Favati Anna, Løvlie Hanne, Leimar Olof
Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden.
Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, IFM Biology, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden.
R Soc Open Sci. 2021 Feb 3;8(2):201213. doi: 10.1098/rsos.201213.
The ability to dominate conspecifics and thereby gain access to resources depends on a number of traits and skills. Experience of dominance relationships during development is a potential source of learning such skills. We here study the importance of social experience, aggressiveness and morphological traits for competitiveness in social interactions (contest success) in male domestic fowl (). We let males grow up either as a single (dominant) male or as an intermediately ranked male in a group of males, and measured their success in duels against different opponents. We found that single-raised males had lower contest success than group-raised males, and that aggression and comb size correlated positively with contest success. This indicates that experience of dominance interactions with other males increases future success in duels. We similarly studied the consequences of growing up as a dominant or subordinate in a pair of males, finding no statistically significant effect of the dominance position on contest success. Finally, we found that males were consistent over time in contest success. We conclude that social experience increases contest success in male domestic fowl, but that certain behavioural and morphological characteristics have an equal or even stronger covariation with contest success.
在同种动物中占据主导地位并借此获取资源的能力取决于多种特征和技能。在发育过程中对支配关系的体验是学习此类技能的一个潜在来源。我们在此研究社会经验、攻击性和形态特征对雄性家禽在社会互动中的竞争力（争斗成功）的重要性。我们让雄性家禽要么作为单独的（占主导地位的）雄性长大，要么在一群雄性中作为排名中等的雄性长大，并测量它们在与不同对手决斗中的成功率。我们发现单独饲养的雄性在争斗中成功的几率低于群体饲养的雄性，而且攻击性和鸡冠大小与争斗成功呈正相关。这表明与其他雄性的支配性互动经验会增加未来在决斗中的成功率。我们同样研究了在一对雄性中作为主导或从属长大的后果，发现支配地位对决斗成功没有统计学上的显著影响。最后，我们发现雄性在争斗成功方面随时间保持一致。我们得出结论，社会经验会提高雄性家禽在争斗中的成功率，但某些行为和形态特征与争斗成功具有同等甚至更强的协变关系。
