{"title":"Intra-sexual selection in a North American annual killifish: does the color-polymorphism matter?","authors":"Domínguez-Castanedo Omar","doi":"10.1007/s10211-024-00444-w","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The decision to escalate aggression in a contest is based on the assessment of oneself and the opponent's capabilities, previous experiences and the asymmetries between contenders. Interestingly, there is increasing evidence that color polymorphism may also influence the result in a contest during agonistic encounters. Therefore, this research aimed to analyze, for the first time, the intra-sexual competition of adult males of the Mexican Rivulus <i>Millerichthys robustus</i>, testing the influence of color polymorphic variations during agonistic contests. The results of this study suggest that the aggressiveness between morphotypes is of orange and red over yellow. The orange morph was related to winning the greatest number of encounters, whereas yellow lost the most. The red morpho registered the greatest number of ties. Interestingly, in contests between more aggressive morphs (orange and red), fish tended to modulate and lower aggressiveness levels, possibly to avoid injuries. In contrast, the least aggressive morphotype (yellow) tended to raise its aggressiveness against the most successful morphotype and lower it in matches against its own color, changing to a scheme between contenders with symmetrical aggression levels. These results suggest that differential aggression between morphotypes can influence the evolution of color polymorphism in <i>M. robustus</i>, differentially influencing the fitness of the individuals.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":6879,"journal":{"name":"acta ethologica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"acta ethologica","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10211-024-00444-w","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The decision to escalate aggression in a contest is based on the assessment of oneself and the opponent's capabilities, previous experiences and the asymmetries between contenders. Interestingly, there is increasing evidence that color polymorphism may also influence the result in a contest during agonistic encounters. Therefore, this research aimed to analyze, for the first time, the intra-sexual competition of adult males of the Mexican Rivulus Millerichthys robustus, testing the influence of color polymorphic variations during agonistic contests. The results of this study suggest that the aggressiveness between morphotypes is of orange and red over yellow. The orange morph was related to winning the greatest number of encounters, whereas yellow lost the most. The red morpho registered the greatest number of ties. Interestingly, in contests between more aggressive morphs (orange and red), fish tended to modulate and lower aggressiveness levels, possibly to avoid injuries. In contrast, the least aggressive morphotype (yellow) tended to raise its aggressiveness against the most successful morphotype and lower it in matches against its own color, changing to a scheme between contenders with symmetrical aggression levels. These results suggest that differential aggression between morphotypes can influence the evolution of color polymorphism in M. robustus, differentially influencing the fitness of the individuals.
期刊介绍:
acta ethologica publishes empirical and theoretical research papers, short communications, commentaries, reviews and book reviews as well as methods papers in the field of ethology and related disciplines, with a strong concentration on the behavior biology of humans and other animals.
The journal places special emphasis on studies integrating proximate (mechanisms, development) and ultimate (function, evolution) levels in the analysis of behavior. Aspects of particular interest include: adaptive plasticity of behavior, inter-individual and geographic variations in behavior, mechanisms underlying behavior, evolutionary processes and functions of behavior, and many other topics.
acta ethologica is an official journal of ISPA, CRL and the Portuguese Ethological Society (SPE)