ReviewProceedings. Biological sciences2017
The role of skill in animal contests: a neglected component of fighting ability.
Review in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed.
- Investigating experiential effects in online chess using a hierarchical Bayesian analysis.Journal of quantitative analysis in sports · 2026Article
- Transcriptomic investigation of agonistic behaviors of boxer shrimps (Stenopus species): insights into the potential neural signaling roles of dopamine and acetylcholine.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Cognitive and non-cognitive factors predict pigs' positions in an aggression social network.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Intrasexual Selection for Upper Limb Length in Homo sapiens.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Nuancing 'Emotional' Social Play: Does Play Behaviour Always Underlie a Positive Emotional State?Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Review
- Sexually selected weapons can wear out, decreasing their effectiveness in combat.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Seed preference is only weakly linked to seed-type-specific feeding performance in a songbird.Biology open · 2024Article
- Male Pagurus minutus hermit crabs use multiple types of information in decisions to give up male-male contests.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Article
- Sexual selection for both diversity and repetition in birdsong.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Play face in Japanese macaques reflects the sender's play motivation.Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Article
- Human third-party observers accurately track fighting skill and vigour along their unique paths to victory.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Facial width-to-height ratio predicts fighting success: A direct replication and extension of Zilioli et al. (2014).Aggressive behavior · 2022Article
- Fighting force and experience combine to determine contest success in a warlike mammal.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Article
- Reproductive skew, fighting costs and winner-loser effects in social dominance evolution.The Journal of animal ecology · 2022Article
- Social behavior in farm animals: Applying fundamental theory to improve animal welfare.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2022Review
- Fighting ability, personality and melanin signalling in free-living Eurasian tree sparrows (PeerJ · 2022Article
- Mechanoethology: The Physical Mechanisms of Behavior.Integrative and comparative biology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
What attributes make some individuals more likely to win a fight than others? A range of morphological and physiological traits have been studied intensely but far less focus has been placed on the actual agonistic behaviours used. Current studies of agonistic behaviour focus on contest duration and the vigour of fighting. It also seems obvious that individuals that fight more skilfully should have a greater chance of winning a fight. Here, we discuss the meaning of skill in animal fights. As the activities of each opponent can be disrupted by the behaviour of their rival, we differentiate among ability, technique and skill itself. In addition to efficient, accurate and sometimes precise movement, skilful fighting also requires rapid decision-making, so that appropriate tactics and strategies are selected. We consider how these different components of skill could be acquired, through genes, experiences of play-fighting and of real fights. Skilful fighting can enhance resource holding potential (RHP) by allowing for sustained vigour, by inflicting greater costs on opponents and by minimizing the chance of damage. Therefore, we argue that skill is a neglected but important component of RHP that could be readily studied to provide new insights into the evolution of agonistic behaviour.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.