Does social status of males change their aggressive behavior repertoire in goitered gazelle (gazella subgutturosa guld., 1780)?

Abstract

Aggression in ungulates is a very common behavior which serves a great variety of social functions, the most important of which is territorial protection from intruders. Typically during the rut, territorial males in Antilopinae species have access to mating females, and territoriality leads to a drastic change in the males’ lifestyle as they spend most of their aggressive efforts on protecting their territories from other males. In contrast, non-territorial males generally behave in a constant manner all year round, with most of their aggression spent on hierarchical interactions within groups. In this paper, we discuss the differences in aggressive behaviors between territorial and non-territorial males of goitered gazelles (Gazella subgutturosa). We found that territorial males of this species demonstrated most of their aggressive displays, such as threat postures and space-claim patterns, to other territorial males-neighbors, but rarely chased after them at the end of a conflict. Inversely, territorial males frequently chased non-territorial and immature males while only occasionally demonstrating aggressive patterns. Non-territorial males mostly chased other males in their agonistic interactions, displaying threat postures less often than territorial males, but also showing aggressive patterns not found in territorial males. So we concluded that territorial and non-territorial males of goitered gazelles had different repertoires of aggressive behaviors, and when adult males switched their social status from territorial during the rut to non-territorial outside the rut, they obviously changed their preference in aggressive behaviors accordingly.