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Experience shapes accuracy in territorial decision-making in a poison frog

The trade-off between speed and accuracy affects many behavioural processes like predator avoidance, foraging and nest-site selection, but little is known about this trade-off relative to territorial behaviour. Some poison frogs are highly territorial and fiercely repel calling male intruders. Howev...

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Autores principales: Sonnleitner, Ria, Ringler, Max, Loretto, Matthias-Claudio, Ringler, Eva
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7280039/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32396784
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0094
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author Sonnleitner, Ria
Ringler, Max
Loretto, Matthias-Claudio
Ringler, Eva
author_facet Sonnleitner, Ria
Ringler, Max
Loretto, Matthias-Claudio
Ringler, Eva
author_sort Sonnleitner, Ria
collection PubMed
description The trade-off between speed and accuracy affects many behavioural processes like predator avoidance, foraging and nest-site selection, but little is known about this trade-off relative to territorial behaviour. Some poison frogs are highly territorial and fiercely repel calling male intruders. However, attacks need to be conducted cautiously, as they are energetically costly and bear the risk of own injury or accidentally targeting the wrong individual. In this study, we investigated the speed–accuracy trade-off in the context of male territoriality during the breeding season in the brilliant-thighed poison frog, Allobates femoralis. In our experiment, we presented the call of an invisible ‘threatening’ intruder together with a visible ‘non-threatening’ intruder, using acoustic playback and a frog model, respectively. Contrary to our prediction, neither reaction time nor approach speed of the tested frogs determined the likelihood of erroneous attacks. However, younger individuals were more likely to attack the non-threatening model than older ones, suggesting that experience plays an essential role in identifying and distinguishing rivalling individuals in a territorial context.
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spelling pubmed-72800392020-06-09 Experience shapes accuracy in territorial decision-making in a poison frog Sonnleitner, Ria Ringler, Max Loretto, Matthias-Claudio Ringler, Eva Biol Lett Animal Behaviour The trade-off between speed and accuracy affects many behavioural processes like predator avoidance, foraging and nest-site selection, but little is known about this trade-off relative to territorial behaviour. Some poison frogs are highly territorial and fiercely repel calling male intruders. However, attacks need to be conducted cautiously, as they are energetically costly and bear the risk of own injury or accidentally targeting the wrong individual. In this study, we investigated the speed–accuracy trade-off in the context of male territoriality during the breeding season in the brilliant-thighed poison frog, Allobates femoralis. In our experiment, we presented the call of an invisible ‘threatening’ intruder together with a visible ‘non-threatening’ intruder, using acoustic playback and a frog model, respectively. Contrary to our prediction, neither reaction time nor approach speed of the tested frogs determined the likelihood of erroneous attacks. However, younger individuals were more likely to attack the non-threatening model than older ones, suggesting that experience plays an essential role in identifying and distinguishing rivalling individuals in a territorial context. The Royal Society 2020-05 2020-05-13 /pmc/articles/PMC7280039/ /pubmed/32396784 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0094 Text en © 2020 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Animal Behaviour
Sonnleitner, Ria
Ringler, Max
Loretto, Matthias-Claudio
Ringler, Eva
Experience shapes accuracy in territorial decision-making in a poison frog
title Experience shapes accuracy in territorial decision-making in a poison frog
title_full Experience shapes accuracy in territorial decision-making in a poison frog
title_fullStr Experience shapes accuracy in territorial decision-making in a poison frog
title_full_unstemmed Experience shapes accuracy in territorial decision-making in a poison frog
title_short Experience shapes accuracy in territorial decision-making in a poison frog
title_sort experience shapes accuracy in territorial decision-making in a poison frog
topic Animal Behaviour
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7280039/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32396784
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0094
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