli. However, the increasing availability of diverse techniques is associated with problems and limitations. Although many new methods have been developed, their validation remains largely untested. In the present study, we therefore performed two experiments to test whether 2‐D animations of predators and conspecifics elicit biologically appropriate behavioural responses in male rainbow kribs, Pelvicachromis pulcher. Individual responses towards a sympatric natural fish predator, Parachanna obscura, were tested using live predators and still colour photographs, animated using PowerPoint©. Compared to control trials (empty aquarium and white computer screen, respectively), individuals decreased their activity in response to both live and animated predators. We found no difference in activity between live and animation trials. Further, we tested individual aggression (frequency of aggressive behaviours) exhibited towards live and animated conspecifics. Individual aggressive behaviours shown towards live and animated conspecifics were positively correlated. Moreover, an individual's mean distance towards the opponent was a suitable proxy for individual aggression permitting the facilitation and standardisation of an individual's aggression through the use of a tracking software compared with the more laborious, traditional manual assessment. Our results show that simple, inexpensive animation techniques have the potential to provide an easy‐to‐apply and useful technological advance in animal behaviour research.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Validation of 2D‐animated pictures as an investigative tool in the behavioural sciences: A case study with a West African cichlid fish,Pelvicachromis pulcher

Scherer¹,

Godin

Schuett³

2017

Ethology

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“…A recent study highlighted the effectiveness of mirror experiments for measuring the intensity of the aggressive behavior in lizards, demonstrating that they do not show self-recognition and attack the mirror image as a true "rival" . Mirror tests have the great advantage of allowing the experimenters to control for the effect of asymmetries in size and residence/motivation, as well as color signal, since each individual can be acclimated in one cage until it becomes resident before facing an intruder having the same size and giving a positive feedback during aggressive contests (Scherer et al 2016). In this study, we used mirrors to assess if aggression varies among morph after removing the main determinants of contest outcome in this species (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Close encounters of the three morphs: does color affect aggression in a polymorphic lizard?

Scali¹,

Sacchi

Coladonato

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Color polymorphism is genetically controlled and the process generating and maintaining morphs can affect speciation and/or extinction rates. Competition and aggression among morphs can contribute to polymorphism maintenance and color badges are useful signals in intraspecific communication, because they convey information about alternative strategies and avoid unnecessary conflicts. This could lead to an uneven spatial distribution of morphs in a population, because the local frequency of each morph establishes the intensity of the competition in that neighborhood, and then the fitness of each male. We used a polymorphic lizard, Podarcis muralis, to assess if aggression varies among morphs under two contrasting hypotheses: a heteromorphic vs. a homomorphic aggression. We used laboratory mirror tests after lizard color manipulation and we verified the results consistency with the analysis of the spatial distribution of morphs in a wild population. Both the experiments confirmed that aggression is morph-specific and notably homomorphic. The adoption of behavioral alternative strategies that minimize risks and costs of unwanted conflicts could facilitate the stable coexistence of the phenotypes and reduce the resource competition. A bias in aggression to like-coloured males would advantage rarer morph, which would suffer less harassment by common morphs and obtain a fitness advantage. This process would be negatively-frequency-dependent and would stabilize polymorphism in the populations, possibly leading to sympatric speciation.

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“…However, the assumption that such mirror tests reliably reflect the true aggressive propensity of an individual have recently been challenged on several grounds: neurobiological studies showed that a mirror images elicit different patterns of gene expression than a live conspecific in the brains of Burton's mouthbrooder ( Astatotilapia burtoni ) (Desjardins & Fernald, ) and zebrafish (Oliveira et al, ). Furthermore, recent studies on different cichlid fishes (e.g., three sympatric lamprologine cichlid species from Lake Tanganyika ( N. pulcher , Lepidiolamprologus elongatus , Telmatochromis vittatus ); two African riverine cichlids ( A. burtoni , Pelvicachromis pulcher ) and South American convict cichlids ( Amatitlania nigrofasciata ) revealed that mirror images elicit meaningful responses only in some of them, but not in others (Balzarini et al, ; Desjardins & Fernald, ; Elwood, Stoilova, McDonnell, Earley, & Arnott, ; Scherer, Buck, & Schuett, ). Thinking about the ways different fish species communicate during aggressive encounters will help explain such contrasting results.…”

Section: Practical and Welfare Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aggressive communication in aquatic environments

Frommen

2019

Functional Ecology

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1. Aggressive interactions are ubiquitous among animals. They are either directed towards heterospecifics, like predators or competitors, or conspecifics. During intraspecific encounters, aggression often serves to establish hierarchies within the social group. Thus, in order to understand the mechanisms mediating social organization, it is important to comprehend the escalation and avoidance of aggressive behaviour.2. Overt aggressive interactions are costly not only in terms of increased risk of injury or death, but also due to opportunity costs and energy expenditure. In order to reduce these costs, animals are expected to communicate their strength and aggressive motivation prior to fights. For this purpose, they use different means of communication in various sensory modalities, that is visual, acoustic, chemical, mechanosensory and electric cues. These different modalities can convey different or similar information, underlining the importance of understanding the multimodal communication of aggression.3. Thus far, most studies on signalling during aggressive encounters have focussed on visual or acoustic cues, most likely as these are the two modalities predominantly used by humans. However, depending on the species' ecology, visual or acoustic cues might play a minor role for many species. Especially in aquatic systems, visual communication is often hampered due to high levels of turbidity or limited light conditions. Here, alternative modalities such as chemical, mechanical or electrical cues are expected to play a prominent role. 4. In this review, I provide an overview of different modalities used during aggressive communication in aquatic organisms. I highlight the importance of studying the role of multimodal communication during aggressive encounters in general and discuss the importance of understanding aquatic communication in the light of conservation and animal welfare issues. K E Y W O R D S acoustic cues, aggression, chemical cues, contest theory, electric cues, mechanosensory cues, multimodal communication, visual cues | 365 Functional Ecology FROMMEN 1 | INTRODUC TI ON Most interactions between individuals involve some form of communication. Animals communicate when coordinating cooperative behaviours, choosing a mating partner, raising their offspring or avoiding predators. Understanding animal communication is thus crucial to understand animal behaviour in general. Consequently, animal communication has become a central topic in behavioural research within the last decades, witnessed by the publication of considerable numbers of scientific studies and textbooks focussing on different facets of this fascinating topic, ranging from the physiological foundations to the evolutionary consequences of animal communication (e.g., Bradbury & Vehrencamp, 1998; Maynard Smith & Harper, 2003; Stevens, 2013). Given the ubiquitous importance of animal communication in multifarious fields of research, it is not astonishing that there exists a huge variety of different definitions of terms. Box 1 provides ...

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Lateralisation in agonistic encounters: do mirror tests reflect aggressive behaviour? A study on a West African cichlid

Cited by 20 publications

References 25 publications

Validation of 2D‐animated pictures as an investigative tool in the behavioural sciences: A case study with a West African cichlid fish,Pelvicachromis pulcher

Validation of 2D‐animated pictures as an investigative tool in the behavioural sciences: A case study with a West African cichlid fish,Pelvicachromis pulcher

Close encounters of the three morphs: does color affect aggression in a polymorphic lizard?

Aggressive communication in aquatic environments

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