Familiarity mediated by body size predicts intraspecific aggression in farming damselfishes.

ABSTRACT:

Abstract

Aggressive territoriality can have significant benefits for resource acquisition yet is a costly behaviour. Selection should therefore favour mechanisms that allow individuals to modify their behaviour to maintain and defend their territory whilst minimising costs. One such mechanism between intraspecific territorial competitors is neighbour-stranger discrimination. The familiarity hypothesis suggests that territory holders will respond less aggressively to neighbours they recognise than to strangers they do not recognise. Conversely, in systems where neighbours pose a greater threat to territory loss than strangers, the threat-level hypothesis predicts that neighbours will elicit a greater aggressive response. We tested these opposing hypotheses in territorial farming dam

SUBMITTER: Sheppard CE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12398450 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature