intro Flashcards
What does evolutionary ecology study?
Evolutionary ecology focuses on the intersection of ecology and evolution:
- Ecology of organisms in the context of their evolutionary history
- Patterns of evolution that could be explained by ecological processes
Some phenomena we can observe in the natural world, but we cannot manipulate experimentally.
Give an example
What approcach would we use to study this?
The comparative approach
Predicting primate brain size: sociality or ecology?
- Social brain hypothesis states that social complexity is the primary driver of cognitive complexity and determines brain size.
- Social pressures lead to the evolution of the human brain
How could we test the primate social brain hypothesis (interspecies)
Are there any confounding variables?
Interspecies –** could test one very social species and one less social species, greater brain variability**
Confounding variables:
Diet: some diets may require greater cognitive ability to process spatial information when foraging – selection should favour larger brains in fruit-eating species
Higher energy turnover and enhanced diet quality for energy needed during foetal development
What predicts global variation in nest predation in birds?
- Nest predation rates are predicted to be higher in the tropics.
- Tropical birds face a distinct and diverse community of predators
How can we test this?
- A measure of nest predation is needed, e.g. daily survival rate or fledging success
- Data should be across a large spatial range
Tropical communities may have more interrelationships between species, since they live in an area with less abiotic stress.
What approach are studying?
The geographic mosaic of coevolution
What does the evolution of biodiversity mean?
That adaptive radiations are predicted to allow high rates of speciation and evolution of phenotypic traits in the presence of ecological opportunity
