The role of skill in animal contests: Analysis of a neglected RHP trait in fighting hermit crabs

技能在动物竞赛中的作用：分析寄居蟹战斗中被忽视的 RHP 特性

• 批准号: BB/S004742/1
• 负责人: Mark Briffa
• 金额: $ 37.59万
• 依托单位: Plymouth University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FS004742%2F1
• 关键词: role; skill; animal; contests; Analysis

The resources that animals need to survive and reproduce are often limited in supply. Therefore, evolution has produced aggressive behaviours that allow individuals to take resources from others. The resulting fighting or contest behaviour has been the focus of intense study because the ability to win fights will have a strong effect on an individual's success in evolutionary terms. Most effort has focussed on the questions of why animals should fight and how they should make the decision to quit a fight and relinquish the contested resource. In contrast far less effort has been made to understand how animals fight, and what might differ between the aggressive behaviour of winners and losers. This is important for two reasons. First, our understanding of why animals fight is dependent on measuring their fighting ability. While it seems obvious that larger individuals should be stronger than smaller ones, in nature more fights take place when opponents are evenly matched. Therefore, it could be subtle differences in their aggressive behaviour that really drive differences in fighting prowess. Second, by investigating aggressive behaviour its-self we are directly investigating the traits for winning fights that we assume are produced by natural selection. In this project we will focus our investigations on a potentially important component of fighting ability that has been almost completely ignored to date: the possibility that winners and losers differ in skill. Skill describes the effectiveness of the movement patterns that animals use to form aggressive behaviours. We will use accurate filming and 3D animation technology to measure the movement patterns of fighting hermit crabs. These small crustaceans fight over the ownership of the empty snail shells that they rely on for protection. One crab, the defender spends most of the fight tightly withdrawn into its shell. The attacker, meanwhile, uses its shell to repeatedly strike the surface of the defender's shell. If the attacker fights well, this shell rapping behaviour will cause the defender to release its internal grip on its shell, allowing the attacker to evict it and take over the defender's newly vacated shell. We know that vigorous rapping (i.e. at a high rate) is important but should skill play a role as well? Here we will ask whether successful attackers that evict the defender fight more skilfully than those that fail to gain an eviction. First we will ask if their shell rapping is more efficient and accurate, by comparing the displacement distances and the positions of strikes between successful and unsuccessful attackers. We will also ask whether precision is important by comparing how concentrated the points of impact are for successful and unsuccessful attackers. Then we will examine how attackers decide when to switch between shell rapping and a less demanding tactic called shell rocking. In the second part of the grant we will look at the factors that could underpin variation in fighting skill. Do more skilful fighters, for instance, also show better performance of physically demanding or cognitive tasks? And how much of an individual's potential for fighting skilfully (technique) is actually expressed during a fight where its opponent should try to hinder skillful fighting? These studies will represent the first concerted effort to study the role of skill in animal contests. By providing a better picture of what makes a good fighter, we will gain new insights into the evolution of aggression. Furthermore, these studies will have potential broader impacts beyond biology. In sports science, skill is also composed of accuracy, precision, efficiency and appropriate tactics. The statistical approaches we will use for analysing the data on these parameters in hermit crabs could be adapted for use in programmes that seek to identify potential elite athletes or to reveal areas for improvement in individual training programmes.

动物生存和繁殖所需的资源往往是有限的。因此，进化产生了侵略性行为，允许个体从他人那里获取资源。由此产生的战斗或竞赛行为一直是密集研究的焦点，因为赢得战斗的能力将对个体在进化方面的成功产生强烈影响。大多数的努力都集中在为什么动物应该打架，以及他们应该如何决定退出战斗和放弃有争议的资源的问题上。相比之下，人们对动物如何战斗，以及胜利者和失败者的攻击行为之间的差异所做的努力要少得多。这一点很重要，原因有二。首先，我们对动物为什么打架的理解依赖于测量它们的战斗能力。虽然似乎很明显，较大的个体应该比较小的个体更强大，但在自然界中，当对手势均力敌时，会发生更多的战斗。因此，可能是它们攻击行为的细微差异真正导致了战斗力的差异。其次，通过研究攻击行为本身，我们直接研究了我们认为是由自然选择产生的赢得战斗的特征。在这个项目中，我们将集中研究战斗能力的一个潜在的重要组成部分，迄今为止几乎完全被忽视：胜利者和失败者在技能上不同的可能性。技能描述了动物用来形成攻击行为的运动模式的有效性。我们将使用精确的拍摄和3D动画技术来测量战斗寄居蟹的运动模式。这些小甲壳类动物为争夺它们赖以生存的空蜗牛壳的所有权而争斗。一只螃蟹，防御者花了大部分时间紧紧地缩在壳里。与此同时，攻击者用它的壳反复撞击防御者的壳的表面。如果攻击者打得好，这种壳敲击行为将导致防御者释放其对壳的内部控制，允许攻击者驱逐它并接管防御者新空出的壳。我们知道，有力的说唱（即在一个高速率）是重要的，但技能发挥作用，以及？在这里，我们要问，成功驱逐防御者的攻击者是否比那些未能获得驱逐的攻击者更熟练地战斗。首先，我们将通过比较成功和失败的攻击者之间的位移距离和攻击位置，来询问他们的炮弹敲击是否更有效和准确。我们还将通过比较成功和不成功的攻击者的影响点的集中程度来询问精确度是否重要。然后，我们将研究攻击者如何决定何时在贝壳敲击和一种要求不高的称为贝壳摇摆的战术之间切换。在补助金的第二部分，我们将研究可能导致战斗技能差异的因素。例如，更熟练的战士在体力或认知任务中是否也表现出更好的表现？在对手试图阻碍熟练格斗的情况下，一个人熟练格斗（技术）的潜力在多大程度上得到了体现？这些研究将代表第一次共同努力研究技能在动物比赛中的作用。通过提供一个更好的图片是什么使一个好的战士，我们将获得新的见解的演变侵略。此外，这些研究将产生超越生物学的潜在更广泛的影响。在体育科学中，技术也是由准确性、精确性、效率和适当的战术组成的。我们将用于分析寄居蟹中这些参数数据的统计方法可以适用于寻求识别潜在精英运动员或揭示个人训练计划中需要改进的领域的计划。

项目成果

Using ternary plots to investigate continuous variation in animal contest strategies

• DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.06.006
• 发表时间: 2020-09-01
• 期刊: ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR
• 影响因子: 2.5
• 作者: Briffa, M.;Lane, S. M.;Peixoto, P. E. C.
• 通讯作者: Peixoto, P. E. C.

Microplastic exposure increases predictability of predator avoidance strategies in hermit crabs

• DOI: 10.1016/j.hazl.2020.100005
• 发表时间: 2020-10
• 期刊: Journal of Hazardous Materials Letters
• 作者: G. Nanninga;Catharine Horswill;S. M. Lane;A. Manica;M. Briffa

The angle of attack: rapping technique predicts skill in hermit crab contests

• DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.02.017
• 发表时间: 2022-03-29
• 期刊: ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR
• 影响因子: 2.5
• 作者: Lane, Sarah M.;Cornwell, Tomas O.;Briffa, Mark
• 通讯作者: Briffa, Mark

Perceived and actual fighting ability: determinants of success by decision, knockout or submission in human combat sports.

感知和实际的战斗能力：人类战斗运动中的决策，淘汰或提交成功的决定因素。

• DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2020.0443
• 发表时间: 2020-10
• 期刊: Biology letters
• 影响因子: 3.3
• 作者: Lane SM;Briffa M
• 通讯作者: Briffa M

The effect of performance capacity and decision-making speed on skilful fighting

表现能力和决策速度对技巧性格斗的影响

• DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.03.002
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Animal Behaviour
• 影响因子: 2.5
• 作者: Lane S