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

ABSTRACT:

Background

Social 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).

Results

We 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.

SUBMITTER: Lehtonen TK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4721148 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature