Social rank, color morph, and social network metrics predict oxidative stress in a cichlid fish

Shana E Border, Gabriela M DeOliveira, Hannah M Janeski, Taylor J Piefke, Tayler J Brown and Peter D Dijkstra

Behavioral Ecology, 2019, vol. 30, issue 2, 490-499

Abstract: Dominance hierarchies are a fundamental part of social systems in many species and social rank can influence access to resources and impact health and physiology. While social subordination is a profound stressor, few studies consider the social stress experienced by dominant males due to constantly needing to defend their dominance status through costly aggressive displays. Recent studies suggest that in species that use body coloration to signal status, these costs may also be color morph-specific. Our study examines the link between the social rank, intensity of territorial defense, body coloration, and oxidative stress in males of the color polymorphic cichlid fish Astatotilapia burtoni where males are either blue or yellow. We studied behavior in naturalistic communities and examined circulating reactive oxygen metabolites (ROMs) and antioxidant defenses. We found that dominant males experience higher concentrations of circulating ROMs without notably increasing their antioxidant defenses, but this effect was not related to color morph. Aggression and social network ties predicted oxidative stress in a morph-specific manner, with yellow but not blue males showing signs of increased oxidative damage with increasing agonistic effort. In contrast to expectation, oxidative stress was not influenced by cortisol or testosterone levels. We conclude that oxidative stress is instrumental to understanding the costs and benefits of high social rank. Living in a social hierarchy can be stressful even for those on top. While past work has established the stress involved in being a low-ranking member of a hierarchy, we show that while high-ranking males attain definite advantages in terms of decreased stress hormone levels and increased reproductive opportunities, they also pay for their increased activity level with increased risk of cellular damage.

Keywords: dominance hierarchy; oxidative stress; social stress (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/ary189 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:30:y:2019:i:2:p:490-499.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().