California sea lions aggregate in high density colonies during the breeding season. Competition for space and mates results in agonistic interactions that may have long-term population consequences. We explored how demographic, behavioral, and environmental variables influence the rate of agonistic interactions in male and female California sea lions at three breeding colonies with varying population trends and distributed across a wide latitudinal gradient within the Gulf of California, Mexico. Our results indicate that male agonistic interactions are related to environmental and spatial parameters, whereas female interactions are related to male interactions, operational sex ratio (OSR) and environmental parameters. Most demographic and environmental parameters were inversely related to rates of agonistic interactions, with the exception of positive relationships between agonistic interactions and territory size for males and OSR for females. In addition, the highest overall rates of aggression were associated with a declining population. Our findings suggest agonistic interactions may be useful in assessing population dynamics, but additional research is needed to identify mechanistic relationships.
Behaviour publishes original research pursuing Tinbergen's four questions and questions resulting from the interrelationship among the four. In addition, the editorial board encourages reviews of behavioural biology that illuminate emergent trends and new directions in behavioural research. Niko Tinbergen (1907-1988) defined 4 questions for research in behavioral biology: Proximate causation of behaviour: 1. How does an animal use its sensory and motor abilities to activate and modify its behaviour patterns? (physiological mechanisms) 2. How does an animal's behaviour change during its growth, especially in response to the experiences that it has while maturing? (ontogeny of development) Ultimate causation of behaviour: 3. How does the behaviour promote an animal's ability to survive and reproduce? (adaptation) 4. How does an animal's behaviour compare with that of other closely related species, and what does this tell us about the origins of its behavior and the changes that have occurred during the history of the species? (phylogeny) Niko Tinbergen shared, with Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch, the 1973 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology for contributions to the study of behavioural biology. Tinbergen was at heart an experimentalist who, more than Lorenz and von Frisch, applied the scientific method to the field of animal and human behaviour. It is his experimental approach to the study of behaviour that lasts to this day. That is why Tinbergen listed questions and not answers (theorems or laws). The answers (or at least some of them) are published monthly in Behaviour, the journal Tinbergen co-founded with W. H. Thorpe in 1948.
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Behaviour
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