Dominance hierarchy formation in juvenile crayfish procambarus clarkii

1999 ◽  
Vol 202 (24) ◽  
pp. 3497-3506 ◽  
Author(s):  
F.A. Issa ◽  
D.J. Adamson ◽  
D.H. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Positive Feedback ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Procambarus Clarkii ◽  
Behavior Patterns ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Hierarchy Formation ◽  
High Dominance ◽  
Low Levels

The formation of social dominance hierarchies was studied in groups of five juvenile crayfish, 1.3-1.8 cm in length. Animals were grouped together in a small, featureless aquarium after having lived in isolation for more than a month. The occurrence of each of four behavior patterns (‘attack’, ‘approach’, ‘retreat’ and ‘escape’) was recorded for each animal, together with the frequency of encounters and the frequency of wins and losses. The frequencies of wins and losses were used to calculate the relative dominance value of each animal in the group. High levels of fighting developed immediately upon grouping the animals, and a positive feedback relationship between attacking and winning enabled one animal in each group to emerge quickly as the superdominant. If that animal was the largest, it remained as the superdominant; otherwise, it was replaced as superdominant within the first few days by the largest animal. This form of dominance hierarchy, with one superdominant and four subordinates, persisted throughout the duration of the grouping. Fighting declined over the first hour and by 24 h had dropped to low levels. After the first day, approaches were used together with attacks, and retreats replaced escapes. Attack and approach were the behavior patterns displayed most frequently by animals with high dominance values, whereas retreat and escape were performed by animals of low dominance. All these trends continued to develop over the next 2 weeks as the number of agonistic encounters declined to a low level.

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’.

Resource variability and the collapse of a dominance hierarchy in a colour polymorphic species

Behaviour ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 155 (6) ◽  
pp. 443-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawson M. Brown ◽  
Matthew S. Lattanzio
Keyword(s):  
Social Dominance ◽  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Behavioural Flexibility ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Species Dominance ◽  
Polymorphic Species ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Colour Morphs ◽  
Resource Variability

Abstract Intraspecific social dominance hierarchies should be influenced by environmental variation; however, in colour polymorphic species, dominance hierarchies are often assumed fixed, and thus insensitive to environmental variability. We ran a series of experiments using the colour polymorphic long-tailed brush lizard (Urosaurus graciosus) to challenge this assumption. We staged contests between orange and yellow morph males over a single heated perch, two perches at the same temperature, or two perches differing in temperature. Our first experiment revealed that orange-throated males are socially dominant. However, this hierarchy collapsed in our other experiments as yellow males became more aggressive. Interestingly, both males only ever secured their own perch where the perches differed in temperature. These findings mirror observations of morph behavioural flexibility in nature and studies of behaviour–environment interactions in non-polymorphic taxa. We conclude that colour morphs may have an underappreciated ability to assess resource-level changes and respond with concomitant flexibility in behaviour.

scholarly journals Reproductive skew, fitness costs, and winner-loser effects in social-dominance evolution

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olof Leimar ◽  
Redouan Bshary
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Reproductive Skew ◽  
Fitness Costs ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Hierarchy Formation ◽  
Winner And Loser Effects ◽  
Distribution Of Resources

Social hierarchies can increase reproductive skew in group-living animals. Using game theory we investigate how the opportunity for differently ranked individuals to acquire resources influences reproductive skew, costs of hierarchy formation, and winner and loser effects. Individuals adjust their aggressive and submissive behaviour through reinforcement learning. The learning is based on perceived rewards and penalties, which depend on relative fighting ability. From individual-based simulations we determine evolutionary equilibria of traits that control an individual's learning. We examine situations that differ in the extent of monopolisation of contested resources by dominants and in the amounts of uncontested resources that are distributed independently of rank. With costly fighting, we find that stable dominance hierarchies form, such that reproductive skew mirrors the distribution of resources over ranks. Individuals pay substantial costs of interacting, in particular in high-skew situations, with the highest costs paid by intermediately ranked individuals. For cases where dominants monopolise contested resources there are notable winner and loser effects, with winner effects for high ranks and very pronounced loser effects for lower ranks. The effects are instead weak when acquired resources increase linearly with rank. We compare our results on contest costs and winner-loser effects with field and experimental observations.

scholarly journals An Adolescent Sensitive Period for Social Dominance Hierarchy Plasticity Is Regulated by Cortical Plasticity Modulators in Mice

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy K. Bicks ◽  
Michelle Peng ◽  
Alana Taub ◽  
Schahram Akbarian ◽  
Hirofumi Morishita
Keyword(s):  
Social Dominance ◽  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Behavioral Plasticity ◽  
Cortical Plasticity ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
Adolescent Male ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Male Mice ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
The Social

Social dominance hierarchies are a common adaptation to group living and exist across a broad range of the animal kingdom. Social dominance is known to rely on the prefrontal cortex (PFC), a brain region that shows a protracted developmental trajectory in mice. However, it is unknown to what extent the social dominance hierarchy is plastic across postnatal development and how it is regulated. Here we identified a sensitive period for experience-dependent social dominance plasticity in adolescent male mice, which is regulated by mechanisms that affect cortical plasticity. We show that social dominance hierarchies in male mice are already formed at weaning and are highly stable into adulthood. However, one experience of forced losing significantly reduces social dominance during the adolescent period but not in adulthood, suggesting adolescence as a sensitive period for experience-dependent social dominance plasticity. Notably, robust adolescent plasticity can be prolonged into adulthood by genetic deletion of Lynx1, a molecular brake that normally limits cortical plasticity through modulation of cortical nicotinic signaling. This plasticity is associated with increased activation of established nodes of the social dominance network including dorsal medial PFC and medial dorsal thalamus evidenced by increased c-Fos. Pharmacologically mediated elevation of cortical plasticity by valproic acid rapidly destabilizes the hierarchy of adult wildtype animals. These findings provide insight into mechanisms through which increased behavioral plasticity may be achieved to improve therapeutic recovery from psychiatric disorders that are associated with social deficits.

scholarly journals Social dominance hierarchy type and rank contribute to phenotypic variation within cages of laboratory mice

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin A. Varholick ◽  
Alice Pontiggia ◽  
Eimear Murphy ◽  
Vanessa Daniele ◽  
Rupert Palme ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Phenotypic Variation ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Phenotypic Traits ◽  
Dominance Behavior ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Biologically Relevant ◽  
Degree Of Dominance ◽  
Relevant Factors

Abstract A tacit assumption in laboratory animal research is that animals housed within the same cage or pen are phenotypically more similar than animals from different cages or pens, due to their shared housing environment. This assumption drives experimental design, randomization schemes, and statistical analysis plans, while neglecting social context. Here, we examined whether a domain of social context—social dominance—accounted for more phenotypic variation in mice than cage-identity. First, we determined that cages of mice could be categorized into one of three dominance hierarchies with varying degrees of dominance behavior between cage-mates, and low levels of agonistic behavior in the home-cage. Most groups formed dynamic hierarchies with unclear ranks, contrasting with recent accounts of stable transitive hierarchies in groups of mice. Next, we measured some phenotypic traits, and found that social dominance (i.e. dominance hierarchy type and degree of dominance behavior) consistently accounted for some phenotypic variation in all outcome measures, while cage-identity accounted for phenotypic variation in some measures but virtually no variation in others. These findings highlight the importance of considering biologically relevant factors, such as social dominance, in experimental designs and statistical plans.

Social aggression in an age-dependent dominance hierarchy

Behaviour ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 144 (7) ◽  
pp. 753-765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Cronin ◽  
Jeremy Field
Keyword(s):  
Social Dominance ◽  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Social Rank ◽  
Social Aggression ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Age Dependent ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Animal Societies

AbstractSocial aggression arises from conflicts of interest over reproduction in animal societies. Aggression is often highly variable between individuals in a group, may be correlated with dominance, and is often integral to the establishment of dominance hierarchies that in turn determine reproductive opportunities. However, reproductive dominance is not always linked with social dominance: 'queens' are not always the most aggressive individuals in a group. Furthermore, in some animals social rank is determined without aggression, and derived through another means, such as gerontocracy. In such instances, what is the role of aggression, and what underlies the variation between individuals? Here, we investigate the relationship between inheritance rank and aggression in the hover wasp Liostenogaster flavolineata, which has an age-based inheritance queue. All females in this study were of known age and, thus, rank could be determined independently of behaviour. Observations of intra-colony aggression indicated that aggression increased with inheritance rank and occurred among non-breeding subordinates. This cannot be explained by models that do not account for aggression between non-breeders. It is likely that contests over inheritance rank and the higher future fitness anticipated by high-ranking individuals account for this pattern.

scholarly journals Extrinsic effects, estimating opponents' RHP, and the structure of dominance hierarchies

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 614-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Alan Dugatkin ◽  
Aaron David Dugatkin
Keyword(s):  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Error Rates ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Holding Power ◽  
Hierarchy Formation ◽  
Resource Holding Power ◽  
Winner And Loser Effects ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Extrinsic Effects

We examined the impact of winner and loser effects on dominance hierarchy formation when individuals are capable of estimating their opponent's resource holding power (RHP). The accuracy of such estimates was a variable in our simulations, and we considered cases in which all individuals err within the same bounds, as well as cases in which some individuals consistently overestimate, while others consistently underestimate their opponent's fighting RHP. In all cases, we found a clearly defined linear hierarchy. In most simulations, the vast majority of interactions were ‘attack–retreats’, and the remainder of interactions were almost all ‘fights’. Error rates had no effect on the linearity of the hierarchy or the basic attack–retreat nature of interactions, and consistent over and underestimation did not affect the ultimate position of an individual in a hierarchy.

How information about individual pigs can help to reduce aggression and injuries after mixing

1996 ◽  
Vol 1996 ◽  
pp. 12-12
Author(s):  
H.W. Erhard ◽  
M. Mendl ◽  
D.D. Ashley
Keyword(s):  
Negative Effects ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Pig Husbandry

Dominance hierarchies are commonly observed in groups of pigs (Beilharz & Cox 1967). These hierarchies appear to be established by individuals assessing each other's relative abilities, usually through fighting (Rushen & Pajor 1987). The resulting aggression is a well documented problem in pig husbandry. It could be reduced by mixing pigs who differ in certain respects, such that they rapidly form a hierarchy without vigorous fighting. Hessing et al. (1994) found that mixing pigs who showed high levels of resistance to being placed on their backs in a “back test” with pigs who were less resistant resulted in low levels of aggression. In this study we investigated whether mixing pigs which differ in their aggressiveness could reduce the negative effects of regrouping.

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