Proximate Factors of Behavior and Learning, Culture, Sexual Selection, and Mating Systems
Question 1: Read Koene 1996. Are the suggested methodologies by the author sensible, both in terms of gathering information about Umwelt and in terms of a valid methodology?
Question 2: One way to look at learning is to view it as a complex of adaptive behaviors that provide an organism with the flexibility and capacity to deal with the problems of survival and reproduction. How would you defend or contradict this statement: Invertebrates have less flexibility and a greater degree of preprogramming in their behavior than do vertebrates, and we would therefore expect invertebrates to exhibit fewer learning capacities than vertebrates.
Question 3: Read the following and discuss the social system of the Florida scrub jay, Aphelocomacoerulescens. Is cooperative breeding a viable strategy for natural selection when the individual in question never breeds?
Schoech, SJ, RL Mumme, JC Wingfield. 1996. Delayed breeding in the cooperatively breeding Florida scrub-jay (Aphelocomacoerulescens): inhibition or the absence of stimulation?
Question 4: Males typically compete for access to females and often obtain more than one mate, while females are particular about whom they mate with.
In balloon flies, however, the male supplies the female with large "gifts" in the form of captured prey or large, protein-rich sperm packets.
What differences might you expect to see in the reproductive behavior of such species when compared with the typical pattern described above?