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© 1995 International Society for Behavioral Ecology

research-article

Toward a theory of dominance hierarchies: effects of assessment, group size, and variation in fighting ability

Michael Mesterton-Gibbonsa and Lee Alan Dugatkinb

aDepartment of Mathematics, Florida State University Tallahassee, FL 32306-3027, USA bDivision of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211, USA bDepartment of Biology, Life Sciences Building—Room 319, University of Louisville—Belknap Campus Louisville, KY 40292

ABSTRACT

We introduce assessment to the analysis of dominance hierarchies by exploring the effect of an evolutionarily stable fighting rule when there is variation in resource holding potential (RHP) and RHP is not a perfectly reliable predictor of the outcome of a fight. With assessment, the probability of a linear hierarchy decreases with group size but can remain appreciable for groups of up to seven or eight individuals, whereas it decreases virtually to zero if there is no assessment. The probability of a hierarchy that correlates perfectly with RHP is low unless group size is small.

Key words: aggression, dimensionless parameters, dominance hierarchies, evolutionary game theory, resource holding potential, [Behav Ecol 6: 416–423 (1995)].


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