The price of attack: rethinking damage costs in animal contests

Theoretical models of injurious animal contests, such as the cumulative assessment model (CAM), predict that an individual's decision to give up and retreat from a fight is determined by reaching a maximum cost threshold (Cmax). Under this model, an individual gives up when the accumulated costs of persisting exceed this threshold. CAM predicts that the velocity with which Cmax is reached depends on both the energetic (physiological) costs of...