Lafleur, D. L., Lozano, G. A., & Sclafani, M. (1997). Female mate-choice copying in guppies,Poecilia reticulata: a re-evaluation. Anim. Behav., 54(3), 579–586.
Abstract: It has been argued that intraspecific mate-choice copying can be adaptive under certain conditions. Dugatkin's (1992,Am. Nat.139, 1384-1389) work with guppies,Poecilia reticulataremains the most influential experimental demonstration of this phenomenon. We replicated Dugatkin's work using several choice criteria to ensure that our results were not dependent upon any single method of judging mate choice. We also tested our findings against two null hypotheses of differing stringency. Irrespective of the choice criteria or null hypothesis used, we did not observe any relationship between female mate choice and copying. We conclude that further experimental evidence of female mate-choice copying is required before the existence of this behaviour can be affirmed.
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Czaran, T. (1999). Game theory and evolutionary ecology: Evolutionary Games & Population Dynamics by J. Hofbauer and K. Sigmund, and Game Theory & Animal Behaviour, edited by L.A. Dugatkin and H.K. Reeve. Trends. Ecol. Evol, 14(6), 246–247.
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Stephens, D. W., Anderson, J. P., & Benson, K. E. (1997). On the spurious occurrence of Tit for Tat in pairs of predator-approaching fish. Anim. Behav., 53(1), 113–131.
Abstract: An experimental analysis of the movements of predator-approaching fish is presented. The experiments evaluated two competing hypotheses. (1) Predator-approaching fish play the game-theoretical strategy Tit for Tat. Alternatively, (2) the movements of predator-approaching fish superficially resemble Tit for Tat, because fish independently orient to a predator and simultaneously attempt to stay close together. Experimental subjects were mosquito fish,Gambusia affinisapproaching a green sunfish,Lepomis cyanellusTwo experiments were performed. Experiment 1 replicated results of Milinski (1987) and Dugatkin (1991), showing thatGambusiacome closer to a visible predator when a mirror is oriented parallel to their direction of travel. Experiment 2 attempted to separate the effects of common orientation and social cohesion in accounting for the frequency of Tit-for-Tat-like motions in pairs of predator-approachingGambusia. Results of experiment 2 suggest that a simple additive combination of the effects of (1) social cohesion in the absence of a visible predator and (2) orientation to a visible predator in the absence of a visible companion can account for the observed frequency of Tit-for-Tat-like motions for pairs of predator-approachingGambusia. It is concluded that predator approach in shoaling fishes is probably a simple by-product mutualism, rather than cooperation maintained by reciprocity in a Prisoner's Dilemma.
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Dugatkin, L. A. (1996). Tit for Tat, by-product mutualism and predator inspection: a reply to Connor. Anim. Behav., 51(2), 455–457.
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Dugatkin, L. A., & Bekoff, M. (2003). Play and the evolution of fairness: a game theory model. Behav. Process., 60(3), 209–214.
Abstract: Bekoff [J. Consci. Stud. 8 (2001) 81] argued that mammalian social play is a useful behavioral phenotype on which to concentrate in order to learn more about the evolution of fairness. Here, we build a game theoretical model designed to formalize some of the ideas laid out by Bekoff, and to examine whether `fair' strategies can in fact be evolutionarily stable. The models we present examine fairness at two different developmental stages during an individual's ontogeny, and hence we create four strategies--fair at time 1/fair at time 2, not fair at time 1/not fair at time 2, fair at time 1/not fair at time 2, not fair at time 1/fair at time 2. Our results suggest that when considering species where fairness can be expressed during two different developmental stages, acting fairly should be more common than never acting fairly. In addition, when no one strategy was evolutionarily stable, we found that all four strategies we model can coexist at evolutionary equilibrium. Even in the absence of an overwhelming database from which to test our model, the general predictions we make have significant implications for the evolution of fairness.
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Hare, J. F. (2005). Lee Alan Dugatkin, Principles of Animal Behavior, Norton, New York (2004) Pp. xx+596. Price $80.00. Anim. Behav., 69(1), 247–248.
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Godin, J. - G. J., Herdman, E. J. E., & Dugatkin, L. A. (2005). Social influences on female mate choice in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata: generalized and repeatable trait-copying behaviour. Anim. Behav., 69(4), 999–1005.
Abstract: In vertebrates, the mating preferences of individual females can be flexible and the probability of a female mating with a particular male can be significantly increased by her having previously observed another conspecific female affiliate and mate with that same male. In theory, such mate-choice-copying behaviour has potentially important consequences for both the genetic and social (`cultural') transmission of female mating preferences. For copying to result in the `cultural inheritance' of mating preferences, individual females must not only copy the mate choice decisions of other females but they also should tend to repeat this type of behaviour (i.e. make similar mating decisions) subsequently and to generalize their socially induced preference for a particular male to other males that share his distinctive characteristics. Here, we show experimentally that individual female guppies, Poecilia reticulata, not only copy the observed mating preferences of other females for particular males, but that the preference now assumed via copying is subsequently repeated and generalized to other males of a similar colour phenotype. These results provide empirical evidence for social enhancement of female preference for particular phenotypic traits of chosen males rather than for the particular males possessing those traits, and thus have important implications for our understanding of the role of social learning in the evolution of female mating preferences and of male epigamic traits.
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Dugatkin, L. A., Perlin, M., & Atlas, R. (2003). The Evolution of Group-beneficial Traits in the Absence of Between-group Selection. J. Theor. Biol., 220(1), 67–74.
Abstract: One specific prediction emerging from trait-group models of natural selection is that when individuals possess traits that benefit other group members, natural selection will favor “cheating” (i.e. not possessing the group-beneficial trait) within groups. Cheating is selected within groups because it allows individuals to avoid bearing the relative costs typically associated with group-beneficial traits, but to still reap the benefits associated with the acts of other group members. Selection between groups favors traits that benefit other group members. The relative strength of within- and between-group selection then determines the equilibrium frequency of those who produce group-beneficial traits and those that do not. Here we demonstrate that individual-level selection, that is selection within groups can also produce an intermediate frequency of such group-beneficial traits by frequency-dependent selection. The models we develop are general in nature, but were inspired by the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. The theory developed here is distinct from prior work that relies on reciprocity or kinship per'se to achieve cooperation and altruism among group members.
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Godin, J. - G. J., & Dugatkin, L. A. (1995). Variability and repeatability of female mating preference in the guppy. Anim. Behav., 49(6), 1427–1433.
Abstract: Models of inter-sexual selection generally assume heritable variation in mating preferences among females within populations. However, little is known about the nature of such variation. The aim of this study was to characterize quantitatively the phenotypic variation in female preference for a sexually selected male trait, body colour pattern, within a population of the Trinidadian guppy, Poecilia reticulata. Significantly more female guppies preferred the more brightly coloured of two similar-sized males presented simultaneously as potential mates. Mating preference scores for individual females were significantly and positively correlated between two repeated trials on successive days. Females were thus individually consistent in their particular choice of mates, and the calculated repeatability of their mating preference was relatively high. Notwithstanding the aforementioned, significant variation existed among females in the degree of their preference for brightly coloured males. Individual mating preference scores were not normally distributed, but were rather skewed to the right (i.e. towards greater values). These results suggest that additive genetic variation for mating preferences based on male colour pattern is maintained, and the opportunity for the further evolution of both bright male colour patterns and female preference for this trait appears to exist in the study population from the Quare River, Trinidad.
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Dall, S. R. X., Houston, A. I., & McNamara, J. M. (2004). The behavioural ecology of personality: consistent individual differences from an adaptive perspective. Ecol. Letters, 7, 734–739.
Abstract: Individual humans, and members of diverse other species, show consistent differences in
aggressiveness, shyness, sociability and activity. Such intraspecific differences in
behaviour have been widely assumed to be non-adaptive variation surrounding
(possibly) adaptive population-average behaviour. Nevertheless, in keeping with recent
calls to apply Darwinian reasoning to ever-finer scales of biological variation, we sketch
the fundamentals of an adaptive theory of consistent individual differences in behaviour.
Our thesis is based on the notion that such .personality differences. can be selected for if
fitness payoffs are dependent on both the frequencies with which competing strategies
are played and an individual`s behavioural history. To this end, we review existing models
that illustrate this and propose a game theoretic approach to analyzing personality
differences that is both dynamic and state-dependent. Our motivation is to provide
insights into the evolution and maintenance of an apparently common animal trait:
personality, which has far reaching ecological and evolutionary implications.
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