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Group Living
In ethology and evolutionary biology, group living is defined as individuals of the same species (conspecifics), maintaining spatial proximity with one another over time with mechanisms of social attraction.Ward, A. and Webster, M., 2016. ''Sociality: the behaviour of group-living animals''. Berlin, Germany: Springer. Solitary life in animals is considered to be the ancestral state of living; and group living has thus evolved independently in many species of animals.Majolo, Bonaventura & Huang, Pengzhen. (2017). Group living. 10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1865-1. Therefore, species that form groups through social interaction will result in a group of individuals that gain an evolutionary advantage, such as increased protection against predators, access to potential mates, increased foraging efficiency and the access to social information. Important aspects of group living include the frequency and type of social interactions (egoistic, cooperative, altruistic, revengeful) between indi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethology
Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a term also describes the scientific and objective study of animal behaviour, usually referring to measured responses to stimuli or to trained behavioural responses in a laboratory context, without a particular emphasis on evolutionary adaptivity. Throughout history, different naturalists have studied aspects of animal behaviour. Ethology has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th century, including Charles O. Whitman, Oskar Heinroth, and Wallace Craig. The modern discipline of ethology is generally considered to have begun during the 1930s with the work of Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen and Austrian biologists Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch, the three recipients of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parental Care
Parental care is a behavioural and evolutionary strategy adopted by some animals, involving a parental investment being made to the evolutionary fitness of offspring. Patterns of parental care are widespread and highly diverse across the animal kingdom.Kokko, H. & Jennions, M.D. (2008) Parental investment, sexual selection and sex ratios. ''Journal of Evolutionary Biology,'' 21, pp.919–948. doi: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01540.x. There is great variation in different animal groups in terms of how parents care for offspring, and the amount of resources invested by parents. For example, there may be considerable variation in the amount of care invested by each sex, where females may invest more in some species, males invest more in others, or investment may be shared equally. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed to describe this variation and patterns in parental care that exist between the sexes, as well as among species.Gonzalez-Voyer, A. and Kolm, N. (2010). Parental Care and I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dusky Leaf Monkey
The dusky leaf monkey (''Trachypithecus obscurus''), also known as the spectacled langur, or the spectacled leaf monkey is a species of primate in the family Cercopithecidae. It is found in Peninsular Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, and can occasionally be found in Singapore. During the day, these small, folivorous primates divide in sub-groups and forage for vegetation and fruit throughout the tropical forests. According to the IUCN, the dusky leaf monkey's population is declining due to habitat loss, poaching, and anthropogenic land use, which prompted the IUCN to classify the species as endangered in 2015. Taxonomy Within the Cercopithecidae family, the dusky leaf monkey is a member of the lutung taxonomic group. Although most researchers agree with this classification, others believe that this primate should be categorized under the genus ''Presbytis.'' Researchers have also disputed the number of subspecies that exist, with some claiming that there are 11, while others claim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sand Martin
The sand martin (''Riparia riparia''), also known as the bank swallow (in the Americas), collared sand martin, or common sand martin, is a migratory passerine bird in the swallow family. It has a wide range in summer, embracing practically the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean countries and across the Palearctic to the Pacific Ocean. It is a Holarctic species also found in North America. It winters in eastern and southern Africa, South America, and the Indian Subcontinent. Taxonomy This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'', and originally named ''Hirundo riparia''; the description consisted of the simple "''H rundocinerea, gula abdomineque albis''" – "an ash-grey swallow, with white throat and belly" – and the type locality was simply given as "Europa". The specific name means "of the riverbank"; it is derived from the Latin ''ripa'' "riverbank". The pale martin of northern India and southeastern China ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Cliff Swallow
The cliff swallow or American cliff swallow (''Petrochelidon pyrrhonota'') is a member of the passerine bird family Hirundinidae, the swallows and martins. The generic name ''Petrochelidon'' is derived from Ancient Greek ''petros'' meaning "rock" and ''khelidon'' "swallow", and the specific name ''pyrrhonota'' comes from ''purrhos'' meaning "flame-coloured" and ''-notos'' "-backed". Cliff swallows are extremely social songbirds that can be found in large nesting colonies reaching over 2,000 nests. They are frequently seen flying overhead in large flocks during migration, gracefully foraging over fields for flying insects or perching tightly together on a wire preening under the sun. Cliff swallows build gourd-shaped nests made from mud with small entrance holes. They build their nests tightly together, on top of one another, under bridges or alongside mountain cliffs. Living in large populations, these aerial insectivores use extensive vocalizations to communicate warnings or f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parasitism
Parasitism is a Symbiosis, close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the Host (biology), host, causing it some harm, and is Adaptation, adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has characterised parasites as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as Armillaria mellea, honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the Orobanchaceae, broomrapes. There are six major parasitic Behavioral ecology#Evolutionarily stable strategy, strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism (by contact), wikt:trophic, trophicallytransmitted parasitism (by being eaten), Disease vector, vector-transmitted paras ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disease
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that are associated with specific signs and symptoms. A disease may be caused by external factors such as pathogens or by internal dysfunctions. For example, internal dysfunctions of the immune system can produce a variety of different diseases, including various forms of immunodeficiency, hypersensitivity, allergies and autoimmune disorders. In humans, ''disease'' is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person affected, or similar problems for those in contact with the person. In this broader sense, it sometimes includes injuries, disabilities, disorders, syndromes, infections, isolated symptoms, deviant behaviors, and atypical variations of stru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bateman's Principle
Bateman's principle, in evolutionary biology, is that in most species, variability in reproductive success (or reproductive variance) is greater in males than in females. It was first proposed by Angus John Bateman (1919–1996), an English geneticist. Bateman suggested that, since males are capable of producing millions of sperm cells with little effort, while females invest much higher levels of energy in order to nurture a relatively small number of eggs, the female plays a significantly larger role in their offspring's reproductive success. Bateman's paradigm thus views females as the limiting factor of parental investment, over which males will compete in order to copulate successfully. Although Bateman's principle served as a cornerstone for the study of sexual selection for many decades, it has recently been subject to criticism. Attempts to reproduce Bateman's experiments in 2012 and 2013 were unable to support his conclusions. Some scientists have criticized Bateman' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Selfish Herd Theory
The selfish herd theory states that individuals within a population attempt to reduce their predation risk by putting other conspecifics between themselves and predators. A key element in the theory is the domain of danger, the area of ground in which every point is nearer to a particular individual than to any other individual. Such antipredator behavior inevitably results in aggregations. The theory was proposed by W. D. Hamilton in 1971 to explain the gregarious behavior of a variety of animals. It contrasted the popular hypothesis that evolution of such social behavior was based on mutual benefits to the population. The basic principle governing selfish herd theory is that in aggregations, predation risk is greatest on the periphery and decreases toward the center. More dominant animals within the population are proposed to obtain low-risk central positions, whereas subordinate animals are forced into higher risk positions. The hypothesis has been used to explain why populat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laughing Dove
The laughing dove (''Spilopelia senegalensis'') is a small pigeon that is a resident breeder in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Western Australia where it has established itself in the wild after being released from Perth Zoo in 1898. This small long-tailed dove is found in dry scrub and semi-desert habitats where pairs can often be seen feeding on the ground. It is closely related to the spotted dove (''Spilopelia chinensis'') which is distinguished by a white and black chequered necklace. Other names include laughing turtle dove, palm dove and Senegal dove while in Asia the name of the little brown dove is often used. Taxonomy In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the laughing dove in his six volume ''Ornithologie'' based on a specimen collected in Senegal. He used the French name ''La tourterelle à gorge tachetée du Sénégal'' and the Latin ''Tutur gutture maculato senegalensis''. The two stars (**) at the start of the sec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forest Tent Caterpillar Moth
The forest tent caterpillar moth (''Malacosoma disstria'') is a moth found throughout North America, especially in the eastern regions. Unlike related tent caterpillar species, the larvae of forest tent caterpillars do not make tents, but rather, weave a silky sheet where they lie together during molting. They also lay down strands of silk as they move over branches and travel as groups along these pheromone-containing silk trails. The caterpillars are social, traveling together to feed and massing as a group at rest. Group behavior diminishes as the caterpillars increase in size, so that by the fifth instar (molt) the caterpillars are feeding and resting independently.Forest tent caterpillars, University of Florida James R. Meeker, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waggle Dance
Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new nest-site locations with other members of the colony. The waggle dance and the round dance are two forms of dance behaviour that are part of a continuous transition. As the distance between the resource and the hive increases, the round dance transforms into variations of a transitional dance, which, when communicating resources at even greater distances, becomes the waggle dance. In the case of '' Apis mellifera ligustica'', the round dance is performed until the resource is about 10 metres away from the hive, transitional dances are performed when the resource is at a distance of 20 to 30 metres away from the hive, and finally, when it is located at distances greater than 40 metres from the h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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