Midterm 3 Flashcards
Genetic mating system
Copulations outside of their social pairing
Social mating system
Who or how your paired
Lek
A traditional location were multiple males display for females, waiting to be selected
Explosive lek
Multiple dispersed locations for males to display for females, waiting to be selected
Sage grouse
Mating success in males has high variance few males meet with many females, while other males have very little copulations
Hotspot hypothesis
Males go where the females are. Doesn’t support the idea that females congregate for a reason other than lekking
Hotshots hypothesis
Lesser males congregate around a superior male to get a peripheral attention - satellite behaviours. This can be supported, because if you remove the superior male, they will just warm to the next in line
Crickets
Satellite males, who do not call hang around a male who can attempting to intercept females
Female preference
Females prefer to visit large group of males. It’s better for more females to show up to larger leks of males.
Monogamy
One male paired with one female, both socially and genetically meaning exclusive pair bonds. Happens in birds, some primates and termites.
Serial monogamy
Moving from one monogamous relationship to another
Compatibility
Mutual mate choice
Old field mice experiment
When a male mouse was given a choice between two females, the male had more reproductive success after choosing a female. When a new male was introduced to the same females, he chose different from the first.
Puerto Rican parrot experiment
Who won facility, paired mates, for genetic diversity, and another allow them to choose for themselves. The facility that chose for themselves had twice the reproductive success.
Polyandry
Females have multiple partners socially are genetically
Polygyny
Males have multiple female partners, socially or genetically
Genetic polygamy in lekking
Some males meet with more than one female, increasing their reproductive success
Promiscuity
The lack of any kind of social mating system, no social pair bonds or male investment
Promiscuous systems
When the males fitness increases after leaving mating, very little pair bonding.
Horse shoe crab
Explosive breeding, when they gather in one spot, mate, then leave. Prevents predator satiation
Monogamous systems have less what
Reproductive skew between males and females and sexual dimorphism
Bateman gradient
Voluntary male monogamy is non-adaptive, males tend to stay with their mates, when the cost of finding another mate outweighs the benefit
Mate guarding
Protecting their mate from being courted or taken by competitors, happens when it increases male fitness by remaining with the same female or female has extended fertility window
Mate assistance
Increases fitness by helping raise their young. Ex. Male seahorses
Synchronous breeding
When breeding happens at the same time in a population
Ecology of monogamy
Common when resources are distributed more evenly, where one male can only defend for one mate vice versa
Barnacle geese
An example of how an individual who stays with their mate longer have greater lifetime reproductive success
Divorce
When a pair who could stay together choose to split. Birds do it opportunistically
Extra pair copulations (EPC)
EPC can result in extra pair fertilization’s [EPF]
What do EPF do?
Introduces more reproductive variance, increasing sexual selection, pressures, even in socially monogamous species
EPCs in females
According to the bateman gradient, it does not make sense for females to seek EPC’s because it can be more costly
Why do females pursue EPC’s
- In prairie dogs: females who mate more are likely to reach maximum reproductive viability. The more sex you have the more likely you are to get pregnant.
- to divide parental responsibility
- better genes
Polygamy
In any system, where one individual mates with multiple individuals
Social polygamy
Some males are mated to multiple females, leading to high reproductive variance
Female defence
One male defends, a group of females
Resource defence
A male defends a resource that a female needs so they have to come to him
Polygyny threshold model
Explains why females may choose to mate with a male who already has another mate rather than a sole mate of a single, unpaired male
Female defence polygyny
Males choose to defend clusters of females
Cooperative polyandry
When multiple males copulate with one female, and raise the offspring together
The cost and benefits of parental care
Increasing the survival rate and fitness of your offspring
Why male provide parental care
Providing care is less costly than not, higher survival rate of offspring, or when the cost for parental care is higher in females
Why do females provide parental care?
Females make a greater investment in the future via their offspring
The sunk cost fallacy
Whether a female stays or abandons has no effect on the amount of resources, time and energy she has invested previously
Parental favouritism in burying Beatles
Your mother doing something that favours the senior offspring more
Solitary breeding with no parental care
Males and females meet only to join their gametes and go their separate ways. Neither contributes parental care.
Solitary breeding with parental care
Social interactions may happen between parents and between parents and offspring.
Colonial breeding
involves pairing off within a larger population. Breeding pairs aggregate at a location.
Communal breeding
something like a shared nest
Cooperative breeding
is when the kids or relatives stick around to help raise the offspring. Usually, the helpers are previous offspring.
Eusociality
or superorganism - like colony insects, where reproduction is limited to a few individuals and the rest are non-reproductive workers. These groups can be very large. - evolves when cost is low and benefits are
Ideal free distribution
describes a situation in which animals are able to freely distribute themselves evenly according to the distribution of resources. If resources are clumped animals may clump
The Tragedy of the Commons
the temptation to exploit shared resources because theres no cost in doing so - cheaters will evolve and undermine group fitness
darwinian dilemma
selection eliminates behaviours that reduce an individuals reproduction
Aggregation
is a behaviour that provide benefits to cooperating individuals
Mobbing
when prey species are able to attack the predators in a group.
lifetime reproduction
the measurement of costs and benefits of social interaction
indirect benefits of helping
the survival of the offspring increases
direct costs of helping
inability to breed while helping
reduces body weight in choughs
Seychelle warbler study
in saturated environments - birds are unable to disperse so its less costly to help
in unsaturated environments - siblings dispersed into new territories rather than help raise kids at home
Robert Sapolsky
stress in baboons - more submissive baboons have increased levels of stress
Sequential assessment model
explains how animals decide the outcome of contests or fights through a series of escalating interactions
Altruism
permanent self-sacrifice of direct fitness to benefit another individual
Benefits of group living
foraging help
Defend territory better
Division in labour
Change their environment
Provide learning
Cheating
those who are detrimental to the common good
Costs of group living
- fighting
- Disease and parasites
- Tolerate dominant individuals
Ex. The groove-billed anis - lay their eggs in a communal nest but other birds may destroy, bury, etc previously laid eggs - interference competition
Dilution effect
being in a bigger group when encountering a predator increases your rate of survival
Green beards
ex of how if altruistic genes were obvious you could fall victim to cheaters but also seek out one another to cooperate
Inclusive fitness theory (Hamilton’s rule)
d + rx > 0
Actor and recipient, altruism will spread through mutation. Basically, this model says that heritable altruism will spread when direct fitness consequences (d) are less than the benefits yielded to related individuals.
d = the effect of the behaviour upon your direct fitness. If it’s a cost, the value is negative.
r = the degree of relatedness (how many genes are held in common) * 1 would mean clones, basically. .5 would be siblings.
x = the benefits to the recipient
Manipulation (policing)
policing a group for cooperation, social behaviour is imposed and enforced - cheaters are punished
Experiment of the pig tailed macaques
removed individuals that policed then pop. With their removal the pop. became more fragmented and less cohesive
Many eyes hypothesis
the more animals that are alert to predators, the more likely they are to detect them
Mutual benefit
cooperation reduced competition for both so they mutually benefit
One shot prisoners dilemma
Two prisoners arrested for the same crime, interrogators attempt to get them to sell each other out, rat them out (defect) or not (cooperate), either both cooperate for a light sentence, one is defect and goes free. So should they cooperate or defect?
Iterated Prisoners dilemma
A situation that allows repeated iterations explores how individuals should react to the actions of their partner.
Reciprocal cooperation
someone doing something for you so later you do something for them or vice versa- happens because cost is usually low, ex. vampire bats
Raising Kin
raised together
Taking a taste - spadefoot toads
Look like them
Relatedness
r in Hamiltons theory - the probability that a certain gene would be inherited, the closer you’re related the more likely
Selfish herding
attempting to be in the middle of the herd because the middle is less vulnerable to predation
Spite
harms both the actor and the recipient
Tit-for-tat
part of the prisoners dilemma, on your first turn you cooperate, subsequent turns you copy the opponents previous strats
Agression
conflict over resources
Agressive signals
asymmetric contests between competitors, fighting ability, motivation, dominance
Age and value of survival
Eggflys - younger animals who die in fights lose a lot of fitness whereas someone who is older doesn’t, older butterflies fight harder because they have less to lose
Agnostic behaviour
behaviour that mediates conflict
Dear enemies
territorial neighbours tolerate each other to a certain degree, unknown opponents are met with much more aggression
Dominance Hierarchies
establishing relationships and signals that mitigate the costs of fighting, both winners and losers benefit from not fighting. Limited to small pop.
- in hens: the most dominant individual is the one performing the most aggressive acts
ESS
evolutionary stable strategy
Honest Signaling
signals animals use during conflicts to convey their true fighting ability or willingness to escalate a confrontation
Motivation
how badly an animal wants to win
- Salamanders, the male is more willing to fight for longer dependent on the size of females
Owners advantage
the owner of the territory almost always wins because they have higher RHP and have more motivation to keep their territory
Resource holding potential
the ability to win an escalated fight, size matters
Cost of fighting
lose territory
death
Winner effect
winning increases the probability of winner future
Loser effects
losing increase the probability of winning future fights
Bystander Effect
change in behaviour from observing others fight
Audience effect
Change in behaviour from being observed while fighting
