Probing motivational state during agonistic encounters in animals

R. W. Elwood (), K. E. Wood, M. B. Gallagher and J. T. A. Dick
Additional contact information
R. W. Elwood: School of Biology and Biochemistry, The Queen's University of Belfast
K. E. Wood: School of Biology and Biochemistry, The Queen's University of Belfast
M. B. Gallagher: School of Biology and Biochemistry, The Queen's University of Belfast
J. T. A. Dick: School of Biology and Biochemistry, The Queen's University of Belfast

Nature, 1998, vol. 393, issue 6680, 66-68

Abstract: Abstract Animals commonly compete for resources by direct aggression: for example, spiders fight for web sites1, male red deer fight for females2, and scorpionflies fight for prey3. The application of game theory has considerably advanced our understanding of the evolution of such contests4,5,6,7. A general conclusion is that, if possible, animals should assess both the relative fighting abilities and the value of resources before making tactical decisions during contests8. These tactical decisions are assumed to be mediated by differing motivational state7,9, but this fundamental assumption has yet to be tested. Here we test the accumulated theory by probing the motivational state of hermit crabs during fights over the ownership of gastropod shells. The test uses a stimulus, novel to the crabs, that produces a startle response, the duration of which is an independent measure of the motivation to fight. We demonstrate that motivational state differs at an early stage of the contest according to the potential gain in resource value. There was no effect of relative size of the opponent on motivational state. In these contests, relative size neither predicted the likely cost of the contest nor the probability of victory.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/29980 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nat:nature:v:393:y:1998:i:6680:d:10.1038_29980

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/29980

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().