What do we know about the causes and consequences of salmonid social hierarchies from laboratory experiments?

Abstract

The main focus of this review will be to examine the current understanding of the causes and consequences of salmonid hierarchies as well as the implications to wild populations and aquaculture. Salmonid dominance hierarchies readily form under laboratory conditions, this has allowed extensive research into social structures. There is limited research into the causes of social status, however, the cause is likely to be a combination of standard metabolic rate, body size and prior competitive experience. A wide range of research outlines the consequences of social status from behavioural changes in aggression and submission to physiological changes in disease resistance, the stress response of fish, responsiveness to additional stressors and varied growth rates to name just a few