Seasonal dynamics of agonistic displays in territorial and non-territorial males of goitered gazelle

Abstract

Aggression serves a great variety of social functions, one of which is protection of individual territories from intruders. Territorial males of many antelope species show aggressive noncontact displays, and only rarely fight. It has been suggested that ungulate males tend to have more frequent and longer aggressive interactions with rivals of similar age or social status than with males of dissimilar status. In the present paper, we test whether territorial and non-territorial males behave in a similar manner and avoid fights, and whether or not they preferentially direct aggressive and longer agonistic interactions towards males of similar age or social status, rather than towards other classes of males. We found that territorial males usually avoided straight fights with peers, and instead mainly used noncontact displays in aggressive interactions. In contrast, non-territorial males used fights considerably more often, especially during the onset of territoriality in April to May, when these males had their most frequent aggressive interactions. Territorial bucks aggressively interacted most frequently with non-territorial males and significantly less often with other territorial males, but agonistic noncontact displays between territorial males lasted the longest. In contrast, non-territorial males addressed their aggressive noncontact displays and fights most often to peers and less frequently to sub-adults. Asymmetry in the social status of territorial vs. non-territorial males was likely responsible for the distinctively different agonistic behaviors shown by the two types of males, which in turn are likely due to the different costs and benefits each male can accrue from these aggressive interactions.