scholarly journals Electric fish use electrocommunication signals to fine tune relative dominance and access to resources

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Till Raab ◽  
Sercan Bayezit ◽  
Saskia Erdle ◽  
Jan Benda
Keyword(s):  
Electric Fish ◽  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Dominance Rank ◽  
Relative Size ◽  
Access To Resources ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Communication Signals ◽  
Relative Dominance ◽  
Gymnotiform Fish ◽  
Fine Tune

AbstractSocial animals establish dominance hierarchies to regulate access to resources. Although communication signals could reduce costs in negotiating dominance, their detailed role and emergence in non-mammalian vertebrates is not well researched. We tracked electrocommunication signals and agonistic behaviors of the gymnotiform fish Apteronotus leptorhynchus in staged competition experiments. Subordinates emitted the majority of so called “rises” in dependence on the competitor’s relative size and sex. Rises provoked ritualized biting or chasing behaviors by dominant fish. Already after 25 minutes losers were accurately predictable based on rise numbers, but they continued to emit rises. We suggest the interplay between communication and aggression to fine tune relative dominance without questioning dominance rank. This communication system regulates the skewness of access to resources within a dominance hierarchy and allows A. leptorhynchus to populate neotropical rivers with high abundances.

The establishment and maintenance of dominance hierarchies

2022 ◽  
Vol 377 (1845) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Tibbetts ◽  
Juanita Pardo-Sanchez ◽  
Chloe Weise
Keyword(s):  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Dominance Rank ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Dominance Relationships ◽  
Hierarchy Formation ◽  
Behavioural Dynamics ◽  
Self Organizing

Animal groups are often organized hierarchically, with dominant individuals gaining priority access to resources and reproduction over subordinate individuals. Initial dominance hierarchy formation may be influenced by multiple interacting factors, including an animal's individual attributes, conventions and self-organizing social dynamics. After establishment, hierarchies are typically maintained over the long-term because individuals save time, energy and reduce the risk of injury by recognizing and abiding by established dominance relationships. A separate set of behaviours are used to maintain dominance relationships within groups, including behaviours that stabilize ranks (punishment, threats, behavioural asymmetry), as well as signals that provide information about dominance rank (individual identity signals, signals of dominance). In this review, we describe the behaviours used to establish and maintain dominance hierarchies across different taxa and types of societies. We also review opportunities for future research including: testing how self-organizing behavioural dynamics interact with other factors to mediate dominance hierarchy formation, measuring the long-term stability of social hierarchies and the factors that disrupt hierarchy stability, incorporating phenotypic plasticity into our understanding of the behavioural dynamics of hierarchies and considering how cognition coevolves with the behaviours used to establish and maintain hierarchies. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The centennial of the pecking order: current state and future prospects for the study of dominance hierarchies’.

Ranking of Feeding Positions by Drift-Feeding Arctic Grayling (Thymallus arcticus) in Dominance Hierarchies

1992 ◽  
Vol 49 (10) ◽  
pp. 1994-1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas F. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Dominance Rank ◽  
Mountain Stream ◽  
Fish Length ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Arctic Grayling ◽  
Perfect Correlation ◽  
Removal Experiments ◽  
Thymallus Arcticus

Field experiments in the pools of a mountain stream demonstrate that Arctic grayling (Thymallus arcticus) rank feeding positions according to desirability and that competition sorts fish so that the dominance rank of each individual matches the rank desirability of its position. Groups containing the same number of fish always occupied the same set of positions, and positions were added (in reverse order of desirability) as group size was increased; these results show that fish ranked positions. There was an almost perfect correlation between the dominance rank (measured as fish length) of each fish and the rank desirability of its position, suggesting that competition sorts fish among positions. This conclusion was strengthened by the results of sequential removal experiments in which the dominant fish was removed at the end of each day. After each removal the remaining fish almost always moved into the positions previously occupied by fish immediately above them in the dominance hierarchy.

scholarly journals Electrocommunication signals indicate motivation to compete during dyadic interactions of an electric fish

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Till Raab ◽  
Sercan Bayezit ◽  
Saskia Erdle ◽  
Jan Benda
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Electric Fish ◽  
Relative Size ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Agonistic Interactions ◽  
Apteronotus Leptorhynchus ◽  
Communication Signals ◽  
Detailed Evaluation ◽  
Physical Attributes ◽  
Competition Behavior

Animals across species compete for limited resources. While in some species competition behavior is solely based on own abilities, others assess their opponents to facilitate these interactions. Using cues and communication signals, contestants gather information about their opponent, adjust their behavior accordingly, and can thereby avoid high costs of escalating fights. We tracked electrocommunication signals, in particular “rises”, and agonistic behaviors of the gymnotiform electric fish Apteronotus leptorhynchus instaged competition experiments. A larger body-size relative to the opponent was the sole significant predictor for winners. Sex and the frequency of the continuously emitted electric field were only mildly influencing competition outcome. In males, correlations of body-size and winning were stronger than in females and, especially when losing against females, communication and agonistic interactions were enhanced, hinting towards males being more motivated to compete. Fish that lost competitions emitted the majority of rises, whereby their quantity depended on the competitors’ relative size and sex. The emission of rises was costly since it provoked ritualized biting or chasing behaviors by the other fish. Despite winners being accurately predictable based on rise numbers already after the initial 25 minutes, losers continued to emit rises. The number of rises emitted by losers and the duration of chasing behaviors depended in similar ways on physical attributes of contestants. The detailed evaluation of these correlations hint towards A. leptorhynchus adjusting their competition behavior according to mutual assessment, where rises could signal a loser's motivation to continue assessment through ritualized fighting.

Cortisol responsiveness and dominance rank, but not baseline cortisol level, are repeatable traits in adult female guinea pigs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor Lynne Rystrom ◽  
Romy C. Prawitt ◽  
S. Helene Richter ◽  
Norbert Sachser ◽  
Sylvia Kaiser
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Adult Female ◽  
Guinea Pigs ◽  
Dominance Rank ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Current State ◽  
Baseline Cortisol ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Endocrine Mechanism ◽  
Males And Females

Social interactions among group members often lead to the formation of stable dominance hierarchies. Glucocorticoids (i.e. cortisol) have been proposed as an endocrine mechanism underlying social behavior, and previous studies have linked baseline as well as challenge glucocorticoid concentrations to dominance rank. Since the importance of rank on fitness differs between males and females, selection pressures acting on the underlying endocrine mechanisms may differ between the sexes. In male guinea pigs, for example, it is known that cortisol responsiveness mediates social behavior and that dominance rank and cortisol responsiveness are stable within individuals over time. It is unclear whether this is also the case for female guinea pigs. Thus the aim of this study was to investigate whether cortisol concentrations are repeatable in female guinea pigs and whether female rank is correlated to baseline cortisol concentrations or cortisol responsiveness. We show that cortisol responsiveness and dominance rank were significantly repeatable but not correlated in female guinea pigs. Furthermore, baseline cortisol was not repeatable and also did not correlate to dominance rank. Our results demonstrate that baseline cortisol and cortisol responsiveness represent different biological processes; cortisol responsiveness reflects a stable trait while baseline cortisol likely fluctuates with current state. Furthermore, cortisol responsiveness as a mediator of aggressive behavior and dominance acquisition might not be important for maintaining dominance hierarchies in stable groups of females displaying minimal aggression. Overall, this study reveals the remarkable stability of cortisol responsiveness and dominance rank in an adult female rodent and lays the groundwork for future investigations into the causes and consequences of this individual variation.

scholarly journals Artificial mass loading disrupts stable social order in pigeon dominance hierarchies

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. 20200468
Author(s):  
Steven J. Portugal ◽  
James R. Usherwood ◽  
Craig R. White ◽  
Daniel W. E. Sankey ◽  
Alan M. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Body Mass ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Mass Loading ◽  
Direct Link ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Closed Population ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Linear Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Over Time

Dominance hierarchies confer benefits to group members by decreasing the incidences of physical conflict, but may result in certain lower ranked individuals consistently missing out on access to resources. Here, we report a linear dominance hierarchy remaining stable over time in a closed population of birds. We show that this stability can be disrupted, however, by the artificial mass loading of birds that typically comprise the bottom 50% of the hierarchy. Mass loading causes these low-ranked birds to immediately become more aggressive and rise-up the dominance hierarchy; however, this effect was only evident in males and was absent in females. Removal of the artificial mass causes the hierarchy to return to its previous structure. This interruption of a stable hierarchy implies a strong direct link between body mass and social behaviour and suggests that an individual's personality can be altered by the artificial manipulation of body mass.

Dominance Hierarchies in Psychotherapy Groups

1986 ◽  
Vol 148 (6) ◽  
pp. 625-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Kennedy ◽  
K. Roy MacKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Survival Strategies ◽  
Recent Theory ◽  
Human Group ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Diagnostic Categories ◽  
Group Behaviour ◽  
Adaptive Processes ◽  
Psychotherapy Groups ◽  
Biochemical Mechanisms

For a social group to develop, two opposing adaptive processes must be reconciled—mechanisms for developing cohesion and mechanisms for establishing a dominance hierarchy. The formation of stable groups provides significant evolutionary advantages: a source of protection, increased reproductive opportunities, and a larger store of survival strategies than any one individual could encompass. A recent theory of human evolution (Reynolds, 1981) stresses that social behaviour would seem to be the most likely single cause of the origin of human intelligence, if one origin must be isolated. Current interest in the biological basis of behaviour has been focused particularly on specific diagnostic categories and biochemical mechanisms. This paper reviews a different research tradition, based on ethological principles, and applies the findings to an understanding of human group behaviour.

scholarly journals The Dominance Hierarchy of Wood-Eating Termites from China

Insects ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore A. Evans ◽  
Boris Dodji Kasseney
Keyword(s):  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Coptotermes Formosanus ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Pest Species ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Competitive Release ◽  
Fundamental Process ◽  
Filter Papers ◽  
Increased Activity ◽  
Temporal Overlap

Competition is a fundamental process in ecology and helps to determine dominance hierarchies. Competition and dominance hierarchies have been little investigated in wood-eating termites, despite the necessary traits of similar resources, and showing spatial and temporal overlap. Competition and dominance between five species of wood-eating termites found in Huangzhou, China, was investigated in three laboratory experiments of aggression and detection, plus a year-long field survey of termite foraging activity. Dominance depended on body size, with largest species winning overwhelmingly in paired contests with equal numbers of individuals, although the advantage was reduced in paired competitions with equal biomass. The termites could detect different species from used filter papers, as larger species searched through paper used by smaller species, and smaller species avoided papers used by larger species. The largest species maintained activity all year, but in low abundance, whereas the second largest species increased activity in summer, and the smallest species increased their activity in winter. The termite species displayed a dominance hierarchy based on fighting ability, with a temporal change in foraging to avoid larger, more dominant species. The low abundance of the largest species, here Macrotermes barneyi, may be a function of human disturbance, which allows subordinate species to increase. Thus, competitive release may explain the increase in abundance of pest species, such as Coptotermes formosanus, in highly modified areas, such as urban systems.

Male Dominance and Reproductive Success in a Captive Group of Rhesus Macaques (Macaca Mulatta)

Behaviour ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 129 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 225-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Glenn Smith
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Success ◽  
Macaca Mulatta ◽  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Rhesus Macaques ◽  
Dominance Rank ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
Strongly Correlated ◽  
Young Males ◽  
Captive Group ◽  
Lower Ranking

AbstractPaternity exclusion analysis was employed to estimate the reproductive success (RS) of 32 males who experienced at least one breeding season over the age of four years between 1977 and 1991 in a captive group of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Although three different males held alpha rank during the period, the male dominance hierarchy remained relatively stable even when the number of males was high. Average dominance rank and overall RS of males while in the group were strongly correlated. However, during most years the correlation between male dominance rank and RS was not statistically significant because males who achieved high rank 1)were those who experienced relatively high RS as lower ranking subadults and 2) maintained high dominance rank after experiencing a sustained decline in RS. Correlations between male dominance rank and RS were highest when the number of subadult males entering the dominance hierarchy was increasing and one or a very few males were least effective in monopolizing females. These results are not consistent with expectations based solely on the priority of access model of intrasexual selection. Female choice, as exemplified by the preference of females for mating with young males that are rising in rank, might also influence the evolution of social dominance in rhesus macaques.

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