Citation

Fitzsimmons LP, Bertram SM. Biol. Lett. 2013; 9(4): 20130449.

Affiliation

Department of Biology, Carleton University, , 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Canada , K1S5B6.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Royal Society Publishing)

DOI

10.1098/rsbl.2013.0449

PMID

23843219

Abstract

Animal behaviour studies have begun to incorporate the influence of the social environment, providing new opportunities for studying signal strategies and evolution. We examined how the presence and sex of an audience influenced aggression and victory display behaviour in field-captured and laboratory-reared field crickets (Gryllus veletis). Audience type, rearing environment and their interaction were important predictors in all model sets. Thus, audience type may impose different costs and benefits for competing males depending on whether they are socially experienced or not. Our results suggest that field-captured winners, in particular, dynamically adjust their contest behaviour to potentially gain a reproductive benefit via female eavesdropping and may deter future aggression from rivals by advertising their aggressiveness and victories.

Language: en