Browsing by Subject "Territoriality"
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Item Aggression, space use, and dominance in a social cichlid fish(2021-12-03) Friesen, Caitlin Nicole; Hofmann, Hans (Hans A.); Ryan, Michael J. (Michael Joseph), 1953-; Alonzo, Suzanne; Gore, Andrea C.; Phelps, Steven M.How do individuals adjust their behavior across changing contexts to obtain resources needed to survive and reproduce? In group living animals, behavioral variation is regulated by the surrounding group and the underlying patterns of hormones and neural gene expression. We can often learn more by studying an individual in response to different challenging situations than in an undisturbed setting. For example, the challenge hypothesis has provided a useful framework across taxa to understand causal relationships between androgen hormones and aggressive behavior in response to reproductively motivated social challenges (reviewed in Chapter 1). In contrast, we still have much to learn about dynamic interactions across molecular, physiological, morphological, or behavioral traits that may be functionally linked (the “integrated phenotype”), or the effects of an individual response on others within the social group. There is a paucity of data focused on acute measures of dynamic space use, social behavior, and hormone levels in response to a challenge. To address this gap in our understanding, I conducted a series of experiments using the African cichlid fish, Astatotilapia burtoni. This species occurs in dynamic social groups, and males form dominance hierarchies where socially dominant males defend territories to gain exclusive access to reproductive opportunities. In chapter 2, I examined behavioral variation across dominant males in relation to space use, hormone levels, and gene expression in response to a perturbation to create an integrative metric of territorial behavior. My results show that an integrative analysis of behavioral variation can identify sub-types of dominant male and predict their response to perturbation. In chapter 3, I utilized this integrative metric to investigate how resident dominant males respond to a male intruder within the social group. I found that resident males exhibited distinct types of aggressive displays that differed depending on the outcome of intrusion. Finally, in chapter 4, I investigated whether traits involved in territorial behavior exhibited patterns of covariation by hormonally manipulating one dominant male within each social group. I found context-dependent associations between hormones, space use, and social behavior in dominant males. Taken together, my research highlights the importance of considering acute, dynamic measures of social behavior and space use along with physiological and neural mechanisms involved in individual responses to challenges within naturalistic social groups.Item The social and spatial dimensions of ethnic conflict : contextualizing the divided city of Nicosia, Cyprus(2013-12) Oswald, John Frederick; Butzer, Karl W.Ethnic conflict is a persistent and vexing problem for the world today. The intercommunal violence during these conflicts not only significantly alters the social and spatial geography in these regions for decades, but also frequently involves external actors who magnify the social conflict. It is within the urban areas that the impacts of violence are often most acute and deleterious to the once functioning system. Ethnic conflict transforms many urban areas into “divided cities” in which barricades and armed posts dominate the landscape. With this paradigm of conflict in mind, the overarching purpose of this dissertation is two-fold: 1) to examine how and why certain peaceful societies devolve into intercommunal conflict, and 2) to outline how ethnic conflict ultimately, and often irreparably, transforms an urban area into a “divided city.” In this dissertation, Nicosia, the ethnically divided capital of Cyprus, serves as the primary case study used to illustrate the process of social devolution from ethnic conflict to a militarily fortified urban division. The three main research questions are asked concerning Nicosia’s division. 1) What historic factors contributed to the progression and intensification of the social and spatial cleavages that appear in the urban landscape today? 2) To what extent is the urban divide diagnostic of the overarching ethnic conflict on Cyprus? 3) How is Nicosia’s urban division similar to or different from other “ethnically” divided cities and how might this comparison help further the general understanding of the causes and consequences of these entities? These three questions help frame Nicosia within the context of the larger social conflict on Cyprus as well as assist in developing linkages with other divided cities. As articulated throughout this study, Nicosia is a “model” divided city that typifies how the historically-laden process of ethno-territorial polarization can manifest itself in the physical and social geography of a contested region. In the end, divided cities epitomize the “worst-case-scenario” outcome of ethnic conflict and once the urban divisions take root, they prove exceptionally challenging to remove from the social and physical landscape.