Meeting Abstract
An important outcome of agonistic interactions is the allocation of resources. Shelters are an important resource and animals will often escalate the intensity of an agonistic bout to obtain or sustain shelter ownership. However, the distribution of shelters in natural settings is often unknown, and in many animal systems it is not well understood how the abundance of shelters impacts aggressive behavior. Crayfish are known to readily compete with conspecifics in order to gain access to key resources, including shelters. For this reason, crayfish have often served as a model organism for examining both aggression and social relationships. In this study, populations of four size-matched (within 10%) male crayfish, Orconectes rusticus, were presented with equally spaced arrangements of two, four, or six shelters. Video analysis was used to quantify shelter usage and evictions as well as the intensity, frequency, duration, and outcomes of fights over a 24-hour period. These observations were quantified and correlated between the three experimental designs. Data analysis has revealed that populations of crayfish generally exhibit a decrease in aggression as the number of available shelters is increased; rates of shelter evictions, fight intensity levels, and fight frequency decreased in the presence of abundant shelters, but fight duration increased. This study provides important information about the effects of resource abundance on social dominance and aggressive behavior within populations.
