Outcomes of agonistic interactions alter sheltering behavior in crayfish

Abstract

‘Winner’ and ‘loser’ effects have been demonstrated in a broad range of species, but such investigations are often limited to the effects of prior contest outcomes on future agonistic interactions. Much less is known about the impacts of winning or losing contests on other aspects of individual behavior, like courtship interactions and sheltering behavior. In this investigation, I examined the effect of prior contest outcomes on sheltering behavior in the crayfish Faxonius virilis. I predicted that winners of contests would spend less time inside shelters and more time exploring, while losers of contests would spend more time inside shelters and less time exploring. I compared individual sheltering behavior before and after staged dyadic encounters between competitively mismatched individuals. This experiment revealed strong effects on the behavior of contest losers, which showed significant increases in the amount of time spent inside the shelter immediately after the contest. However, there was no significant change in the sheltering behavior of contest winners. These results reinforce the idea that contest outcomes can affect individual behaviors other than agonistic behavior, and suggest that losing a contest may motivate individual crayfish to engage in less-risky behavior, at least for a brief period after the contest.