L3 Flashcards
1
Q
Search images
A
- Subconsciously picking out features
- Animals take longer to build up a search image if rewarded by a particular food item
2
Q
Testing the search image hypothesis
A
- Pietrewicz and Kamil used operant conditioning to investigate search images in captive blue jays
- Blue jays were shown slides of cryptic moths of either the same or 2 different species
- Recorded whether bird could identify moth
- Single moth presented - birds picked up a search image
- Two differently patterned moths - birds didn’t build up a search image so no template could be produced
3
Q
Finding food by smell in Skunks
A
- Striped skunk is a nocturnal forager and finds food by odour. young skunks were allowed to forage in an outdoor enclosure. Food was found at greater and greater distances as they gained experience.
- Distance to food increase over days after gaining experience
- Skunks build up an olfactory search image
4
Q
Lizard foraging: evolutionary history
A
- Ambush / olfaction
- Sphenodon (ancestral lizard) still requires on vision/ambush
- As the cladogram moves along three evolutionary events where olfactory foraging arises
- One evolutionary event switches back to vision/ambush
5
Q
Social insects
A
- Groups composed of related individuals
- Cooperation favoured by kin selection
- deliberate communication with nestmates eg waggle dance
- Worker helps to produce related individuals by providing
- Help each other in capturing prey
- Most common way is by communicating the location of food to nestmates
6
Q
Other group living animals
A
- Groups normally composed of mostly unrelated individuals
- Cooperation not favoured by kin selection
Incidental communication with conspecifics eg observing location of successful forages
- Cooperation not favoured by kin selection
7
Q
Foraging advantages for groups
A
- Take prey much larger than themselves
- Eg wolves take moose
- Nothing to stop social insects from this, ants eg take over other colonies
8
Q
round waggle dance food distance
A
food < 50m
9
Q
figure of eight waggle dance food distance
A
food > 50m
10
Q
direction of food source
A
- Angle from vertical which matches angle between sun and the food source
- Dances are performed in nest on vertical combs in darkness
11
Q
distance
A
- How long the dance takes to be performed
- Follower bees could use duration of waggle run and entire circuit
12
Q
communicating direction
A
- In a ‘fan test’ frisch trained scout bees to a feeder at F
- He then put out feeders of equal attractiveness at all 7 stations and counted the recruits
- More arrived at the advertised location, F than other locations
- Most end up on target
Direction of alternative feeders
* Set them up at different distances * Most bees went close to the advertised distance * Show bees actively follow waggle dance
13
Q
Would bees still find food without the waggle dance?
A
- Removal directional information on a dance
- Only horizontal combs
14
Q
Removing directional information
A
- A larger proportion of recruits come to the advertised site when combs are vertical
- Directionally informed bees deviated less than uninformed horizontal bees
- Directional information is important
15
Q
honeybee distance measuring
A
- Testing the image motion hypothesis
- Lots of images = more distance
16
Q
Tunnel down which bees fly
A
- Top covered with insect netting when in use
- Tunnel shown is 1x1cm random pattern
- The tunnel can also have 1cm parallel stripes running
Experiment 1 and experiment 3 have nearly 90% of round dances
* Only 10% of bees did round dances
* Close hive still only 13% did round dances
* Majority think they have gone much further
* Information is a proxy for distance
17
Q
Benefits of the waggle dance
A
- Forager finds food more quickly
- forages at food source for the rest of the day
- scout bee after foraging drops off food and resumes search for food
- highlights recruits don’t find food earlier in the day than a scout
- recruits tend to be directed to higher quality food
- whole colony only benefits in winter when food is scarce, not in summer
18
Q
social foraging in birds: Opsreys
A
- In some coastal areas, ospreys form loose gregarious nesting colonies
- Shoaling fish are a particularly good prey item
19
Q
Do ospreys watch colony mates to find fish?
A
- Two different colonies
- No bird returns with prey so osprey heads out in random direction
- In another colony when a bird catches a fish the majority of birds depart in the same direction the other bird came in
- Information not deliberately communicated
- Little benefit for passively informing other birds of fish direction
20
Q
Getting help from companions: Ospreys
A
- Informed birds find fish faster than naive birds. If they didn’t, there would be no benefit in receiving information
21
Q
Swallows
A
- Barn swallows nest in colonial aggregations
- Why dont barn swallows act on information from conspecifics
- In ospreys fish are in large discrete shoals
- Fish wont have moved far
- In swallows prey is distributed randomly over a large area
- conspecific use is only valuable in certain areas
22
Q
Group hunting in female lions
A
- Female african lions live in groups and hunt together, group hunting carnivores take larger prey than solitary hunters
- Common across other groups eg hyenas
- Related species have diverged into large group hunting vs single small prey hunting
23
Q
is it really beneficial to hunt large prey?
A
- Single females eat as much or more food than group hunters
- When prey is thin individual females do best in large groups
- Small groups 2-4 females are not beneficial
24
Q
why do individuals continue to hunt in groups?
A
- Meat gained is only part of the hunting equation
- Energy expenditure costs etc to solo hunting
- Net energy gained increased in larger packs
- Even tough meat is shared they don’t expend as much energy
