The effects of residency and body size on contest initiation and outcome in the territorial dragon, Ctenophorus decresii

Empirical studies of the determinants of contests have been attempting to unravel the complexity of animal contest behaviour for decades. This complexity requires that experiments incorporate multiple determinants into studies to tease apart their relative effects. In this study we examined the comp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2012-10, Vol.7 (10), p.e47143-e47143
Main Authors: Umbers, Kate D L, Osborne, Louise, Keogh, J Scott
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agamid lizards
Aggressiveness
Analysis
Animal behavior
Animal fighting
Animals
Behavior
Biology
Body Size
Complexity
Contests
Economic aspects
Hypotheses
Lizards
Lizards - anatomy & histology
Lizards - physiology
Male
Males
Physiological aspects
Principal components analysis
Squamata
Territoriality
Veterinary Science
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Summary:Empirical studies of the determinants of contests have been attempting to unravel the complexity of animal contest behaviour for decades. This complexity requires that experiments incorporate multiple determinants into studies to tease apart their relative effects. In this study we examined the complex contest behaviour of the tawny dragon (Ctenophorus decresii), a territorial agamid lizard, with the specific aim of defining the factors that determine contest outcome. We manipulated the relative size and residency status of lizards in contests to weight their importance in determining contest outcome. We found that size, residency and initiating a fight were all important in determining outcomes of fights. We also tested whether residency or size was important in predicting the status of lizard that initiated a fight. We found that residency was the most important factor in predicting fight initiation. We discuss the effects of size and residency status in context of previous studies on contests in tawny dragons and other animals. Our study provides manipulative behavioural data in support of the overriding effects of residency on initiation fights and winning them.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0047143