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Philopatry
Philopatry is the tendency of an organism to stay in or habitually return to a particular area. The causes of philopatry are numerous, but natal philopatry, where animals return to their birthplace to breed, may be the most common. The term derives from the Greek roots ''philo'', "liking, loving" and ''patra'', "fatherland", although in recent years the term has been applied to more than just the animal's birthplace. Recent usage refers to animals returning to the same area to breed despite not being born there, and Animal migration, migratory species that demonstrate site fidelity: reusing stopovers, staging points, and wintering grounds. Some of the known reasons for organisms to be philopatric would be for mating (reproduction), survival, migration, parental care, resources, etc.. In most species of animals, individuals will benefit from living in groups, because depending on the species, individuals are more vulnerable to predation and more likely to have difficulty finding res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inbreeding
Inbreeding is the production of offspring from the mating or breeding of individuals or organisms that are closely genetic distance, related genetically. By analogy, the term is used in human reproduction, but more commonly refers to the genetic disorders and other consequences that may arise from expression of wikt:deleterious, deleterious dominance (genetics), recessive traits resulting from incestuous sexual relationships and consanguinity. Animals avoid inbreeding only rarely. Inbreeding results in homozygous, homozygosity which can increase the chances of offspring being affected by recessive phenotypic trait, traits. In extreme cases, this usually leads to at least temporarily decreased Fitness (biology), biological fitness of a population (called inbreeding depression), which is its ability to survive and reproduce. An individual who inherits such deleterious traits is colloquially referred to as ''inbred''. The avoidance of expression of such deleterious recessive allel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natal Homing
Natal homing, or natal philopatry, is the homing process by which some adult animals that have migrated away from their juvenile habitats return to their birthplace to reproduce. This process is primarily used by aquatic animals such as sea turtles and salmon, although some migratory birds and mammals also practice similar reproductive behaviors. Scientists believe that the main cues used by the animals are geomagnetic imprinting and olfactory cues. The benefits of returning to the precise location of an animal's birth may be largely associated with its safety and suitability as a breeding ground. When seabirds like the Atlantic puffin return to their natal breeding colony, which are mostly on islands, they are assured of a suitable climate and a sufficient lack of land-based predators. Sea turtles born in any one area differ genetically from turtles born in other areas. The newly hatched young head out to sea and soon find suitable feeding grounds, and it has been shown that i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shy Albatross
The shy albatross (''Thalassarche cauta'', formerly ''Diomedea cauta''), also known as shy mollymawk, is a medium-sized albatross that breeds on three remote islands off the coast of Tasmania, Australia, in the southern Indian Ocean. Its lifespan is about 60 years, and it has been seen as far afield as South Africa and the Pacific coast of the United States. , the species is listed as "Endangered" in Australia; there are thought to be 15,000 pairs of shy albatross left. It is Australia's only endemic albatross. Some authorities call this species the white-capped albatross, but that name is more commonly applied to '' Thalassarche cauta steadi''. Taxonomy This mollymawk was once considered to be the same species as the Salvin's albatross, ''Thalassarche salvini'', and the Chatham albatross, ''Thalassarche eremita'', but they were split around 2004. In 1998, Robertson and Nunn suggested a four-way split including the white-capped albatross, ''Thalassarche steadi''.Robertson ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethology
Ethology is a branch of zoology that studies the behavior, behaviour of non-human animals. It has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithology, ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th century, including Charles Otis Whitman, 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 the Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen and the Austrian biologists Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch, the three winners of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Ethology combines laboratory and field science, with a strong relation to neuroanatomy, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Etymology The modern term ''ethology'' derives from the Greek language: wikt:ἦθος, ἦθος, ''ethos'' meaning "character" and , ''wikt:-logia, -logia'' meaning "the study of". The term was first popularized by the American entomologist William Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salmon Run
A salmon run is an annual fish migration event where many salmonid species, which are typically hatched in fresh water and live most of their adult life downstream in the ocean, swim back against the stream to the upper reaches of rivers to spawn (biology), spawn on the gravel beds of small stream, creeks. After spawning, most Atlantic salmon and all species of Oncorhynchus, Pacific salmon die, and the salmon biological life cycle, life cycle starts over again with the new generation of hatchlings. Salmon are anadromous, spending their juvenile fish, juvenile life in rivers or lakes, and then migrating out to sea where they spend adult lives and gain most of their body mass. When they reach sexual maturity, the adults return to the upstream rivers to reproduce. Usually they natal homing, return with uncanny precision to the natal river where they were born, and even to the very spawning ground of their birth. It is thought that, when they are in the ocean, they use magnetorece ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cooperative Breeding
Cooperative breeding is a social system characterized by alloparental care: offspring receive care not only from their parents, but also from additional group members, often called helpers. Cooperative breeding encompasses a wide variety of group structures, from a breeding pair with helpers that are offspring from a previous season, to groups with multiple breeding males and females ( polygynandry) and helpers that are the adult offspring of some but not all of the breeders in the group, to groups in which helpers sometimes achieve co-breeding status by producing their own offspring as part of the group's brood. Cooperative breeding occurs across taxonomic groups including birds, mammals, fish, and insects. Costs for helpers include a fitness reduction, increased territory defense, offspring guarding and an increased cost of growth. Benefits for helpers include a reduced chance of predation, increased foraging time, territory inheritance, increased environmental conditions and an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wasp
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. The wasps do not constitute a clade, a complete natural group with a single ancestor, as bees and ants are deeply nested within the wasps, having evolved from wasp ancestors. Wasps that are members of the clade Aculeata can sting their prey. The most commonly known wasps, such as yellowjackets and hornets, are in the family Vespidae and are eusocial, living together in a nest with an egg-laying queen and non-reproducing workers. Eusociality is favoured by the unusual haplodiploid system of sex determination in Hymenoptera, as it makes sisters exceptionally closely related to each other. However, the majority of wasp species are solitary, with each adult female living and breeding independently. Females typically have an oviposit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family (biology)
Family (, : ) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". The delineation of what constitutes a family—or whether a described family should be acknowledged—is established and decided upon by active taxonomists. There are not strict regulations for outlining or acknowledging a family, yet in the realm of plants, these classifications often rely on both the vegetative and reproductive characteristics of plant species. Taxonomists frequently hold varying perspectives on these descriptions, leading to a lack of widespread consensus within the scientific community ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charles Darwin popularised the term "natural selection", contrasting it with selective breeding, artificial selection, which is intentional, whereas natural selection is not. Genetic diversity, Variation of traits, both Genotype, genotypic and phenotypic, exists within all populations of organisms. However, some traits are more likely to facilitate survival and reproductive success. Thus, these traits are passed the next generation. These traits can also become more Allele frequency, common within a population if the environment that favours these traits remains fixed. If new traits become more favoured due to changes in a specific Ecological niche, niche, microevolution occurs. If new traits become more favoured due to changes in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Molt
In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is a process by which an animal casts off parts of its body to serve some beneficial purpose, either at specific times of the year, or at specific points in its life cycle. In medieval times, it was also known as "mewing" (from the French verb "muer", to moult), a term that lives on in the name of Britain's Royal Mews where the King's hawks used to be kept during moulting time before becoming horse stables after Tudor times. Moulting can involve shedding the epidermis (skin), pelage (hair, feathers, fur, wool), or other external layer. In some groups, other body parts may be shed, for example, the entire exoskeleton in arthropods, including the wings in some insects. Examples In birds In birds, moulting is the periodic replacement of feathers by shedding old feathers while producing new ones. Feathers are dead structures at maturity w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kin Selection
Kin selection is a process whereby natural selection favours a trait due to its positive effects on the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even when at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction. Kin selection can lead to the evolution of Altruism in animals, altruistic behaviour. It is related to inclusive fitness, which combines the number of offspring produced with the number an individual can ensure the production of by supporting others (weighted by the relatedness between individuals). A broader definition of kin selection includes selection acting on interactions between individuals who share a gene of interest even if the gene is not shared due to common ancestry. Charles Darwin discussed the concept of kin selection in his 1859 book, ''On the Origin of Species'', where he reflected on the puzzle of sterile social insects, such as honey bees, which leave reproduction to their mothers, arguing that a selection benefit to related organisms (the sam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
