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Fitness incentives to male fighters undermine fighting performance in intergroup contests
,
D.W.E. Sankey,
T. Collins ,
F. Mwanguhya,
Hazel Nichols ,
M.A. Cant,
F.J. Thompson
Animal Behaviour, Volume: 224, Start page: 123194
Swansea University Author:
Hazel Nichols
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© 2025 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY license.
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DOI (Published version): 10.1016/j.anbehav.2025.123194
Abstract
In animal societies, groups engage in intergroup conflicts over resources. Group conflict success depends on member contributions to collective fighting, yet individual fitness incentives could undermine group performance. In banded mongooses, Mungos mungo, males contribute most to intergroup fights...
| Published in: | Animal Behaviour |
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| ISSN: | 0003-3472 |
| Published: |
Elsevier BV
2025
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| Online Access: |
Check full text
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69239 |
| Abstract: |
In animal societies, groups engage in intergroup conflicts over resources. Group conflict success depends on member contributions to collective fighting, yet individual fitness incentives could undermine group performance. In banded mongooses, Mungos mungo, males contribute most to intergroup fights, while females often initiate fights and can mate with rival group males during the fray. We tested how focal group contest outcomes are related to male motivation to defend within-group paternity, as compared to the motivation of rival group males to avoid fighting and instead gain outgroup paternity. Focal groups were most likely to win when their females were in oestrus. However, groups that won fights conceded more paternity to their rivals than groups that lost, suggesting rival group males focused on mating at the expense of contest success. We also found that younger males may be most likely to forgo intergroup fighting to focus on intergroup mating, as these males gained more paternity from between-group matings than within-group matings. Our results contribute a rare link between contest outcomes and fitness in a nonprimate species and run counter to common models of collective action by suggesting that personal fitness incentives, here, paternity, can undermine collective fighting performance. Such conflicts of interest are likely inherent in group combat and can contribute to variation in the frequency and costliness of intergroup violence. |
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| Keywords: |
animal contest; collective action; intergroup conflict; parochial altruism; resource value; social evolution; social mammal |
| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |
| Funders: |
P.A.G. was funded by Human Frontier Science Program Fellowship LT000460/2019-L and by UC Santa Barbara. The long-term project was supported by National Environment Research Council Grant NE/S000046/1. F.J.T. was funded by a NERC Independent Research Fellowship NE/V014471/1. |
| Start Page: |
123194 |