The influence of recent social experience and physical environment on courtship and male aggression

BMC Evolutionary Biology

Research Article

Topi K. Lehtonen¹  Bob B. M. Wong¹  P. Andreas Svensson² 

[1] School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, 3800, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia;School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, 3800, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia;Department of Biology and Environmental Science, Linnaeus University, 39231, Kalmar, Sweden;

关键词: Aggression;    Behavioural plasticity;    Courtship display;    Encounter rate;    Environmental effect;    Physiological cost;    Salinity;    Sexual signal;    Social experience;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12862-016-0584-5

 received in 2015-12-03, accepted in 2016-01-08,  发布年份 2016

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundSocial and environmental factors can profoundly impact an individual’s investment of resources into different components of reproduction. Such allocation trade-offs are expected to be amplified under challenging environmental conditions. To test these predictions, we used a desert-dwelling fish, the desert goby, Chlamydogobius eremius, to experimentally investigate the effects of prior social experience (with either a male or a female) on male investment in courtship and aggression under physiologically benign and challenging conditions (i.e., low versus high salinity).ResultsWe found that males maintained a higher level of aggression towards a rival after a recent encounter with a female, compared to an encounter with a male, under low (but not high) salinity. In contrast, male investment in courtship behaviour was unaffected by either salinity or social experience.ConclusionTogether, our results suggest that male investment in aggression and courtship displays can differ in their sensitivity to environmental conditions and that not all reproductive behaviours are similarly influenced by the same environmental context.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Lehtonen et al. 2016