User:Petty102/sandbox/Fish Aggression

Notes

Outline

1. function
   1. the purpose of aggression in social groups
2. methods of communication
   1. IN-PROGRESS
   2. visual, acoustic, etc etc
   3. da Silva 2021 & Frommen 2020
3. Physiology
   1. FINISHED
   2. da Silva 2021 & Filby 2010
4. impact on humans/aquarium keeping(?)
   1. hobbyist solutions to aggression, common mistakes

no order:

• sex-specific
• territorial(?)

OG sources

1. Reebs, Stéphan G. (2008). "Aggression in Fishes" (PDF). How Fish Behave.

2. Valdimarsson, Sveinn K.; Metcalfe, Neil B. (June 2001). "Is the level of aggression and dispersion in territorial fish dependent on light intensity?". Animal Behaviour. 61 (6): 1143–1149. doi:10.1006/anbe.2001.1710. ISSN 0003-3472.

3. Sih, Andrew; Bell, Alison; Johnson, J.Chadwick (July 2004). "Behavioral syndromes: an ecological and evolutionary overview". Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 19 (7): 372–378. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2004.04.009. ISSN 0169-5347.

4. Arnott, Gareth; Elwood, Robert W. (1 November 2009). "Gender differences in aggressive behaviour in convict cichlids". Animal Behaviour. 78 (5): 1221–1227. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.08.005. ISSN 0003-3472. Retrieved 25 January 2024.

Other sources

Chemical communication in aggressive behavior

Evolution of Social systems

Nature article on water warming

Brain-bending article about aggression & neural pathways

Aggressive communication overview, this is a really good one!!

Draft

Aggression refers to agonistic behaviors characterized by threats and physical force. Methods of aggression in fish vary widely by species, but some common examples are chasing, charging, biting, fin display, color changes, and flared gills. Aggression is an important evolutionary pressure that increases an individual's access to resources while reducing overall conflict within the social group. Fish use aggressive behaviors to defend a territory, establish dominance, appeal to potential mates, or protect their young.

Function

• as communication
• establish dominance hierarchy
• to maintain a stable order
  • loser effect
  • home advantage

"Increased boldness or aggression in fish, for instance, has been shown to increase the risk of being preyed upon by higher consumers37, as well as being harvested by human fishers38,39,40"

Aggressive behavior comes in two forms: threat displays and attacks. Attacking is how two competitors can directly compare their strength, but it comes with significant drawbacks: it's energetically costly, time consuming, and risking bodily injury. A threat display, on the other hand, allows competitors to assess the other's strength indirectly, making it a safer way to settle conspecific conflict.

During a confrontation, threat displays communicate the factors that would tip a physical fight, such as body-size, dominance status, motivation, and territoriality. While displays are less risky than attacks, they still come with a cost. Many fish will make their heads look larger by pushing out their opercula (gill covers), but this also makes it difficult to breathe. Color changes to signal aggression might invite the attention of predators, and time spent challenging a competitor means time lost foraging, courting, or caring for young. Therefore, some fish will choose to end an aggressive encounter immediately by signaling submission.

Methods of communication

Aggressive behaviors rely on communication, the ability to transmit signals from one organism to the other. Communication in aquatic environments differs fundamentally from communication in terrestrial environments because aquatic animals need signals that travel effectively underwater.

Visual

As a group, fish have some of the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom, second only to birds. Most fishes have four types of cones and can see into the UV range. Mantis shrimp have up to 16 types of cones, color vision from UV to infrared, and are the only known animal able to see circularly polarized light.

Fish likely need complex color vision because of limited visibility underwater. Even in ideal conditions, underwater visibility caps at around 30 meters. At greater depths, light levels drop off steeply and long-wavelength colors are absorbed. Eyes that are capable of seeing a wide range of short-wavelength colors are suited for underwater environments where short-wavelengths are the primary type of light.

Visual communication in fishes includes behavioral signals, such as displaying, and cues like color changes. One common aggressive display is lateralization, showing off the length of the lateral side. During encounters, red deer (Cervus elephas) will line up parallel to each other and swim in the same direction. Convict cichlids will circle each other and align head-to-tail. Lateralization is effective for comparing body sizes, which correlates to strength.

Color signals can be found in fishes and non-fishes alike. For example, mollusks like octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish are able to change their skin pigmentation at will, which is used for camouflage and communication. During courtship, female mourning cuttlefish (Sepia plangon) render themselves plain while males display elaborate patterns. In order to avoid conflict with rivals, some males will produce a courtship pattern on one half of their body and female patterns on the other.

Fishes can be capable of rapid color-changes to signal aggressive intent, to advertise an aggressive encounter, or to concede with a show of submission. Mbuna (Labeotropheus fuelleborni) communicate aggression through changes in color patterns. Male three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) develop UV-color patterns during combat. When defeated, oscars (Astronotus ocellatus) darken from olive-green to black and develop white stripes.

Acoustic

Sound travels faster and farther underwater than it does in air, so large-bodied animals like cetaceans are able to communicate with each other over thousands of kilometers. Though this range isn't available to smaller animals, fishes still make ample use of sound and in fact have the most diverse sound-production systems among vertebrates.

In rainbowfish (Herotilapia multispinosa), Brown 1978 et al. identified several sounds used during aggressive encounters, often paired with visual displays. During head-to-tail lateral displays combatants make "thump" sounds or occasionally a "volley." Courting fish in agonistic encounters "whoof" at each other. Other described sounds were crackling, popping, drumming, and "br-r-r." Male plainfin midshipman (Porichthys notatus) contract their swim bladder muscles in order to create a long, monotone noise called a "hum", used for courtship, and a short "grunt" to signal aggression.

Chemical

On land, chemical signals are useful for long-term communication; for example, the use of scent-marking by wolves to indicate the boundary of their territory. In water however, chemical signals disperse quickly, so they are used by aquatic animals for short-term communication, especially as a useful supplement when visual conditions are poor. Some aquatic animals, like crustaceans, use chemicals as their primary communication medium; for example, American lobsters (Homarus americanus) compete for dominance by shooting jets of urine at each other.

In fishes, chemical communication is used by many cichlid species from the African Great Lakes. Neolamprologus pulcher mediate aggressive encounters through signals in their urine. When their sense of smell is blocked, aggressive encounters escalate more often, and fights become more intense.

Sneaking

• "Some males use an alternative reproductive strategy – sneaking – to gain fertilization without investing in territorial defence (Taborsky, 1994). Sneakers are usually smaller and behave like females to access the territory without being confronted by the dominant male, and ultimately fertilize a proportion of the ova (Taborsky, 1994). Sneaking is an interesting strategy from the chemical communication point of view as sneakers must either be “pheromonally silent” (Locatello et al., 2002; Miller et al., 2019) or mimic females in odour as well as looks. One example is the G. niger, wherein parental males release a sex pheromone produced in the mesorchial gland that attracts females and induces aggressive displays in other males (Locatello et al., 2002). Nonetheless, sneakers have undeveloped mesorchial glands; it has been hypothesized that they are “pheromonally silent” so as not to be detected by the other males, thus facilitating fertilization of eggs by avoiding aggressive encounters with other males (Locatello et al., 2002)."

Electric

• "In these species [terrestrial and aquatic alike], the reception of the electric field plays a role in navigation and foraging (Clarke et al., 2013; Peters & Bretschneider, 1972), and might further be used as communication channel in a social or sexual context (Kramer, 1996; Werneyer & Kramer, 2005)."
• "the production of electric fields has been demonstrated predominantly in aquatic species (but see Greggers et al., 2013; Ishay, Goldstein, Rosenzweig, Kalicharan, & Jongebloed, 1997). In fishes, electric field production evolved several times independently, including rays, catfishes, knifefishes and elephantfishes"
• "Some fishes can produce electrical discharges, with electrical pulses in the millivolt range proposed to act as electrical signals for communication (Hopkins, 1974; Kramer, 1990; Tricas & Carlson, 2012); higher voltages may be used to evade predators or stun prey"
• for true communication, a species has to be able to both receive and produce electric fields
• "electric communication has been demonstrated in different South American knifefishes and African elephantfishes (Kramer, 1996). These species are mainly nocturnal and usually live in highly turbid water, where visual communication is impossible, creating the need for alternative ways to communicate. Accordingly, they use weak electric fields in various contexts, like orientation (Schumacher, von der Emde, & Burt de Perera, 2017), foraging (von der Emde & Bleckmann, 1998) and during reproduction (Werneyer & Kramer, 2005). Importantly, such electric cues play a role in aggressive signalling. For example, studies on different South American ghost knifefish species have shown that both sexes produce an array of different electric signals that they modulate during agonistic encounters (Tallarovic & Zakon, 2002). While some of these cues play a role in signalling dominance (Hupe & Lewis, 2008; Triefenbach & Zakon, 2008), others are used in signalling submission (Zubizarreta, Stoddard, & Silva, 2015). "

Mechanosensory

• define mechanosensory
• "some crayfish species wave their antennae as part of a visual threat signal. Such waving is sometimes followed by antennae tapping, during which the constants quickly touch the anterior region of the contestant with their antennae"
• "Rock mantis shrimp (Neogonodactylus bredini) use potentially deadly telson strikes to engage into ritualized attacks, a behaviour termed telson sparring (Green & Patek, 2015). Here, the individual performing higher amounts of ritualized strikes usually wins the contest. Such telson sparring fulfils the prerequisite of mutual assessment models proposed by contest theory (Green & Patek, 2018)."
• "Subordinates of the cooperatively breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher, for example, regularly touch the body flank of dominant individuals with their mouth. Such bumping behaviour does not induce aggressive reactions of the receiver and is interpreted as a way to affirm the subordinate state of the signaller (Hamilton et al., 2005)."
• "Petromyzont agnathans, fishes, and larval and some adult amphibians are able to perceive such water movements or pressure changes via their lateral line (see Northcutt, 1989 for a review). This sensory system is built of structures that consists of a hair cell epithelium and a cupula that connects the ciliary bundles of the hair cells with the water surrounding the fish (termed neuromasts, Bleckmann & Zelick, 2009)."
• "The lateral line system is furthermore hypothesized to play a crucial role in the mutual assessment of an opponents’ strength (Enquist, Leimar, Ljungberg, Mallner, & Segerdahl, 1990). Indeed, many fish often swish water at one another during lateral displays (Barlow, 2000). A recent study on Burton's mouthbrooder (Astatotilapia burtoni) showed that these fish use mechanosensory information perceived by their lateral line to avoid overt aggressive encounters during territorial interactions (Butler & Maruska, 2015). "

Sex-specific aggression

• aggression and courtship, mate selection
• sexual selection pressures on egg-bearing vs sperm-bearing organisms
• exceptions: aggressive females: clownfish, pipefish, blackchin tilapia
• sex differences in behavior

Territorial aggression

[possibly unnecessary section][maybe inter-specific aggression?]

Many species of fish are territorial and will use aggressive behaviors to maintain exclusive access to food, mates, and offspring within their territory. Defended areas are generally kept by either an individual or a breeding pair, and aggressive behaviors are usually directed at conspecific intruders. While protecting their regions, territorial fish display aggressive behavior against their intruders by striking at competing fish with a bump or a bite. [reebs]

Physiology

Aggressiveness in fish is determined by complex interactions between different parts of the brain. In zebrafish, a model organism, researchers identified eight neural pathways involved in aggression, many of which overlap with aggression-associated pathways in mammals. A few mechanisms involved in determining aggression are dopamine, serotonin, somatostatin, and histamine pathways.

Hormones

Though the biology determining aggressiveness in fish is complex and not yet fully explored, several hormones have been identified as important components.

Androgens are masculinizing hormones which are found in greater quantities in male fish. High levels of androgens are associated with aggression, both as a cause and an effect; administering androgens can spike aggressiveness, while higher levels of androgens can also be found in fish displaying aggression. An androgen-aggression connection also may explain why male fish are typically more aggressive than female fish, although this connection doesn't exist in every species. Aggression levels in Siamese fighting fish, Mozambique tilapia, and pumpkinseeds are not affected by drops in androgens.

Cortisol is a steroid hormone produced in response to activity in the hypothalamus–pituitary–interrenal (HPI) axis, the "fight-or-flight" center for teleosts. Subordinate fish tend to have higher amounts of HPI activity and cortisol than dominant fish, and shifts in the hierarchy are matched with corresponding shifts in cortisol. This implicates cortisol as a modulator of aggressiveness, since subordinate fish are less aggressive than dominant fish. In rainbow trout, 2 days of cortisol exposure will suppress aggression.

Growth hormones may also indirectly affect aggression by increasing a fish's energetic demand. This causes the fish to establish a larger territory, which will also increase the likelihood of intruders.

Other hormones associated with aggressive behavior are thyroxine, triiodothyronine, and the neuropeptides arginine‐vasotocin and isotocin. The administration of these hormones can induce or suppress aggression, but effect varies by species. How they regulate aggression is not yet understood.

References

Category:Aggression Aggression