Biology 551 Animal Communication Exam #2 Study Outline PDF

**Biology 551 Animal Communication -- Exam \#2 Study Outline Part \#1** Unit 7 -- Evolution Review ========================== What is biological evolution? Describe the mechanism of natural selection. What is a species? Unit 8 Phylogenetics and Behavior ================================= What i...

**Biology 551 Animal Communication -- Exam \#2 Study Outline Part \#1** Unit 7 -- Evolution Review ========================== What is biological evolution? Describe the mechanism of natural selection. What is a species? Unit 8 Phylogenetics and Behavior ================================= What is the science of taxonomy? What is meant by a nested hierarchy? - **Nested hierarchy:** - **Species -- primary (most specific level): [Panthera pardus] (leopard)** - **Genus -- Panthera (Big cats, can roar)** - **Family -- Felidae (felines, retractable claws)** - **Order -- Carnivora (Carnassial teeth)** - **Class - Mammalia (mammary glands)** - **Phylum -- Chordata (has a spinal cord)** - **Kingdom -- Animalia** - **Domain -- Eukarya (true nucleus)** What is the difference between a taxonomic category and designation? - **Taxonomic categories o Taxonomic designations** - **Binomial nomenclature is used to classify animals. Includes the genus and the species** What is the science of phylogenetics (cladistics)? How does it differ from the science of taxonomy? What is a synapomorphy? How is used to construct a cladogram? - **Synapomorphies: shared derived character shared by two or more groups which originated in their last common ancestor o Derived: all had the same ancestor** - **Possession by two or more organisms of a characteristic inherited exclusively from their common ancestor** - **Inherited from common ancestor and retained in related species o Example: members of the family carnivora all inherited carnassial teeth from a common ancestor** What is meant by character data? What types of things can be used as character data? Be able to describe the basic natural history of manakins, know about their lekking system and how displays vary among species that lek (coordinated displays, etc.). - **Character data: used to determine where the branches o Morphology/anatomy** - **Molecular** - **Protein** - **Mitochondrial DNA** - **DNA** Know how to analyze the evolution of trait mapped onto a cladogram (evolved once, more than once, secondarily lost). Understand ho you can use behavioral phylogenetic sand the phylogenetic analysis of life history traits to form hypothesis about why certain characters evolved or were lost. The analysis of female song in new world blackbirds is an example of this approach. Unit 9 -- Cost/Benefit Analysis =============================== What is a cost benefit analysis? Why do we assume that animals will evolve optimal behaviors? - **No decision can be perfect, but we predict animals will make optimal decisions where the benefits outweigh the costs** Increase the probability of survival and offspring production o You should be able to do a basic graphical cost/benefit analysis like we did for foraging in squirrels. Know the example of scent mounding in beaver and how the method multiple hypothesis was applied to understanding the function of this behavior. - **Example: Beaver chemical communication o Beaver Social System:** - **Territorial family groups** - **Family structure includes:** - **monogamous adult male and female** - **offspring age with the adults range from kits to three-year-olds § breed in late winter § Roles:** - **Adult pair does most of the dam building, scent mounding and caring for young** - **Beaver scent mound: castoreum (beaver's scent) applied to a mound of grass and mud** - **When beavers are dispersing in the spring, they have to pass through other beaver territories** - **When a non-resident beaver moves through a site the sniff the scent mound to pick up messages** - **Messages include who the beaver is and their family membership An intruder can use scent of the mound to identify the residents** **§ Beaver scent mounds take time and energy to make, so there has to be a benefit that outweighs these costs** **Biology 551 Animal Communication -- Exam \#2 Study Outline Part \#2** [Unit 10 - Environmental Constraints on Acoustic Communication] Know the information in the slide titled "Signal Constraints -- Form, Function, and Environment.". Be able to compare the relative costs and benefits of different modalities of communication as outlined in the table and discussed in lecture. Know the four major categories of how acoustic signals are degraded: Attenuation, Frequency Pattern Distortions, Temporal Pattern Distortions, and Sound Masking. For each categories know the mechanisms of distortion and be able to provide an example. *Attenuation:* Spreading Losses and Refraction. Make sure you understand how temperature and wind effect these mechanisms of degradation. - **Four Categories of Sound propagation and Degradation o Attenuation -- loss of energy** - **Sound loses energy as the energy is transferred into an increasing volume** - **A certain amount of energy will be spread out over area o The farther you get, the more energy is lost (1/radius\^2)** **IT decreases exponentially over time by the power of two.** - **Directionality and spreading loss depends on the type of sound transmitted (the sound's acoustic characteristics) § Subgroup: Refraction** - **Sound travels at different speeds at different temperatures. The atmosphere or a water column can have layers at different temperatures and therefore sound will travel at different speeds in different layers o Sound travels faster in warmer temperatures and slower in colder temps.** - **Wind and objects can also change the effective communication range of a sound o Sending a sound against the wind will decrease range, while sending a sound with the wind will increase range** - **Refraction can occur in the water as well o Sounds will travel differently in warm and cold water** If whale makes a sound in a cold water will make it refract in different way then warm water. Alarm call in a meadow even members of different species makes evolutionary sense. Higher temperature causing. *Frequency Pattern Distortions:* Understand the concept of a Transfer Function and how habitat, temperature, and wind effect this mechanism. **Subgroup: Transfer function: describes the pattern of frequency degradation o Varies with environmental conditions** **Transfer function:** Understand the concept of Heat Loss and how it varies frequency. **Subgroup: Heat Loses** **Sound is a form of energy, and energy can be lost as heat (thermal) energy** **Lower frequency can be heard from far away o High frequency can be lost over distance faster than low frequencies are lost over distance** **Low sound travels farther (are impeded less)** Lions and Whales -- low frequencies hear the sounds of animals for miles and miles away. Dolphin -- high frequencies cant be heard over long distances. Understand the concept of Scattering, how different habitats effect this process, and how animals adjust their signals acoustic characteristic to mitigate degradation cause by this process. **Subgroup: Scattering** - **Average maximum frequency of bird songs in various habitats match sound window of environment** - **Different objects or regions in the propagating medium have different acoustic impedance. This is frequency dependent** - **Different habitats scatter sound in different ways o Habitat dependent scattering** Know what a Boundary Effect is and how a signaler's height above the ground changes this process. **Boundary Effects** - **Different propagating medium have different acoustic impedances. This can create either reinforcement or attenuation of different frequencies** - **Phase reinforcement and cancelation: environmental frequencies can be additive to a signal (when the peaks of a sound line up), or can cancel out (when the peak of the signal lines up with the trough of another sound)** - **Time delay: if a sound bounces off of something, part of a sound can be delayed** *Temporal Pattern Distortions:* Know what reverberation is and understand how it varies with frequency. Understand how this process creates constraints on signals that varies with habitat. **Temporal Pattern Distortion** - **Subgroup: reverberation -- reflected sound bouncing off objects** - **Reverberation: the same sound arriving to the receiver with delays** - **Sound can bounce off of objects, such as a wall** - **Smearing occurs when a reverb drags out a sound** - **Frequency dependent** - **Subgroup: added modulation** - **Overlap** - **Subgroup: Dispersion** - **If you have multiple paths, there is a lot a sound lost** *Noise Masking:* Understand the idea that different nat4rual and anthropogenic environments have different background noises that can mask the frequencies of a signal. Know what is meant by "noise". Understand how different kinds of noise are categorized (white, pink, etc.) **Types of noise:** **White noise:** **Pink noise: more energy in lower frequency than higher frequency o Brown o Etc.** Know the sources of natural and anthropogenic noise. Know the adaptive responses to background and conspecific noise. Make sure to know the examples that were discussed in lecture. - **Adaptive responses to background and conspecific sound include:** - **Increasing amplitude over ambient sounds o Channel partitioning** - **Temporal: produce sounds that are in between ambient sounds, vary temporal pattern to contrast with background sounds, or produce signals that are less complex temporally** - **Frequency: shift frequency to a range where ambient sound is lower in amplitude** - **Subgroup: Conspecifics** - **Noise from members of the same species** Know the example of how Covid effected bird song in the San Francisco area. **Biology 551 Animal Communication -- Exam \#2 Study Outline Part III** [Unit 11 -- Sexual Selection] Know the patterns and mechanism's of sexual selection. Patterns include sexual dimorphism, that one sex (typically males) has elaborate ornamentation, armaments, and/or displays. The other sex is typically cryptic in morphology and behavior. Males tend to compete for females and females choose among males. - **Darwin's Observations of Sexual Dimorphism o Elaborate males, cryptic females** - **Cryptic: inconspicuous o Males competing** - **Can be physical fighting or dancing, in the cases of some birds o Females appear to choose males** - **Stepwise preference and elaboration of traits** - **Females are predisposed to prefer males with certain, non-existent traits** **Sexual selection: pattern and process** - **Pattern: seems to act more strongly on males o traits that respond to sexual selection are more elaborate in males** **§ this leads to sexual dimorphism** - **Process: consequence of differences between the sexes in parental investment** - **Parental investment: any cost of producing or raising offspring** - **Consequences:** - **Males will evolve means to gain access to females, such as ornaments and displays** - **Females will become choosy o Males as sexually promiscuous (have to fight for a mating, want to mate early and often)** - **Females as sexually restrained (virtually guaranteed a mating) o Males have high variance in reproductive success -- "studs and duds"** **Few males will get majority of mating o Females have low variance in reproductive success** Understand how sexual selection and natural selection are similar and different. Understand the concept of cumulative selection and how it applies to sexual selection. Know the idea that sexual selection evolves when there is a disparity in parental investment between the sexes. Know the different types of parental investment. Be able to reproduce and discuss the flowchart of that shows how sexual selection can evolve. Make sure you know what the operational sex ratio refers to and how it relates to the parental investment model of sexual selection. Know about the different forms of sexually selected traits including armaments, ornamentations, and displays (songs, pheromones, etc.). Understand how the variation in mating systems is related to disparities in parental care. And disparities in care can be related to ecological factors (food availability, etc.). Be able to discuss the benefits of sexually selected traits and the benefits of female choice. Know some examples. Know the two mechanisms of sexual selections discussed in lecture: Runaway Sexual Selection and indicator mechanisms like Zahavi's handicap principle. - **Runaway selection outline o Females evolve a preference for certain stimuli that have nothing to do with mate choice** - **Males evolve traits that stimulate those female preferences o The male trait and female preference become genetically linked o Females inherit genes for preferences and males for the attractive trait o Females' preferences continue to evolve** - **Fisher's hypothesis:** - **The preference in expressed only in females and the traits in males, but both** - **Indicator Mechanisms (From Zahavi's Handicap Principle) o Link to good healthy or genes** **§ Costly sexually selected traits in a male indicate that the males have good health and genes if they have survived to reproductive age, despite "handicap"** - **Sexually selected traits can also directly indicate health** - **A frigatebird inflates its chest pouch, showing its blood color, which can be used to determine parasite resistance** - **Sexually selected traits can be determined by whether or not females pay attention to the males sexually dimorphic traits, such as a certain song syllable variation, tail length, and mating call.** For the first, understand how female preferences evolve first. Know the examples provided at the end of the lecture. [Males changing behavior based on female reaction:] Red-winged black birds switch their songs o The frequency of song switching increases when females are around [Calls and genetic quality]: Grey tree frog: - Long calling males had higher reproductive success - The long calls are indicators that the offspring will have greater survivorship BIOLOGY 551 Class on 11/21/24 Unit 11 - Sexual Selection: Natural Selection: - Population variation in heritable traits o Genetically based traits - Some varieties of traits confer an advantage o Beneficial traits are selected for in a population - Differential Reproduction: Individuals with those advantageous traits on average produce more offspring in their lifetime. o i.e., they pass on more copies of their genes - Evolution of the population -- favorable traits will become more common in the population over time Sexual Selection: - Selection for enhanced ability to obtain mates - Occurs when individuals in a population differ in ability to attract mates - First described by Darwin - The traits that are selected for are not advantageous o Sexually selected traits often create disadvantages such as higher energy cost and higher predation - A peacock tail is highly visible and decreases its ability to fly (leads to higher predation), and the tail needs to be regrown after it molts (high energy cost) - Other examples include manakin's feather and moose's antlers - These traits have evolved due to gradual selection: stepwise accumulation that proved fitness advantage o The advantage in mating has to be above and beyond the cost of survival § Even if they do not live long, higher mating success will allow them to pass down their genes to many offspring - Variation in Mating Systems: - Variation arises when there are differences between males and females in parental investment o Low disparity: little difference between male and female total investment - Low levels of sexually selected traits, very little sexual dimorphism o High disparity: Significant difference between male and female total investment - High levels of sexually selected traits, significant sexual dimorphism - Extreme morphological sexual dimorphism o Advantages: § Physical competition between males - This demonstrates that males can guard females and young § Male traits that are attractive to females - Signals linked to male quality o Can communicate quality and health of a male - Signals that exploit female sensory systems o Females need good eyesight to identify food, nesting spots, and predators, so they will typically be triggered by certain visual certain stimuli in males Runaway Selection (Fisher's Sexy Son Hypothesis): - An animal is successful if their offspring survive and have high reproductive success o The best measure of reproductive success is the number of young that survive and go on to reproduce. - Runaway selection outline o Females evolve a preference for certain stimuli that have nothing to do with mate choice - Males evolve traits that stimulate those female preferences o The male trait and female preference become genetically linked o Females inherit genes for preferences and males for the attractive trait o Females' preferences continue to evolve - Fisher's hypothesis: - The preference in expressed only in females and the traits in males, but both - Indicator Mechanisms (From Zahavi's Handicap Principle) o Link to good healthy or genes § Costly sexually selected traits in a male indicate that the males have good health and genes if they have survived to reproductive age, despite "handicap" - Sexually selected traits can also directly indicate health - A frigatebird inflates its chest pouch, showing its blood color, which can be used to determine parasite resistance - Sexually selected traits can be determined by whether or not females pay attention to the males sexually dimorphic traits, such as a certain song syllable variation, tail length, and mating call. [Examples:] - Spots and success in peacock o Peacocks with greater eyespot area on their tail feathers have greater reproductive success - Song rate of a bird that indicates parental care o The male birds of this species that have a rapid song rate will provide a good amount of parental care, which is beneficial to the young § This is an honest indicator