Abstract
Aggressive behavior is thought to have evolved as a strategy for gaining access to resources such as territory, food, and potential mates. Across species, secondary sexual characteristics such as competitive aggression and territoriality are considered male-specific behaviors. However, although female–female aggression is often a behavior that is displayed almost exclusively to protect the offspring, multiple examples of female–female competitive aggression have been reported in both invertebrate and vertebrate species. Moreover, cases of intersexual aggression have been observed in a variety of species. Genetically tractable model systems such as mice, zebrafish, and fruit flies have proven extremely valuable for studying the underlying neuronal circuitry and the genetic architecture of aggressive behavior under laboratory conditions. However, most studies lack ethological or ecological perspectives and the behavioral patterns available are limited. The goal of this review is to discuss each of these forms of aggression, male intrasexual aggression, intersexual aggression and female intrasexual aggression in the context of the most common genetic animal models and discuss examples of these behaviors in other species.
Highlights
Aggression is a complex, plastic behavior whose manifestation depends on an animal’s internal physiological state, sensory stimuli, and previous social experiences
Studies in rats revealed that electrical stimulation of the so-called hypothalamic attack area (HAA) induces escalated aggression, which can be directed toward both males or females, or even mice (Kruk, 1991; Hrabovszky et al, 2005)
Since suitable territories are often limited, and females are less prone to mate outside shelters, A. burtoni males often engage in high-intensity aggressive encounters. They can reversibly switch between dominant and subordinate states, which has profound effects on behavioral and physiological mechanisms regulating reproduction. This fish model offers several important advantages for the study of the physiological basis of aggression: as in B. splendens, social change in males is signaled by obvious color differences which occurs within a few minutes, this species offers relatively easy access to the brain, facilitating sampling, and has a fully sequenced genome (Fernald, 2012; Maruska and Fernald, 2013)
Summary
Aggression is a complex, plastic behavior whose manifestation depends on an animal’s internal physiological state, sensory stimuli, and previous social experiences. Agonistic behavior is a more broadly defined concept, an adaptive act that arises from a conflict between two members of the same species. These behaviors play roles in conflict resolution when animals compete for specific resources such as territory, mates, or food sources and may involve intimidation of conspecifics by threat displays and can result in submissive responses like freezing, passive coping, or escape. Dominance in animals is established through repeated agonistic interactions that result in one animal controlling a contested resource. In animals living in groups, individuals who win agonistic encounters will become dominant, and losers often become subordinated, generating a hierarchical social organization. At least three different types of social conflicts can be observed: between dominant and subordinates (Clement et al, 2005), among subordinates (Alonso et al, 2012), and between territorial neighbors (Muller and Manser, 2007)
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