Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Zoology Volume 2013, Article ID 573802, 16 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/573802 Research Article Sensory Systems and Environmental Change on Behavior during Social Interactions S. M. Bierbower, 1 J. Nadolski, 2 and R. L. Cooper 1 1 Department of Biology & Center for Muscle Biology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0225, USA 2 Department of Mathematical and Computational Sciences, Benedictine University, Lisle, IL 60532, USA Correspondence should be addressed to R. L. Cooper; rlcoop1@email.uky.edu Received 21 December 2012; Revised 13 March 2013; Accepted 15 March 2013 Academic Editor: Randy J. Nelson Copyright © 2013 S. M. Bierbower et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. he impact of environmental conditions for transmitting sensory cues and the ability of crayish to utilize olfaction and vision were examined in regards to social interactive behavior. he duration and intensity of interactions were examined for conspeciic crayish with diferent sensory abilities. Normally, vision and chemosensory have roles in agonistic communication of Procambarus clarkii; however, for the blind cave crayish (Orconectes australis packardi), that lack visual capabilities, olfaction is assumed to be the primary sensory modality. To test this, we paired conspeciics in water and out of water in the presence and absence of white light to examine interactive behaviors when these various sensory modalities are altered. For sighted crayish, in white light, interactions occurred and escalated; however, when the water was removed, interactions and aggressiveness decreased, but, there was an increase in visual displays out of the water. he loss of olfaction abilities for blind cave and sighted crayish produced fewer social interactions. he importance of environmental conditions is illustrated for social interactions among sighted and blind crayish. Importantly, this study shows the relevance in the ecological arena in nature for species survival and how environmental changes disrupt innate behaviors. 1. Introduction Social relationships may take many forms when organisms live in a group, and oten times, the individuals must determine their status within a social structure [1–3]. Social dominance is a form of a social relationship in which individuals aggressively interact repeatedly. he interaction between individuals is a well-studied sequential series of interactions, with each individual having the option of terminating or continuing the interaction/contest at any time. he consequence of these interactions most likely results in a dominant individual who repeatedly wins encounters against a subordinate [3]. herefore, agonistic encounters will generally establish social hierarchies between individuals in a population [4–9]. Dominance hierarchies are known to decrease aggressive interactions between individuals based upon social status, therefore stabilizing the population over time [10, 11]. Smith [12] suggests that rank may be a strategy indi- viduals adopt to maximize itness in the population based upon the role of other individuals. his correlates with the established Barnard and Sibly [13] producer-scrounger game in which mixes of strategies work better than all one or the other of a speciic strategy. here are obvious ecological beneits for being the dominant individual and little point in interacting if there is an absence of beneits with aggressive interactions. hus, the beneit of interactions must account not only for the resource, but also the cost in obtaining the resource. he dominate individuals oten have increased access to resources such as mates, food, and shelters [14, 15]. However, this may not always be the case since many other factors play a role such as the value of the resource [16], the inability to monopolize a resource [17], and the loss of resources’ due to stealing of stores/caches by other individuals [18]. Furthermore, females with young oten rise in the social ranks to better provide for their young [19], as well as hungry subordinate individuals oten win encounters against dominants for access to food [20, 21]. here are many factors involved in the establishment of social dominance, and it is well documented that environ- mental cues play a major role in the outcome of social interac- tions whether through chemosensory (odors, [22, 23]), visual