Submissive behavior is affected by territory structure in a social fish  

作　　者：Tommaso Ruberto William T.Swaney Adam R.Reddon 

机构地区：[1]School of Biological and Environmental Sciences,Liverpool John Moores University,3 Byrom Street,Liverpool L33AF,UK

出　　处：《Current Zoology》2024年第6期803-809,共7页动物学报（英文版）

基　　金：supported by a Royal Society Research Grant(RGSR1191237)to AR;supported by a Liverpool John Moores University Faculty of Science PhD Studentship.

摘　　要：Group living may engender conflict over food,reproduction,or other resources and individuals must be able to manage conflict for social groups to persist.Submission signals are an adaptation for establishing and maintaining social hierarchy position,allowing a subordinate individual to avoid protracted and costly aggressive interactions with dominant individuals.In the daffodil cichlid fish(Neolamprologus pulcher),subordinates may use submission signals to resolve conflicts with dominant individuals and maintain their social status within the group.The complexity of the physical environment may affect the value of submission signals compared with fleeing or avoidance,which may require certain physical features such as shelters to be effective.We investigated how the ecological context affected the expression of submission in subordinate daffodil cichlids by examining their behavior under different arrangements of the physical environment within their territories.We altered the number of shelters provided to daffodil cichlid groups and compared the interactions between dominant and subordinate individuals under each shelter condition by scoring the social and cooperative behaviors of the group members.We found that behaviors of group members were modulated by the environment:subordinates displayed fewer submission and fleeing behaviors in more structurally complex environments and dominants were more aggressive to subordinates when more shelters were present.Our results help to elucidate the role of the physical environment in the modulation of social interactions in group-living animals and may have implications for the welfare of captively housed social cichlid groups.

关 键 词：AGGRESSION daffodil cichlids environmental enrichment Neolamprologus pulcher SHELTERS SUBMISSION 

分 类 号：Q95[生物学—动物学]