Monclús Raquel, Saavedra Irene, de Miguel Javier
Unidad de Zoología, Departamento de Biología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
Unidad de Zoología, Departamento de Biología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
Behav Processes. 2014 Jul;106:17-21. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2014.04.004. Epub 2014 Apr 18.
Territorial animals defend their territories against intruders. The level of aggression directed to intruders depends on the familiarity and/or the relative threat they pose, and it could be modified by the context of the interaction. We explored in a wild social mammal, the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), whether residents responded more aggressively to strangers or to neighbours (dear enemy or nasty neighbour effects, respectively). We simulated the intrusion of neighbours or strangers in different parts of the territory of wild European rabbits in a suburban area in central Spain. For that, we placed faecal pellets of neighbouring or stranger rabbits in the territory of 5 rabbit colonies. Resident rabbits counter-marked preferably the odour stations with stranger odour, compared to the ones with neighbour odour, and they did not make a difference between neighbour and a non-odour control stimuli. The results suggest that rabbits show a dear enemy effect. However, repeated intrusions escalated the responses of rabbits towards neighbours. The location within the territory or the sex of the stranger did not affect the level of response. We conclude that in rabbits the relative threat posed by the intruder triggers the intensity of the interaction.
具有领地意识的动物会保卫自己的领地免受入侵者侵犯。针对入侵者的攻击程度取决于入侵者的熟悉程度和/或其所构成的相对威胁，并且这种攻击程度可能会因互动情境而改变。我们在一种野生群居哺乳动物——欧洲野兔（穴兔）身上进行了研究，探究领地所有者对陌生者还是邻居（分别对应“亲爱的敌人”效应或“讨厌的邻居”效应）的反应更具攻击性。我们在西班牙中部一个郊区对野生欧洲野兔领地的不同区域模拟了邻居或陌生者的入侵。为此，我们在5个兔群的领地内放置了邻居或陌生兔子的粪便颗粒。与带有邻居气味的气味站相比，领地所有者兔子更倾向于在带有陌生者气味的气味站上留下反标记，并且它们对邻居和无气味对照刺激没有区别对待。结果表明兔子表现出“亲爱的敌人”效应。然而，反复入侵会使兔子对邻居的反应升级。陌生者在领地内的位置或性别并不影响反应程度。我们得出结论，在兔子中，入侵者构成的相对威胁引发了互动的强度。
