Burrow surveillance in fiddler crabs - I. Description of behaviour

摘要

When defending resources, animals need to reliably detect and identify potential competitors. Animals that live at high population densities would be expected to be efficient in this aspect of resource defence since the time lost in false alarms could be substantial and the failure of identifying a competitor could be very costly. How does an animal decide whether another animal is or is not a threat to a resource or a territory?