BIO 465W Exam 2.
Which animals preform mate guarding?
Baboons, amphipods, pigmy rattlesnake.
Why can't we just say that males lek because of the hot shot AND the hotspot hypothesis?
Because they are alternative hypotheses. It can only be one or the other.
Why do females prefer males with long tails?
Because they are more faithful, their kids survive more and they produce offspring with higher parasite resistance.
Why does post copulatory competition matter?
Because with females having spermatheca and fertility that can last almost a half a year, getting rid of other male's sperm might help the male increase his reproductive success.
What kinds of males do female Tungara frogs prefer?
Bigger males with lower frequency of calls. The whine + chuck is a lower frequency call. The larger the frog, the lower the frequency of the chuck.
What is an example of the sound and vibration sensory modality?
Birds and whale songs, echolocation in bats & whales, long-distance communication in elephants and whales.
What is optimal inbreeding?
Breeding that occurs with first cousins or third cousins is preferred over breeding with more related individuals or completely unrelated individuals.
What are the differences in energy put into gametes between males and females?
By investing in one (or few), they can no longer invest in many. Trade off between fecundity and rearing (males have greater reproductive potential).
What is a sign?
Characteristics that are not under selection to inform.
What is the best definition of communication that we have today?
Communication occurs when an animal (signaler) does something to influence sense organs of another animal (receiver) so the receiver's behavior changes to the advantage of the signaler.
In the prisoner's dilemma, what choices do you have?
Confess or remain silent
What experiment was done to determine if females prefer elongated tails?
Control, shortened, elongated, cut and glued back on. They found that shortened tails mated more often than all others, others less likely to engage in extrapair mating than shortened tails. Shortened tails had the least offspring, elongated tails had the most.
Does curved or vertical surfaces matter to the direction indication for bees? What do bees do when they are perpendicular from earth's surface?
Curved and vertical surfaces don't matter. When perpendicular, Earth's gravitational pull is used to indicate direction
What is an example of contact guarding as a form of post copulatory adaptation?
Damselflies remain connected for a period of time after mating.
What is an example of the radiant heat sensory modality?
Detection of prey by rattle snakes
What is an example of the electric fields sensory modality?
Detection of prey by sharks through use of a special sensory organ that can detect electromagnetic currents generated by muscle movement and communication in electric fish.
What is anisogamy? what does it mean energetically?
Differences in gamete size between males and females. It means it takes more energy to make one egg than to make one sperm. Males make more gametes than females w/same amount of energy. Eggs are costly, sperm is cheap. The one with the expensive gamete are going to be choosier.
How do domesticated foxes have altered fear responses?
Domesticated foxes have higher levels of serotonin than normal. They also have delayed onset fear response to unknown stimuli.
What are some examples of animals that exhibit resource defense?
Dragonflies/damselflies Apple maggot flies Elephant seal
What is the intersexual selection definition?
Female choice: males have colorful plumage, elaborate ornaments or pre-mating displays & females select most attractive males.
What is the "sexy son hypothesis"?
Female chooses male so that her sons would be attractive to females because their father is an attractive male.
What is a unique characteristic of female hyenas? Why do they have this?
Females have pseudopenis and pseudoscrotum because they are exposed to testosterone in-utero.
What was the Hamilton & Zuk good-gene hypothesis?
Females prefer males with most elaborate signals. Males with most elaborate signals produce offspring with increased parasite resistance. Primarily for chickens but considered all species.
What is an example of the light sensory modality?
Fireflies use flashing to communicate with each other.
What is the major histocompatibility complex?
Genes that code for cell surface proteins that are necessary for recognition of foreign molecules (need for immune system). With more diverse alleles there is better immune response unless it is a dominant pathogen in the population. When there are multiple pathogens, this is important to mate choice.
What experiment did Van Frisch perform?
He used marked bees to test the idea that honeybees communicate information about location & quality of food sources by "dancing".
What is scramble competition?
He who gets there first mates. Competition to be first to locate receptive females. Aggression or fighting only occurs if two males find the female at the same time.
What are some defensive/offensive attributes males have developed to aggressively fight for mates or against predators?
Horns, antlers, tusks, spurs, other weapons.
Darwin had no preference for female preference. Who argued female choice (someone known as darwin's bulldog, usually on his side?)
Huxley Because he couldn't see how to attribute standards of beauty to animals \.
What family are hyenas apart of?
Hyaenidae
When would males only use dominance behavior for female groups seasonally?
If all the females estrous is synchronized
How are signs and signals different from one another?
Information conveyed by signs is a by-product, not a function, of the characteristic. So signals are intentional and are a function of the characteristic.
What does the bee dance depend on and how elaborate is it?
It depends on the symbolic representations. it is the most elaborate outside of humans.
What is the Coolidge effect?
It has to do with interest in novel females. Mrs. Coolidge and president Coolidge were being showed around somewhere. Someone told Mrs. Coolidge that a rooster mates multiple times a day. Mrs. Coolidge said the person should tell President Coolidge that. They told the President and the President asked, "With the same female everytime? No? Please tell that to Mrs. Coolidge." LOL
What is an aphrodisiac chemical?
It is a chemical that makes a female less appealing to other males. It turns them off basically.
What is a mate plug?
It is a plug males insert into female genital openings after mating. It stays in place long enough for the females to become non-receptive to mating.
What is cryptic female choice?
It is female choice that happens inside of the females reproductive tract.
What is strategic allocation of ejaculates?
It is when males selected to adjust sperm based on matings that will bring best returns.
When food is 200m away from the hive, what is the waggle dance like?
It is wider and slower, only making 8 runs in 15seconds.
What is the advantage of the Bruce Effect?
It removes the risk of investing in young when infanticide is likely to occur anyway. She cuts her losses.
Who came up with modern game theory?
John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern
What is an example of auditory mimicry?
Katydids using clicks to attract male cicadas
What are some examples of animals that display dominance behavior year-round.
Lions, horses, monkeys.
How do male dunnocks preform sperm removal?
Male birds peck at the females cloaca until she ejects the sperm of the previous male.
What is an example of the odor sensory modality?
Male silk moths can detect female pheromone which they can then pinpoint her location.
What is the intrasexual selection definition?
Male-male competition for mates: weapons, bigger size, aggression.
What is the Hot Spot Hypothesis?
Males aggregate in places females are likely to come to and males choose their territory within the lek based on geography. ex: manakins lek in places where fruit is plentiful.
Wallace argued against female choice, proposing the Excess Energy Hypothesis. What is this?
Males are more brightly colored than females because they have more energy to convert to color.
What mating tactic do bluegill sunfish generally use?
Males are territorial, they mature later, build nests and provide brood care. There are also sneaker males and pseudofemales.
What is sexual enthusiasm?
Males copulate with as many females as possible. Sperm is cheap, mostly low parental care so small price to pay for mating mistakes.
What is the theory behind dominance behavior?
Males defend group of females against other males for exclusive mating access.
What are the origins of sexual selection as described by Darwin?
Males differed from females in ways that seemed non-adaptive e.g. bright colors, long tails, aggressive behavior. Used sexual selection to describe these maladaptive traits.
What theories did Darwin have about intersexual selection?
Males have traits females don't: sexually selected (like cardinals) Females have an innate sense of 'ideal' mate type: mutants that conform to this ideal are selected for. Fancy males evolved because female preference for aesthetic traits.
How do damselflies preform sperm removal?
Males use their brush-like penis to scrape previous males sperm away.
Female barn swallows also prefer males with long tails (A.P. Moller). So why don't barn swallow males have extra long tails?
Males with longer tails may be affected in flight, slowing them down. Not all the males have the good genes, not every male can have good genes.
Who preformed experiments on long tailed widow birds?
Malte Anderson
How do polygenes influence floppy ears?
Many of the polygenes determining behavior may be regulatory, engaged in stabilizing an organisms early development, or ontogenesis. So though they only selected foxes based on tameness, the genes that control floppy ears were connected and held into adulthood.
Which mammal has the lowest fertility of sperm at 6hrs and which has the highest fertility of sperm at 156 days?
Mice (6) Bats (156)
What are some examples of sensory modalities?
Odor, Sound + Vibration, just vibration, radient heat, electric fields, light.
What is a classic visual mimicry and murder example?
Photuris sp. can mimic the flashing of of male photinus species (fireflies) to attract them closer to her and eats them. When Photuris sp. responds to an individual of their own species, they use their own species flashing pattern.
What bees besides foragers waggle dance?
Pollen gatherers
Wha tis the Bruce effect?
Pregnancy is disrupted in females that encounter a strange male. It could be a counter strategy to infancticide. Occurs in voles and mice.
What is an example of an animal that displays dominance behavior seasonally?
Red deer.
What does dominance correlate strongly with?
Reproductive success.
What organisms mate plug?
Rodents, honeybees, snakes, acanthocephalan worms.
How does the Bolas Spider catch male moths?
She spins a sticky thread and mimics the pheromones of a female moth to attract the males to her trap. When they get stuck in the sticky ball at the end of her thread, she then reals him in and injects venom.
What is mate guarding?
Single males defending access to a single female.
How are sunfish illegitimate signalers?
Smaller bluegill sunfish males which are pseudofemales will get in between a bigger dominant male and the female he is mating with to get his own sperm around the female, resulting in both males getting fertilizations. Sneaker males do this too by quickly darting inbetween bigger male mating to quickly drop some sperm in the mix and get some fertilizations.
What is an example of the vibrations sensory modality?
Spiders and their webs
What characterizes a strategic decision?
Strategic decisions are those in which each individual, in deciding what actions to take, must consider how others might respond to that action. In an evolutionary sense, the strategy that is most beneficial to an organism is based on the strategy of another (same species or different species). Natural selection favoring the most beneficial.
What is the Hot Shot Hypothesis?
Subordinate males congregate around highly attractive males because they will be more likely to be noticed by females because they are with him.
What is the fluctuating asymmetry hypothesis? (good genes)
That asymmetry is caused by environmental and genetic pressures during development. Symmetrical individuals resist traumatic things that occur during development. Symmetry is linked to subsequent health, fitness and reproductive success.
What hypotheses were proposed for the reasoning behind lekking? (2)
The Hot Shot Hypothesis The Hot Spot Hypothesis
How is deception persisting even though its detrimental to prey because deceived individuals often are killed?
The Novel Environment Hypothesis: Mimicry has evolved recently and prey is still trying to catch up.
What is lekking ?
The assembly of males during mating season in which they compete for females. Establishing small territories within the lek.
What is an example of non-contact mate as a post copulatory adaptation?
The blueband goby follows his mate around. Swims next to her.
What is a good example of chemical mimicry?
The bolas spider mimicking female moth pheromones.
What bird is famous for ornamentation?
The bower bird.
What does forager bee estimation of distance depend on? What other things can simulate weights on a bee and affect waggles?
The energy spent getting to food, when they added weights to the bees, the waggle took 3 seconds longer than an unweighted bee. Uphill and headwinds can simulate "weights" on a bee, causign them to expend more energy getting somewhere than they usually would.
Heliconius butterflies transfer an anti-aphrodisiac chemical to females when they mate with her, how does it keep other males from mating with her?
The female unknowingly releases the chemical when other males approach, deterring them from mating with her.
How are fringe-lipped bats illegitimate receivers to the tungara frog calls?
The fringe-lipped bats can localize frog calls and find them. They respond to the whine + chuck more than the whine. Making the most attractive males, more vulnerable to predation.
What is Zahavi's handicap principle?
The idea that it takes energy to produce color and more brightly colored males have more energy than dull colored males.
What animal was explained to have optimal inbreeding tendencies?
The japanese quail.
How do spider crabs preform sperm removal?
The males push ejaculates of previous male to top of female's storage area, seal it off and add their own sperm.
What is sperm competition?
The most successful male produces greater quantities of more motile or more viable sperm (differential fertilization capacity. Remating in golden hamsters, deer and mice.
How does mating order matter?
The order in multiple matings may impact which male gets highest paternity. First male advantage in house mice and any species with mate plugs Last male advantage in voles, scorpion flies, and any other species that removes previous sperm. Sometimes order has no effect, like in white footed mice.
What is the Dawkins & Krebs (1978) definition of communication?
The process in which information is conveyed between organisms & is advantageous to the sender.
What is the Marler (1968) definition of communication?
The process in which information is exchanged between animals to the mutual adaptive advantage of both.
When do forager bees perform the "round dance" and what does this dance look like?
The round dance is preformed when food is located less than 100m away from the hive. The dance in clockwise and counterclockwise circles.
*Will definitely be on exam* Who was Van Frisch?
The scientist who discovered the "language of the bees". He called it a language.
Which hyena species is the only hyena species to have a breeding ceremony?
The spotted hyena.
What is game theory?
The study of how people or animals behave in strategic situations.
Who initiates the greeting ceremony between an alpha hyena and a subordinate? How do they initiate it?
The subordinate initiates the greeting ceremony and she initiates it by presenting her pseudopenis to be smelled by the alpha female and head bobs with ears back. They both smell each other.
How do bees indicate direction of food?
The sun provides point of reference and the wagging run points to the direction, alignment to the suns position.
The benefits of post copulatory competition is obvious but what are the costs?
The time the male is spending with one female is time he is not mating with other females. There is a predation risk because he is paying a lot of attention to the female and less to his surroundings.
When food is 500m away from the hive, what is the waggle dance like?
The waggle dance is even longer and slower, only 6 runs of waggle in 15 seconds.
Once the food is 100m away from the the hive, bees start preforming what dance?
The waggle dance. They got back and forth in a figure-8 like manner. For this distance they make 10 ovals per quarter minute.
When food is 1000m away from the hive, what is the waggle dance like?
The waggles dance is slower and longer than at 500m, only 5 waggle runs in 15 seconds.
What is an example of prolonged copulation as post copulatory guarding?
The walking stick bug has been recorded to copulate for 79days.
Male Tungara frogs make two kinds of calls, what are they?
The whine, which is simple and the whine + chuck, which is more complex
What causes females to behave unconsciously in ways that look like aesthetic choice?
Their nervous systems.
What call are blood flies attracted to on the tungara frog?
They are attracted to the tungara whine vs silence but they prefer the whine + chuck significantly more than just the whine.
What is a polygene in silver foxes studied in Siberia?
They are complex systems of genes that affect each other. They are so intricate that anything changing can upset the other parts of the organisms machinery. Can cause unusual traits to show up (most harmful to the fox).
What is the point of penis fencing in flatworms?
They are hermaphrodites so when two flatworms meet, they fence their penises and the winner forcibly inseminates the loser, who then has to produce the offspring which is more energetically costly.
What is the benefit of females and males born by a dominant female?
They are more likely to be more dominant in their lives.
How are spotted hyena clans organized?
They are multi-male, multi-female groups. They are fairly aggressive animals, females are leaders and males are very submissive. There is a hierarchy of
What are green tree frogs mating tactic?
They are territorial males. Satellite males hang around hoping to get a mate if the dominant male is busy.
How did they find blood sucking mite resistance in the barn swallows?
They cross-fostered baby birds and found that the level of infestation was related to the biological father rather than the foster father. If the biological father had a longer tail, there would be less mites on the offspring they fathered.
What was the major histocompatibility complex t-shirt experiment ?
They gave a variety of men t-shirts to sleep in for a few nights so that their smells would be infused within the t-shirts. THen they gave them to women to smell and women tended to choose men with immune genes that were unlike their own. This way offspring are more resistant to viruses.
What was the experiment done with japanese quail?
They reared them with some siblings for 30 days and then isolated them for 30days and then tested them for mate preference. The quails had only been familiar with some siblings when they tested them, some siblings they were unfamiliar with. They found first cousins were preferred the most.
How do females use indicator traits to choose mates?
They use the information to choose partners whose genes will produce especially viable offspring. ex. Male peacocks that had more eyespots had a higher amount of offspring survival, making it an honest indicator.
What is the Stevens (1950) definition of communication?
Transfer of information from one individual to another.
What is Bateman's principle?
Variance of male reproductive success is greater than the variance of reproductive success of females.
How do bees indicate quality of food? How can they tell what flower the pollen came from on pollen gatherers?
Waggle dance, sound pulses, etc. The more vivacious the dance, the higher quality of food. By the pollen stuck to the pollen gatherers body.
When do males exhibit resource defense?
When females are predictably located in certain areas. They defend those areas where they congregate.
When is mortality for hyena pups highest?
When it's the mother's first time giving birth.
When would males display year-round dominance behavior?
When the estrous of the females is less synchronized.
When does a signal not work?
When the receiver doesn't understand the signal.
What is a spermatheca in spiders and insects for post-copulatory competition?
Where they can store sperm to fertilize eggs in future.
Are skulls bigger on wild foxes or domesticated foxes?
Wild foxes have bigger skulls, domesticated foxes have smaller skulls, male domesticated foxes having feminized skulls. (sexual dimorphism decreased)
Does male-male competition benefit females as well as males?
Yes, because then the female gets a higher quality mate.
What species has lekking been observed in, generally?
bird species , some amphibians, some fish, and some insects.
What bird preforms lekking that we watched the video about?
the sage grouse.
How many pups does a female usually give birth to at a time?
1 to 2 pups
What are "good genes"
1) Genes from males that differ genetically. 2) Survival or attractiveness 3) Male behavior/ornamentation/ age (provided honest information)
What are the two sexual struggle kinds according to Darwin?
1. Between the individuals of the same sex, generally males, in order to drive away or kill their rivals, females remaining passive. 2. The struggle is likewise between individuals of the same sex, in order to excite or charm those of the opposite sex, generally the females, which no longer remain passive, but select the more agreeable partners.
What are the exceptions to choosy females and indiscriminate males? (2)
1. If investment of 2 sexes equal both sexes equally selective (ex. monogamous) 2. Sometimes investment of males is greater in sex-role reversed species.
What are some examples of post copulatory mate guarding and when it usually occurs? (3)
1. Male guards female after mating. 2. Strong selection in species where chance of female multiple mating is high. 3. Prolonged copulation, contact guarding or non-contact guarding ex. Insects, fish, birds.
What are some examples of strategic allocation of ejaculates?
1. Meal mealworm beetles and fruit flies transfer more sperm when in the presence of other males. 2. Male crickets transfer more sperm as density of males increases. 3. Male meadow voles transfer more sperm in presence of conspecific male odor. 4. In two fish species, males transfer more sperm to large (more fecund) females than to smaller ones. 5. Penguins more likely to transfer sperm during extra pair mating
What are the assumptions Hamilton and Zuk made in their hypothesis about bright jungle chickens?
1. Parasites decrease host fitness 2. Parasite resistance is genetic 3. Resistance to parasites is signaled by elaborate ornaments.
What are the hypothetical steps in evolution of dance? (3).
1. Scout agitated & then followed by foragers. 2. Orientation towards food horizontally on top of comb. 3. Waggle dance-secondary adaptation to living in cavities in the dark.
What is an indicator trait/honest signal?
1. Territory 2. Large size 3. Bright colors 4. Songs 5. Age 6. Nuptial gifts
What attributes can we say are part of communication? (4)
1. The signaler and receiver may belong to different species but are usually the same species. 2. Communication is adaptive to the signaler but may or may not be adaptive to the receiver. 3. Both the signaler and the receiver must possess appropriate structures to send and receive the message. However, this does not mean the sending or receiving is conscious. 4. Receiving signals changes the behavior of the receiver.
What are the three adaptive hypotheses for why hyenas have pseudopenises?
1. The submission hypothesis in which male to female dominant can assess subordinate physiological state through the pseudopenis to allow them to remain in the clan. 2. The social bonding hypothesis which states that having pseudopenis promotes the formation of cooperative coalitions with subordinates. 3. Male-mate choice hypothesis in which having a pseudopenis makes it difficult to copulate with females so the female has to be completely willing for it to happen.
What are the two by product hypotheses for why hyenas have pseudopenises?
1. There was competition for parental care so they needed high testosterone which made the pseudopenis as a by product 2. Increase in aggression/body size needed high testosterone which makes the pseudopenis as a byproduct.
What determines if genes are the "right genes"? (5).
1. They are from the correct species. 2. They have direct benefits to the female: Female gets a gift or parental care from males. 3. They have indirect benefits to the female: The offspring of the female get some kind of benefit (quality mate). 4. Avoid inbreeding (as it would cause extreme homozyogotes) or extreme outbreeding (crossing between breeds). 5. Gene complementarity: major histocompatibility complex. (different immune system from their own.
What were Trivers (1972) opinions on the choosy sex for sexual selection. (3)
1. Trivers thought the sex with the greatest investment in lactation, nurturing, etc. was the most choosy. 2. The choosy sex was a limiting resource to the sex with the lower investment. 3. Male reproductive success often limited by female investment. So, males compete for females.
What are some hypotheses made about why animals have horns, antlers, etc and display aggression? (4)
1. Weapons against predators 2. Weapons against other males 3. Indicators of male strength & fighting ability (male-male competition) 4. Indicators of sexual vigor and quality (female choice)
What is the mortality rate for pups during birth? Which females have the highest pup mortality?
10%, lower ranking females.
What are some animal examples of scramble competition?
13-lined ground squirrel Frogs.
At what distance from the hive do foragers stop telling hive mates where food was? What is the max foraging distance of bees?
@10,000m @12000m
What is the star gene?
A gene that affects the migration rate of melanoblasts, embryonic precursors of pigment cells that give fur color. Those with star gene have melanoblasts that pass into the potentially depigmented areas of the epidermis, two days later on average than other foxes. Delay leads to death of tardy melanoblasts causing piebald depigmentation.
What is the Webster definition of communication?
A giving & receiving of information including signals & messages by talk, gestures, and writing.
With good genes, the females don't get anything else so choice must be due to some genetic factor. Like what?
A male bower bird builds a better bower, then maybe he makes better offspring too.
What is an illegitimate signaler?
A mimicker.
What is Nash Equilibrium? What is it in the prisoner's dilemma?
A player's strategy that best maximizes their payoff (or minimizes their costs) based on the strategy of the other player. In the prisoner's dilemma, both prisoner's confessing is the nash equilibrium.
What is an illegitimate receiver?
A predator hears the mating call of an animal and uses it to track them down and eat them.
What is the evolutionarily stable strategy?
A strategy which cannot be invaded by any alternative strategy that is initially rare. Once fixed, natural selection will maintain strategy in a population.
What is the definition of sexual selection?
Advantage certain individuals have over others of the same sex and species in relation to reproduction. Differential reproductive success that results from within-sex competition and mate choice.
What did Anderson find about the sexually dimorphic long-tailed widow birds choosing good genes?
Anderson had 4 treatments: uncut, shortened by cutting, pieces from cut tails glues onto other males to make them longer, and own tails cut and re-glued The females significantly preferred the lengthened tails to any of the other treatments or the control. Good genes come with long tails.
What is a signal?
Any behavior, physiological or morphological characteristics, which evolved & is/are maintained through natural selection, that conveys information.
