Hierarchies inferred from different agonistic behaviours are not always comparable.

ABSTRACT: Social hierarchies are widely used to predict life-history patterns and priority of access to resources. Yet, behavioural ecology and social sciences lack a consistent relationship between specific behaviours and social rank across studies. I used published data sets from 42 groups of 25 species representing several taxa to determine whether hierarchies inferred from different behaviours are similar or (in)consistently different at both individual and group levels. Ranks inferred from yielding interactions in the absence of aggression ('ritualized') were often comparable to ranks inferred from decided aggression (unambiguous outcome) but not to ranks inferred from undecided aggression. Accordingly, hierarchies inferred from data sets including only decided interactions were steeper than th

SUBMITTER: Smit N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11615268 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature