Social experience and the formation of dominance relationships in the pumpkinseed sunfish, Lepomis gibbosus

Payette

Goulet

1996

Behav

113

This work was funded by an operating grant from the NSERC of Canada to JPB. SummaryThe relative contribution of asymmetries in prior experience, size, and prior residency to the determination of dyadic dominance between unacquainted individuals was examined using pairs of green swordtail fish, Xiphophorus helleri. Four types of encounters were staged between an intruder and a smaller resident: (1) both had experienced prior victory; (2) both had experienced prior defeat; (3) the intruder had experienced prior victory and the resident prior defeat; and (4) the intruder had experienced prior defeat and the resident prior victory. In a fifth condition in which two intruders met, one was a prior subordinate and the other a prior dominant smaller in size than its opponent. In all these encounters, the superiority in lateral surface of one fish varied between 0 to 30% over that of its opponent. Results showed that (1) when size differences between contestants were within the range of 0-10% and there was an asymmetry in prior social experience, conflicts were essentially resolved according to prior experience with prior winners systematically defeating prior losers; (2) prior residency of 3 hours was an advantage only when both opponents had experienced prior defeat before meeting and when size asymmetries were small (e.g. <20%). It was not an advantage between prior winners or between a prior winner and a prior loser; (3) when large size asymmetries existed (e.g. 20-30%), size uniquely determined dominance outcome and nullified other advantages or disadvantages due to prior social experience and prior residency; and (4) at intermediate levels of size asymmetries (e.g. 10-20%), size partially cancelled any advantage due to a prior victory, and gradually beacme the most important factor in accounting for victories.

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

“…Amongst experiential factors, prior dominance experience and residency are of interest here. Recent prior dominance experience seems to account for an increase in RHP while recent subordination experience seems to decrease it (Frey & Miller, 1972;Zayan, 1975a;Francis, 1983;Beaugrand & Zayan, 1985;Beacham & Newman, 1987).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Conflict Outcome in Male Green Swordtail Fish Dyads (Xiphophorus Helleri): Interaction of Body Size, Prior Dominance/Subordination Experience, and Prior Residency

Payette

Goulet

1996

Behav

113

“…Among experiential factors, prior dominance experience appears to account for the increase in propensity to dominate again, while recent subordination experience seems to produce the counter effect (Francis, 1983;Beaugrand and Zayan, 1985;Beacham and Newman, 1987). Usually, there are two ways of obtaining dominants and subordinates to test for the effect of recent experience upon ulterior dominance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selecting dominants and subordinates at conflict outcome can confound the effects of prior dominance or subordination experience

Bégin

Zayan³

1996

Behavioural Processes

Individuals with a previous experience of dominance are likely to be dominants in further encounters. To test this effect, individuals with a previous experience of dominance are used for the experiments. One way to obtain such individuals is to let opponents «self-select»: encounters between pairs of more or less equivalent opponents are staged and one selects ex post facto the dominant and subordinate from the ensuing conflict. This paper formally shows that the selection of dominant and subordinate animals modifies the dominance probability functions of the two corresponding sub-samples of animals. As a result, the propensity of previous winners to win again and of previous losers to repeat their loss can be attributed to this artefact rather than to prior social experience. A simulation confirms the results of the theoretical analysis. This result has serious methodological implications. When one relies solely on selection to obtain winners and losers, equiprobability is no longer the appropriate null hypothesis against which prior social experience effects have to be tested. To clearly demonstrate the effect of dominance experience, one must show that prior winners defeat neutral opponents in at least of all cases; reciprocally, to show that prior subordinate experience plays a role, prior losers must win in less than of all fights against neutral opponents; finally, to conclude that a combined effect of the two kinds of prior experience is in operation, one must obtain that prior winners defeat prior losers in more than 83% of all planned conflicts. The present result does not imply that experience effects are not at work when the selection procedure is used, but that the procedure used to show their effects is inadequate because effects of experience on a subsequent encounter are confounded with those introduced by statistical selection.

“…Differences in prior experience associated with the site of residence can also be confounded with that of familiarity (Bronstein, 1987). It is well known that prior victory increases chances to win again while prior defeat increases that of future defeat in fish (Francis, 1983;Frey and Miller, 1972;Thinès and Heuts, 1968;Beaugrand and Zayan, 1985;Beacham and Newman, 1987), mouse (Brain and Kamal, 1989;Brain and Parmigiani, 1990) and in hens (Ginsburg and Allee, 1942;Ratner, 1961;Zayan, 1987). These effects were demonstrated in tests where prior winners and prior losers were introduced in an alien and neutral meeting place; prior winners systematically defeated prior losers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of prior victory or defeat in the same site as that of subsequent encounter on the determination of dyadic dominance in the domestic hen

Cloutier

Laguë

1995

Behavioural Processes

We examined the effect of prior victory or defeat in the same site as that of a subsequent encounter on the outcome of dyadic encounter of domestic hens by placing them in two situations: In the first set of dyads, two unacquainted hens having experienced prior victory were introduced in the site where one had experienced victory. In the second set, two unacquainted hens having experienced defeat were introduced in the site where one had recently lost. Results indicate that victories are equally shared between individuals with prior victory experiences, while familiarity with the meeting site did not give any advantage. However, hens having previously lost were disadvantaged when the encounter occurred in the same site as that of their prior defeat. This demonstrates that previous social experience in a site is more important on the outcome of subsequent encounters for losers than winners. Losers seem to associate the site with the stressful effect of losing or being more easily dominated.