Meeting Abstract
Intrasexual aggression is an important component of animal social behavior. In the context of territoriality, such aggression may determine whether an individual is able to establish and maintain a territory. Thus, variation in territorial aggression has important implications for individual fitness. In males of many territorial species, such variation has been associated with intraspecific variation in circulating concentrations of hormones such as testosterone. Although females of many species also exhibit territorial aggression, it remains unclear for a variety of territorial taxa whether similar endocrine mechanisms regulate aggressive behavior in both sexes. Here, we investigated the potential for testosterone to mediate territorial aggression in female Anolis gundlachi lizards in Puerto Rico. In several Anolis species, males that engage in territorial interactions exhibit higher testosterone concentrations relative to less aggressive males. To assess whether a similar pattern occurs in females, we staged territorial interactions with free-living females and collected plasma to measure circulating testosterone concentrations. Preliminary results demonstrate that females exhibit aggressive behavior comparable to what is observed among males, and that aggression can vary considerably among females. Although testosterone concentrations seemed to vary more among females from the staged interactions relative to females from the general population, testosterone concentrations did not vary significantly between the groups. These results suggest that testosterone may influence aggressive behavior differently in males and females.
