Previous mating experience increases fighting success during male-male contests in the hermit crab Pagurus nigrofascia

Abstract

13 14Prior social experience often affects subsequent competitive interactions and their outcomes. 15 Although the effects of prior contest experience have been widely examined, effects of mating 16 experience remain less well examined. We examined, in males of the hermit crab Pagurus 17 nigrofascia, whether males successively copulated with more than one female, and whether 18 males with copulation experience differed in their subsequent contest behaviors and probability 19 of winning in male-male contests compared to males without copulation experience. The 20 copulation experience of intruders was manipulated and the contest behaviors compared 21 between mated and unmated groups. Males mated with several females regardless of the male 22 body size. Compared with unmated intruders, intruders with mating experience succeeded 23 more often in taking over females and did so within a shorter period particularly when the 24 male-male contests occurred over females with a long time to molt. These results suggest that 25 mated males of P. nigrofascia overestimate the female quality and/or enhance the competitive 26 performance similar to the 'winner effect' that is a positive feedback from prior winning 27 experience to future contests. 28 29

Motor pattern during fights in the hermit crab Pagurus bernhardus : evidence for the role of skill in animal contests

“…The benefits of experience can even accrue across different contexts. In the hermit crab P. nigrofascia prior experience of copulation increases the chance of success in subsequent agonistic encounters (Yasuda, Matsuo, & Wada, 2015).…”

Sexual Dimorphism and Allometric Growth in the Enigmatic Pygmy Crab Petramithrax Pygmaeus (Bell, 1836) (Decapoda: Brachyura: Mithracidae), with a Formal Test of Rensch’s Rule in Spider Crabs (Superfamily Majoidea)

“…It could be argued that our failure to support Rench's rule in the studied spider crabs is due to the absence of strong agonistic interactions among males when competing for access to receptive females (i.e., a violation of a relevant assumption). Nonetheless, malemale competition is a well-known process in crustaceans, including spider crabs (Diesel, 1991;Sneddon et al, 1997;Yasuda et al, 2015). Furthermore, female preference for larger males have been well demonstrated in this group as well (Corgos et al, 2006;Murai and Blackwell, 2006).…”

Male size-dependent dominance for burrow holding in the semiterrestrial crab Neohelice granulata: multiple tactics used by intermediate-sized males

“…Based on game theory and energy cost models (Parker 1974;Maynard Smith 1979;Enquist and Leimar 1987;Riechert 1988), the likelihood of engaging and expending energy in an agonistic interaction will depend on the value of the resource and the probability of success (Riechert 1988;Stuart-Fox 2006). Dominance hierarchies may predict contest outcomes and may be determined by experience (Dugatkin 1997;Hsu and Wolf 1999;Yasuda et al 2014Yasuda et al , 2015; by differences in morphological structures, pheromones, and size (e.g., Rabeni 1985;Pavey and Fielder 1996;Moore and Moore 1999;Kasumovic et al 2010;Hardy and Briffa 2013); and by other conditionCommunicated by T. Breithaupt dependent characteristics due to age or physiological state (see Dugatkin and Reeve 1998). In crustaceans, the maintenance of dominance hierarchies is determined largely by size (Jachowski 1974;Huntingford et al 1995;Sato and Nagayama 2011); individuals rarely engage in costly fights and contests are generally resolved quickly by one individual, usually the smaller retreating (Warner 1977).…”