In species whose social structure includes dominance relationships, individuals are likely to engage in frequent agonistic interactions with conspecifics, and these interactions can have substantial effects on participants. For example, ‘winner’ and ‘loser’ effects, whereby winning or losing a contest increases the probability of winning or losing subsequent encounters, have been described in many species. However, a smaller body of research has shown that winning or losing a contest can lead to additional behavioral changes that affect other domains of an individual’s social experiences. Here, we report on an experiment designed to evaluate the effects of prior contests on subsequent mating interactions in the crayfish (Faxonius virilis). We presented males with mating opportunities either immediately following or 7 days after a contest with a conspecific male. We predicted that winners would be more likely to mate than losers, because of either or both winner/loser effects and differences in male competitiveness. We found that, when presented with a mating opportunity immediately following a contest, winning males were more likely to mate than were losing males. We also found that these differences had eroded within 7 days, such that there was no significant difference in the proportions of winners and losers that mated after that period. We concluded that the changes in mating behavior that we observed immediately after a contest were likely due to relatively short-term winner and loser effects, rather than any differences in the males’ competitiveness, which would presumably be of longer duration.

在社会结构包括优势关系的物种中，个体可能会与同种进行频繁的激动互动，而这些互动会对参与者产生重大影响。例如，“赢家”和“输家”效应，即赢得或输掉比赛会增加赢得或输掉后续遭遇的可能性，已在许多物种中得到描述。然而，一小部分研究表明，赢得或输掉比赛会导致额外的行为改变，从而影响个人社交体验的其他领域。在这里，我们报告了一项旨在评估先前竞赛对小龙虾（Faxonius virilis）。我们在与同种雄性比赛后立即或 7 天后为雄性提供了交配机会。我们预测，赢家比输家更有可能交配，因为赢家/输家效应中的一个或两个，以及男性竞争力的差异。我们发现，在比赛结束后立即提供交配机会时，获胜的雄性比失败的雄性更有可能交配。我们还发现这些差异在 7 天内消失了，因此在那段时间之后交配的赢家和输家的比例没有显着差异。我们得出的结论是，我们在比赛后立即观察到的交配行为的变化可能是由于相对短期的赢家和输家效应，而不是雄性竞争力的任何差异，