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E.6

E.6. Further Studies of Behavior. E6.1. Honeybees are eusocial animals that live in colonies. Offspring are born with designated responsibilities and functions (Castes) Castes: Queen, Worker, Drone Queen: Produces eggs Flies only to mate Controls colony activity with scent

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E.6

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  1. E.6 Further Studies of Behavior

  2. E6.1 • Honeybees are eusocial animals that live in colonies. • Offspring are born with designated responsibilities and functions (Castes) • Castes: Queen, Worker, Drone • Queen: • Produces eggs • Flies only to mate • Controls colony activity with scent • mates only once and stores sperm throughout life • Lays thousands of eggs • Worker: • All females, sterile • Harvest and produce food • Feed Queen and Drones • Defend colony from attack • Live about 30 days • Nurse young bees • Build Hive • Drone: • Haploid males • Mate and then die

  3. E6.1 • Meerkats live in colonies called mobs • They consist of 20-30 meerkats • Meerkats have an alpha class of meerkat, which is groomed by the subordinate class • Subordinate females will babysit and feed alpha females offspring • Meerkats build elaborate underground network tunnels to live in. • Some meerkats are designated to be sentry meerkats. • Sentry meerkats stand watch and signal to other meerkats when danger approaches • Sentry meerkats are the first to leave the burrow to check for danger

  4. E6.2 • A whole colony is more than the sum of its parts • All the individuals are closely related • Certain advantageous traits in a caste of the colony will improve the fitness of the queen of that colony. • The genes for that colony’s caste will get passed on to the next queen of the next colony. • Honey Bees with traits advantageous for finding food will increase the survival chance of their queen and eventually outcompete other queen and their colonies for food.

  5. E6.3 • Altruistic Behavior (behavior in which an organism will support other organisms at a cost to itself) evolves when the behavior increases the chances of the altruist’s genes being propagated. • It is based on a cost-benefit analysis • The cost is the risk an organism takes when performing altruistic behaviors • The benefit is the chance that the altruistic behavior will cause the genes to be propagated

  6. E6.3 • Honeybees will sting aggressors to the colony and die themselves • They decrease their own fitness by 100% to increase the fitness of the colony • Workers are sterile and thus have no chance of passing on their genes • So, there is little risk of losing fitness when a worker dies for the queen, which has all of the worker’s genes

  7. E6.4 • Werner and Hall conducted experiments with Bluegill fish eating Daphnia • The fish will alter its behavior to minimize the costs (movement) of finding food and maximizing the benefits (nutrition) • When daphnia are high in population, bluegill fish eat the largest daphnia to maximize their nutrition. • As daphnia become less dense in population, the bluegill fish starts to eat smaller daphnia in equal proportion

  8. E6.4 • The Northwestern crow eats a gastropod called the whelk. • To eat whelks, the crow must drop the shell from a certain height a certain number of times to break it. • Flying higher costs energy, but flying multiple times costs energy as well. • The crows minimize the cost of breaking the shell by always dropping the shells from a certain height to minimize return trips without flying unnecessarily high.

  9. E6.5 • Sexual selection can lead to exaggerated traits • When mates are selected based on a trait, those traits give the organism more fitness and a higher likelihood to reproduce. • So, while the trait may not have other useful features except mate selection, organisms without the traits are naturally selected out • The trait becomes more exaggerated as further generations choose mates with more exaggerated variations of the traits • Peacocks, for example, choose the male mates based on the display of their tail feathers. • Those with larger and more colorful tail feathers are chosen and pass on their genes. • Throughout the generations, peacocks with more and more colorufl feathers are selected and pass on their genes.

  10. E6.6 • Animals show rhytmic variations in activity • There are: • Diurnal (daily) cycles: like wake/sleep • Seasonal cycles: Hibernation • Lunar cycles

  11. E6.7 • Deer reproduce seasonally as a seasonal cycle • This adaptation increases the chances of survival of the offspring • Producing more offspring is metabolically expensive • Deer mate in October and November, which ensures that the offspring will be born in the late spring-early summer • This increases the chance of the offspring surviving without having to overproduce offspring, wasting resources.

  12. E6.7 • The Uca (Fiddler crab) has a lunar reproductive cycle • The male crabs come out of their burrows and display their enlarged claws during the full moon and new moon • The fiddler crabs have this adaptation because it allows them to mate when the tides are ideal for the survival of their offspring. • The Crabs prefer the receding tides for the release of eggs

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