Prior contest experience exerts a long-term influence on subsequent winner and loser effects

Yi-Ting Lan,Yuying Hsu

doi:10.1186/1742-9994-8-28

Abstract

IntroductionAnimals are capable of using information from recent experiences to modify subsequent behavioral responses. Animals' ability or propensity to modify their behavior in the light of new information has repeatedly been shown to correlate with, or be influenced by, either their intrinsic competitive ability or their dominance experience - an influence which can be long-lasting. Using a mangrove killifish, Kryptolebias marmoratus, as the study organism, we investigated whether and if so how the effect of a winning or a losing experience one day prior to a dyadic contest was modulated by both competitive ability measured two months previously and a winning or losing experience forced on the contestants one month previously.ResultsWinning/losing experience forced on the fish one month previously affected how they utilized information from their winning/losing experience one day before Test Day: Individuals that were randomly assigned a losing experience one month previously were more susceptible to the influence of their 1-day winning/losing experience than those assigned a winning experience. Competitive ability measured two months previously, winning/losing experience from one month previously and the winning/losing experience received one day previously all significantly influenced the fish's contest behaviors on Test Day, although only 2-month competitive ability significantly influenced escalation duration, indicating that it was still a good index for the fish's competitive ability two months later.ConclusionsThese results suggest that the value to the fish of information from a recent win or loss depends on the outcome of their past contests and show that contest experience has a long-term effect on contest behavior.

Highlights

Animals are capable of using information from recent experiences to modify subsequent behavioral responses
An individual’s sensitivity to new information and readiness or capability to modify behavior after being exposed to new information can be closely associated with its intrinsic competitive ability and its dominance experience
This study examined the impact of an individual’s intrinsic competitive ability and, separately, its contest experience from a month previously on whether and if so how the fish used the information from a recent contest to modify its behavioral responses in subsequent contests

Summary

Introduction

Animals are capable of using information from recent experiences to modify subsequent behavioral responses. An individual’s sensitivity to new information and readiness or capability to modify behavior after being exposed to new information can be closely associated with its intrinsic competitive ability and its dominance experience. In starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), for instance, individuals with better intrinsic competitive ability performed better in foraging-related learning tasks [5]. The better spatial-learning ability of dominant mice (Mus musculus) was detected only after, not before, dominance status was established [8], indicating that it was probably the difference in contest experience, rather than the difference in intrinsic competitive ability between the dominants and subordinates that caused the differences in their performance in the food-tracking maze tests

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