Red squirrels mitigate costs of territory defence through social plasticity

摘要: For territorial species, the ability to be behaviourally plastic in response changes their social environment may beneficial by allowing individuals mitigate conflict with conspecifics and reduce costs of territoriality. Here we investigated whether North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) were able minimize territory defence adjusting behaviour familiarity neighbouring conspecifics. Since living familiar neighbourhoods face reduced intrusion risk, predicted that increasing among neighbours would allow spend less time on more nest. Long-term behavioural data (1995-2004) collected from same across several different environments indicated rates vocalizations increased nest use neighbours. In contrast, cross-sectional (2015-2016), which provided observations each individual a single environment, did not provide evidence this plasticity. Post-hoc analyses revealed plasticity system was primarily due within-individual behaviour, unable estimate data. Our results demonstrate can territoriality appropriately environment. However, our also suggest estimating comparing (i.e. analyses) always reliable. detect these effects therefore depend having multiple environments.