Dominance hierarchies have been well studied in myriad terrestrial animals, but surprisingly little is known about hierarchies in marine invertebrates; examples are limited to a few species of decapod crustaceans and cephalopods. Is the marine environment less conducive to the establishment of dominance hierarchy structures, or does this just underline the lack of detailed behavioral information about most marine invertebrates? In this review, we highlight the published information about marine invertebrate dominance hierarchies, which involve ranks established through fights or displays. We focus on the method of hierarchy formation, examine the ecological implications of this population structure, and compare the habitat and behavioral characteristics of species that exhibit this behavior. Because dominance hierarchies can influence habitat use, population distributions, energetics, mating, resource exploitation, and population genetic structure, it is crucial to understand how this trait evolves and which species are likely to exhibit it. A better understanding of marine invertebrate hierarchies could change the way we think about population dynamics of some species and could have important implications for fisheries, conservation, or even modeling of social and economic inequality.

中文翻译：

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海洋无脊椎动物的优势等级

优势等级已经在多种陆生动物中得到了很好的研究，但令人惊讶的是，对海洋无脊椎动物等级的了解很少。例子仅限于十足纲甲壳类和头足类的几种。海洋环境是否不利于建立主导性等级结构，或者这只是在强调缺乏有关大多数海洋无脊椎动物的详细行为信息的情况下？在本文中，我们重点介绍了有关海洋无脊椎动物优势等级的已发布信息，其中包括通过战斗或展示建立的军衔。我们专注于层次结构形成的方法，研究这种种群结构的生态意义，并比较表现出这种行为的物种的栖息地和行为特征。由于优势等级会影响栖息地的使用，种群分布，能量，交配，资源开发和种群遗传结构，了解这一特征如何演变以及哪些物种可能表现出这一特征至关重要。对海洋无脊椎动物等级制度的更好理解可能会改变我们对某些物种种群动态的思考方式，并且可能对渔业，保护甚至社会和经济不平等现象的建模产生重要影响。