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92 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Describe the mating differences between male and female satin bowerbirds.
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Males have the capacity to be polygynous; females are monogamous, mating with just one male per nesting attempt
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What is the mate assistance hypothesis?
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Males remain with a single female, because of ecological factors that make male parental care and protectin of offspring especially advantageous.
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Do male and female seahorses synchronize their reproductive cycles?
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Yes
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What is an alternate to the mate assistance hypothesis?
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THe mate guarding hypothesis
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What is the mate guarding hypothesis?
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Monogamous mating system arises as a by-product of mate guarding in species whose females would use the sperm of other males to fertilize their eggs if left free to mate with those other individuals.
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What is female-enforced monogamy?
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Although males might gain by acquiring several mates, females may attempt to block their partners' polygynous moves in order to monopolize their parental assistance
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How is female-enforced monogamy different from the mate-guarding hypothesis?
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In female-enforced monogamy, the female is the enforcer of monogamy
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Why are burying beetle males often monogamous?
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Every time a female smells her mate's pheromone, she hurries over to push him from his perch; females make his monogamy happen
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What type of female animals should try to be polygynous?
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Those that do not become pregnant and offer milke
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What percent of mammals exhibit male parental care?
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Fewer than 10 percent
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Describe a relationship that exists in a particular species between infant carrying and year-round male-female pairings.
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In the prosimian primates, mothers with vulnerable young in two need to have a protective male accompanying them if he is to defend the infant against infanticide
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Does mammalian monogamy and male parental care often go hand in hand?
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No; although male parental care occurs in half of the 16 primate taxa known to be mongamous, it also characterizes 35% of the polygynous taxa
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How is the value of male parental assistance seen in starlings?
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The clutches with biparental attention stayed warmer and developed under better conditions
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Do parental, pair-bonded males of at least some bird species increase the number of offspring their mates can produce?
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Yes
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In most birds, does social monogamy equate with genetic monogamy?
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No, because extra-pair copulations often occur
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What is polyandry associated with?
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A scarcity of suitable territories, which leads to a highly male-biased operational sex ratio since males outnumber the limited number of territorial, breeding females
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What has intense competition for females and territories on which females live favored?
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Males capable of forming cooperative defense teams to hold an appropriate site
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Who do polyandrous females almost always draw as their second mate?
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Those males that have lost their first cltuhc to predators
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Why do sandpipers limit themselves to four eggs?
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Females that produced five-egg clutches have fewer surviving offspring; those that are "locked into" a four-egg maximum can capitalize on rich food resources by laying more than one clutch
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When females are "locked" into a certain number of eggs, how is polyandry promoted?
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Females can only capitalize on rich food resources by laying more than one clutch ~ must acquire more than one mate.
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Why are three ecological features that force male spotted sandpipers into monogamy?
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1. Adult sex ratio is slightly viased toward males
2. Spotted sandpipers nest in areas with immense mayfly hatches, which provide superabundant food for females 3. A single parent can care for a clutch about as well as two parents, because the young are precocial, (males perform the role of sole parent) |
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Are the immune systems of highly polyandrous species stronger than those of species with a greater tendency toward monogamy? Why?
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Yes, because they are at a higher risk for STDs; white blood cell counts are higher in females of more polyandrous species
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What is the fertility insurance hypothesis?
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Theory that extra-pair fertilizations reduce the risk to a female of having an infertile partner as a social mate
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What is the theory that extra-pair fertilizations reduce the risk to a female of having an infertile partner as a social mate?
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Fertility insurance hypothesis
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What is a more likely, alternative explanation to the fertility insurance hypothesis?
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The good genes hypothsis
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What is the good genes hypothesis?
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Females seek out several males in order to secure superior genes from at least one of the males
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Do older males appear to have greater or less success in extra-pair matings in some songbirds? Why?
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Greater, because older males have demonstrated an ability to stay alive
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Why is the good genes hypothesis not applicable in every case?
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"good genes" for one female might not be the ideal mate for another
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What is an alternate hypothesis that accounts for the fact that "good genes" for one female might not be "good genes" for another female?
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The genetic compatibility hypothesis
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What is the genetic compatibility hypothesis?
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The survival of an offspring might depend on its heterozygosity, which is usually promoted by outbreeding and decreased by inbreeding
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Why do pseudoscorpions mate with several males?
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It reduces embryo death
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Why do pseudoscorpion females prefer to mate with a new male rather than with a previous partner?
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A female's chances of securing genetically compatible sperm increase with the number of males she mates with
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What is the material benefits hypothesis?
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Females sometimes mate with several males in order to secure certain useful resources, rather than genes
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Describe how the material benefits hypothesis applies to certain butterfly species.
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Spermatophors of highly polyandrous butterfly species contain more protein than the spermatophors of generally monogamous species. Males of polyandrous butterfly species bribe females to mate with them by providing them with nutrients that could be used to make more eggs
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Do polyandrous females have a greater or smaller reproductive output?
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Greater
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What are the 4 types of polyandrous territory-related polyandry?
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1. Female defense polygyny
2. Resources defense polygny 3. Lek polygyny 4. Scramble competition polygyny |
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What is female defense polygyny?
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Females go where potential mates fight with other males to monopolize females; ex: bighorn rams
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What is resource defense polygyny?
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Defend territories that contain the kind of resources in which females prefer to mate; ex: black-winged dmaselflies
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What is lek polygyny?
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Defend territories that contain a particular display, not food or other resources that females might use to promite their reproductive success
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What is scramble competition polygyny?
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Males of many polygynous species skip territoriality and combat altogether and instead try to outtrace their rivals to receptive females
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Is the fitness greater for females when they live in larger groups rather than smaller groups in female marmots?
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No
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Why might female marmots live together in groups, despite the benefits of living a monogamous life?
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The cost of driving off other females is too great
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What is the model called that details a resource level at which a female can gain more by mating with a polygynist on a good territoriy than by pairing off with a single male on a resource-poor, or predator-vulnerable territory.
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Polygyny threshold model
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Why do red-wingled blackbirds prefer to mate with unmated males?
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Mated males produce fewer offspring than females that have their monogamous partner's territory all to themselves
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When given the choice between a superior territory with other females and an inferior one, what do females pick?
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She picks the better site, even if she has to share it with another female
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If females have to share a territory with another female, which one does better reproductively?
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The first female
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Is territoriality more fitting when females are clumped in small, defensible areas or widely spread out?
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Clumped together
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Give the widely scattered distribution of certain females, what ability might affect a male's reproductive success?
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The ability to search for and remember where potential mates are
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WHat is the explosive breeding assemblage?
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Scramble competition polygyny; for example, male wood frogs eschew territorial behavior and instead hurry about trying to encounter one or more egg-laden females before the one-night orgy ends
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In lek polygyny, do males defend groups of females or resources that several females come to exploit?
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Neither; rather, they fight to control a very samll area that is used only as a display arena
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Do leks contain food, nesting sites, or anything else of practical utility?
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No; yet females come to leks anyway
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Where in the lek do preferred males reside?
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The center
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When does lekking evolve?
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Only when other mating tactics do not pay off for males, thanks to a wide and even -distribution of females
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Why does nonterritorial scramble competition polygyny evolve?
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The basence of defensible clusters of females
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What are 3 hypotheses why males cluster?
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1. Hotspot hypothesis
2. Hotshot hypothesis 3. Female preference hypotehsis |
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What is the hotspot hypotesis?
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Males cluster, because females tend to travel along certain routes that intersect at particular points, or "hotspots," as seen in fallow deer
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What is the hotshot hypothesis?
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Males cluster, because subordinate males gather around highly attractive males in order to have a chance to interact with females drawn to these "hotshots," as seen in black grouse
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What is the female preference hypothesis?
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Males cluster, because females prefer sites with large groups of males, where they can more quickly or more safely compare the quality of many potential mates
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Is there a particular hypothesis that is supported by lekking species in every case?
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No
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In respect to which tow factors do birds adjust their provisioning behavior?
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1. Nature of the predator
2. Annual mortality rate for breeding adults (In birds with a generally low adult mortality rate, parents ought to minimize the risk of getting themselves killed by a predator, because they will have many more chances to reproduce in the future if a predator does no get them now) |
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How many times did maternal care originate?
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Three times in the Membracinae family
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DId maternal care ever evolve in the insect family?
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No
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Does a considerable initial investment in offspring automatically make it advantageous for females to invest still more in their brood?
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No; many species, especially of fish, abruptly terminate their parental investment after laying their large and expensive-to-produce eggs
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Are the costs of parental care greater for males or females?
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Males; time and energy spent in caring for offspring cannot be invested in mating effort, and therefore, sexual selection should often block the evolution of parental care
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In what type of animals is male-only parental care especially common?
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Fishes
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Describe an example, illustrating that there does not have to be a trade-off between parental care and mate attraction in mating systems.
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Stickleback females are actually drawn to egg-guarding males, because these males are demonstrating their commitment to parenting
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Give an example where female cost of parental care is greater than male cost of parental care.
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In St. Peter's fish, males and females both shrink when incubating; however the price is higher for females, because of their reduced fecundity
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Give a rare exception in which paternal care is the sole parental care provided to the offspring.
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Water bungs of the genus Lethocerus; guard and moisten cluthces of eggs that females glue onto the stems of aquatic vegetation above the waterline
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How is it thought that back brooding evolved?
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Water bugs sometimes lay their eggs on the backs of other individuals when they cannot find suitable vegetation for that purpose; thus, the transition from out-of-water brooding to back brooding might have occurred
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Why do water bugs produce eggs so large that they need to be brooded?
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One way for an insect to grow large is to increase the number of molts before making the final transition to adulthood; nono memeber of the belostomatid feamily molts more than six times; if a water bug is to grow large enough to kill a frog in just five or six molts, then the first instar, the nymph that hatches from the egg), must be large; example of the "panda principle"
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Why do male water bugs do the brooding; never the females?
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Male water bugs with one clutch of eggs sometimes attract a second female; the costs of parental care may be disproportionately great for females in terms of lost fecundity
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Describe the difference in offspring recognition between the rough-winged swallow and the bank swallow.
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Individual fledglings of the colonial bank swallow produce highly distinctive vocalizations, giving their parents a potential cue to use when making decisions about which individuals to feed; the solitary rough-winged swallow never has a chance in nature to feed another's fledglings, so it does not show the same skillful recognition of offspring
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Why do some animals adopt strangers?
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The risk of making a mistake in recognizing and not feeding their own offspring carries a heavy cost; rathe than erring on the side of haming their genetic offspring, gulls have evolved a readiness to feed any chicks in their nests that beg confidently when approached by an adult
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WHen adoption occurs, is it detrimental to the parents' own children?
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Yes, when gulls adopt, they lose about 0.5 chicks of their own on average
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Describe the proximate all-or-none decision-making mechanism of male western bluebirds.
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Regulates their parental care-giving; if a paternal replacement male joins a female during her fertile phase, he exhibits all-out parental care; if he joins after her fertile period is over, then the rule is "no parental care at all."
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Why do young cuckoos and cowbirds tend to hatch a day or two sooner than the young of the hose specie?
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Enables the parasite to get a head start on its competitors in the nest
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How many times did specialized parasitism arise over the evolutionar history of birds?
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Three times
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Describe the evolution of interspecific brood parasitism in birds.
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The ancestor of the current parasitic cuckoos was a "standard" bird whose adults cared for their own offspring; the ancestral state was represented not only by parental care, but also by the occupation of small home ranges and the absence of migration; the next state of evolution involved species that provided parental care for their offspring, but possessed relatively large ranges and a tendency to migrate; brood parasites presumably gain by roaming widly in search ofa ppropriate hossts throughout an extnesive home range; this readiness to move while hunting for ephemeral sources of hosts may have led to the evolution of migratory tendencies in this group; an intermeidiate phase must have occurred, in which the parasites targeted nesting adults of their own species, with the shift to members of one or more other species occurring later
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Are there any species that parasite nests of their own species today?
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Yes; documented in about 200 species of birds
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What does the gradual shift hypothesis predict?
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When intraspecific brood parasites first began to exploit other species as hosts, they should have selected other related species with similar nestling food requirements
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WHat is the closets living species to the ancestral brood parasite?
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The living cowbird species
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Why do brood parasites typically target smaller hosts?
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Brood parasite nestlings that become larger than their hosts' offspring are more likely to be fed; another form of sensory exploitation that works to a parasites advantage
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What are the two hypotheses for the development of brood parasitism?
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Gradual and abrupt evolution
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Why are some hosts forced to accept the parasite egg?
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They are small and unable to grasp and remove the large eggs
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What is the Mafia hypothesis?
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If the host removes the parasite's eggs, the parasite might return to the nest to destroy or consume the host's eggs or young
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how do fairy-wrens defend themselves against cuckoos?
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If the breeding fairy-wrens find an egg in their nest before they have begun to deposit their own eggs there, they almost always build over the intruder's egg; they abandon nests altogether if a cuckoo drops an egg in after the wrens have begun to incubate their own complete clutch
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Do parents usually distribute their care in a completely democratic fashion?
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No; dominant individuals in a brood often bludgeon a sibling to death or push it out of the nest, thereby monopolizing the food supplied by their parents
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What is it called when the parent of a murderous offspring loses the three grandffspring that its dead progeny would have had, a figure that is not matched by the two extra grandoffspring coming from the successful siblicidal survivor.
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Parent-offspring conflict
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Can parents interfere with lethal sibling rivalries?
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Yes; blue-footed booby parents appear to keep their dominant chick under control during its initial days with its sibling.
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Do egrets undergo parental intervention for sibling rivalry?
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No; lethal sibling battles are actually promoted by earlier parental decisions about when to begin incubating eggs and what to put in them in the first place; young are hatch asynchronoously, with the firstborn getting a head start in growth; as a result, this senior chick monopolizes the small fish its parents bring to the nest.
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Why do parent egrets tolerate and even promote siblicide?
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Parental interests are served by having the chicks themselves eliminate those members of the brood that are especially unlikely to survive to reproduce.
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What is an offspring's potential to survive and reproduce called?
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Its reproductive value
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