Download or read book Mothers Transfer Information Via Eggs Effect of Mothers Experience with Predators on Offspring written by Eric R. Giesing and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parents play an important role in creating phenotypic variation in their offspring through genetic and environmental mechanisms. For example, mothers can influence their offspring via hormonally-mediated maternal effects. In this study, offspring of mothers that had been exposed to a predator during oogenesis (experimental) were compared to offspring of mothers that had not been exposed to a predator (control). I measured the consequences of maternal exposure to predation risk on the number and size of eggs, egg cortisol content, metabolic rates of eggs, and the growth and behavior of juvenile threespined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Exposure to a predator during oogenesis caused females to produce larger eggs and heavier clutches, but there was no effect on the number of eggs per clutch. The concentration of cortisol was higher in experimental eggs than control eggs. Experimental eggs also breathed faster soon after fertilization, but the difference between control and experimental eggs in oxygen consumption attenuated over time. Standard length of juveniles increased over the course of the experiment, but there was no effect of treatment on growth during the period when the fry were measured. Shoaling behavior, an antipredator response, was measured from photographs, and was estimated as the nearest neighbor distance between individuals in each tank. Experimental females shoaled more tightly together prior to a mild disturbance. Both control and experimental juveniles shoaled more tightly together immediately following and two minutes after a mild disturbance. Altogether, these results suggest that the effect of mothers on their offspring might depend on a mothers' experience with stressors in the environment, and that mothers might manipulate the development, growth, and behavior of their offspring to match their future environment.
Download or read book Evolutionary Ecology written by Anne E. Magurran and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2005 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Trinidadian guppy represents a uniguely tractable vertebrate system, which has raised key questions in evolutionary ecology and supplied many of the answers. This work discusses this study and incorporates significant new findings and insights.
Download or read book TEXTBOOK OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR THIRD EDITION written by MANDAL, FATIK BARAN and published by PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.. This book was released on 2015-09-18 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This well-accepted book, now in its Third Edition, is an extension of the previous edition. The text has further enriched with more information to understand animal behaviour coherently and scientifically. The book attempts to provide a reasonably suitable account of animal behaviour for undergraduate as well as postgraduate students. Although behaviour of animals has fascinated people for a long, behavioural biology has been incorporated in the syllabi very recently. The study of behaviour received its important boost from the work of Charles Darwin who used the term ‘instinct’, to refer to the natural behaviour of animals. In the 1930s, a comprehensive theory of animal behaviour emerged through the work of Konrad Lorenz and, later of Niko Tinbergen. Biological study of behaviour, in fact came of age as a science when Lorenz, Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch received the Nobel Prize for their contribution to science. Observing and describing exactly what animals do is fascinating and scientific analysis of their behaviour is significant for several reasons. Each species tends to have an array of stereotyped behaviours, some of which are shared with related species, but others are unique. Ecology, natural selection, macroevolution, microevolution, and gene constitute the foundation of animal behaviour. Various animal groups exhibit diverse strategies for their survival and reproduction which are discussed in this book. The book is primarily intended for the students of B.Sc./M.Sc. (Zoology/Life Science) for their courses. It would be useful for the researchers in the field of animal behaviour, and conservation biologists. It would also attract students who are pursuing courses in Sociology and Anthropology. Key features • Presents a well-balanced view of ethology. • Discusses the current development in the field. • Includes a glossary of important terms. • Offers chapter-end questions to check the students’ understanding of the concept.
Download or read book Biology of Stress in Fish written by Carl B. Schreck and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biology of Stress in Fish: Fish Physiology provides a general understanding on the topic of stress biology, including most of the recent advances in the field. The book starts with a general discussion of stress, providing answers to issues such as its definition, the nature of the physiological stress response, and the factors that affect the stress response. It also considers the biotic and abiotic factors that cause variation in the stress response, how the stress response is generated and controlled, its effect on physiological and organismic function and performance, and applied assessment of stress, animal welfare, and stress as related to model species. Provides the definitive reference on stress in fish as written by world-renowned experts in the field Includes the most recent advances and up-to-date thinking about the causes of stress in fish, their implications, and how to minimize the negative effects Considers the biotic and abiotic factors that cause variation in the stress response
Download or read book Maternal Effects As Adaptations written by Timothy A. Mousseau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-18 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mothers have the ability to profoundly affect the quality of their offspring--from the size and quality of their eggs to where, when, and how eggs and young are placed, and from providing for and protecting developing young to choosing a mate. In many instances, these maternal effects may be the single most important contributor to variation in offspring fitness. This book explores the wide variety of maternal effects that have evolved in plants and animals as mechanisms of adaptation to temporally and spatially heterogeneous environments. Topics range from the evolutionary implications of maternal effects to the assessment and measurement of maternal effects. Four detailed case studies are also included. This book represents the first synthesis of the current state of knowledge concerning the evolution of maternal effects and their adaptive significance.
Download or read book The Evolution of Parental Care written by Nick J. Royle and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-09 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parental care includes a wide variety of traits that enhance offspring development and survival. This novel book provides a fresh perspective on the current state of the study of the evolution of parental care, written by some of the top researchers in the field, and taking a broad taxonomic approach.
Download or read book Maternal Influences on Offspring Size Behaviour and Energy Metabolism written by Tim Burton and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In my thesis I investigate the ecology of maternal influences: the unique ability of mothers to influence, via genetic and non-genetic means, the phenotypic expression of their offspring. My research is presented as a series of standalone chapters that are introduced and then summarised by a general introduction (Chapter 1) and a general discussion (Chapter 6) respectively. One of the main components of an organism's energy budget is its baseline level of energy metabolism. Individual differences in this cost of self-maintenance (termed in this chapter, resting metabolic rate, RMR) are substantial, but the causes and consequences of this variation are obscure. In Chapter 2, I review the published literature and show that maternal influences (along with other factors) can contribute substantially to variation in offspring RMR. Also, the RMR - fitness relationship appears to be modulated by environmental conditions (e.g. food supply), suggesting that the fitness consequences of a given RMR may be context-dependent. Thus, I propose that broad-scale variation in RMR might persist in natural populations, due to both spatial and temporal variation in environmental conditions and the trans-generational influence of mothers. To further investigate maternal influences on offspring energy metabolism, I measured the standard metabolic rate (SMR, a measure equivalent to RMR but used in reference to ectothermic animals) of juvenile brown trout (Salmo trutta) in response to intra-clutch manipulations of egg cortisol and testosterone (Chapter 3). Although, neither hormone affected offspring SMR (egg testosterone treatment resulted in a likely pharmacological dose), juveniles from cortisol-treated eggs were smaller and subordinate to individuals from control eggs. This indicates that variation in the amount of cortisol deposited in eggs by females, either among clutches or within them, is likely to affect juvenile performance. In a separate experiment (Chapter 4), I investigated if within-clutch differences in the phenotypes of juvenile brown trout were systematically related to the position where each individual developed during oogenesis. For a given egg size, siblings from dominant mothers were initially larger (but had a lower mass-corrected SMR) if they developed in the rear of the egg mass. However, heterogeneity in the size of siblings from different positions in the egg mass diminished in lower ranking females. Juvenile social status also varied according to egg mass position, although the direction of this effect depended on their age. Maternal influences on offspring are not only determined by conditions experienced by females immediately prior to reproduction. In Chapter 5, I investigated whether the juvenile growth rate and adult reproductive traits of female wild Atlantic salmon are related to the performance of their offspring in the wild. Investment in egg size was linked to both the juvenile and adult phenotypes of mothers. Even when controlling for egg size, the influence of these 'past' and 'present' maternal traits extended to offspring performance. Offspring growth was positively related to maternal investment in reproduction and the juvenile growth rate of each mother. The survival and biomass of offspring were also linked to adult reproductive traits but these relationships differed for mothers that had grown at either fast or slow rates as juveniles. Overall my thesis demonstrates that maternal influences are a substantial source of variation in offspring size, behaviour and physiology, both among and within clutches. My research also underlines the importance of maternal influences for offspring ecology and therefore maternal fitness.
Download or read book Cannibalism written by Mark A. Elgar and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering the contextual and taxonomic diversity of cannibalism, this book explains its costs, benefits, and consequences for a taxonomically broad distribution of species from lower eukaryotes to higher primates. The authors, all experts in their taxon of interest, use theory developed for the analysis of foraging, sociality, demography, and genetics to assess the ecological and evolutionary causes and effects of cannibalism. The emerging picture from recent research challenges the view that cannibalism is either abnormal behaviour or an infrequent addition to the predator's usual diet.
Download or read book Oceanography and Marine Biology written by R. N. Gibson and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2008-06-05 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Increasing interest in marine biology and its relevance to environmental issues creates a demand for authoritative reviews of recent research. Oceanography and Marine Biology has addressed this demand for nearly 40 years. This annual review considers basics of marine research, special topics, and emerging new areas. Regarding the marine sciences as a unified field, the text features contributors who are actively engaged in biological, chemical, geological, and physical aspects of marine science. This edition includes a full color insert and covers such topics as the ecological status of the Great Barrier Reef, the effects of coral bleaching on fisheries, and the biology of octopus larvae.
Download or read book Maternal Effects on Reproduction and Development in the Mud Snail Ilyanassa Obsoleta written by Daniel Bryan Schwab and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A maternal effect occurs when the phenotype of an organism is influenced by the phenotype of its mother. When the maternal environment is an accurate predictor of the offspring's environment, maternal effects can play an important role in enhancing offspring fitness. Maternal investment (e.g. egg size), which is often a function of maternal size, is one mechanism for the transmission of maternal effects. I used the mud snail, Ilyanassa obsoleta, as a model system for examining the effects of maternal size on offspring phenotypes. Females deposit egg capsules on blades of eel grass, and exhibit high variability in the number of egg capsules laid, the number of eggs per capsule, and the morphology of their egg capsules. During early ontogeny, encapsulated embryos suffer high levels of predation. I conducted two studies to test for the presence of inducible maternal effects in response to predation. First, I conducted a pilot study analyzing how maternal size affects egg capsule deposition in small (shell length = 14.5 - 18.0 mm) medium (18.1 - 21.0 mm) and large (21.1 - 26.0 mm) snails, both with and without the presence of a predator (the green crab, Carcinus maenas). In this experiment I measured egg size, the number of eggs per capsule, the number of egg capsules laid, and several egg capsule morphometrics. I then, in a more complete study, investigated how egg capsule deposition and embryonic development are influenced by maternal size in the presence of predatory green crabs by exposing small (15 - 19 mm) and large (21 - 25 mm) adult mud snails to C. maenas cue and measuring egg size, egg number, egg capsule number, and egg capsule morphometrics. Additionally, I measured larvae at hatching to test for effects of predator cues on intracapsular development. Across both studies, I found that large snails lay more egg capsules and eggs per capsule, and that large snails lay significantly larger eggs than small snails. Larval size at hatching increased significantly in the presence of green crabs, and there is a trend suggesting that these larvae hatch sooner. Egg capsules were longer and wider in large snails, and, in the presence of a predator, were wider and possessed significantly longer defensive spines. In a test of predator preference, capsules with short spines were preferentially preyed upon by hermit crabs, suggesting that spines may be an adaptive deterrent to predation on egg capsules. Altogether, these results suggest that maternal effects in I. obsoleta can be size- and context-dependent, play an important role in defending embryos from predators during early development, and may persist post-hatching.
Download or read book Escaping From Predators written by William E. Cooper, Jr and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-28 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a predator attacks, prey are faced with a series of 'if', 'when' and 'how' escape decisions – these critical questions are the foci of this book. Cooper and Blumstein bring together a balance of theory and empirical research to summarise over fifty years of scattered research and benchmark current thinking in the rapidly expanding literature on the behavioural ecology of escaping. The book consolidates current and new behaviour models with taxonomically divided empirical chapters that demonstrate the application of escape theory to different groups. The chapters integrate behaviour with physiology, genetics and evolution to lead the reader through the complex decisions faced by prey during a predator attack, examining how these decisions interact with life history and individual variation. The chapter on best practice field methodology and the ideas for future research presented throughout, ensure this volume is practical as well as informative.
Download or read book Cephalopod Culture written by José Iglesias and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-03-26 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cephalopod Culture is the first compilation of research on the culture of cephalopods. It describes experiences of culturing different groups of cephalopods: nautiluses, sepioids (Sepia officinalis, Sepia pharaonis, Sepiella inermis, Sepiella japonica Euprymna hyllebergi, Euprymna tasmanica), squids (Loligo vulgaris, Doryteuthis opalescens, Sepioteuthis lessoniana) and octopods (Amphioctopus aegina, Enteroctopus megalocyathus, Octopus maya, Octopus mimus, Octopus minor, Octopus vulgaris, Robsonella fontaniana). It also includes the main conclusions which have been drawn from the research and the future challenges in this field. This makes this book not only an ideal introduction to cephalopod culture, but also a valuable resource for those already involved in this topic.
Download or read book Tempests Poxes Predators and People written by L. Michael Romero and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most physiological and behavioral mechanisms that comprise the stress response come from laboratory experiments using domesticated animals. This book summarizes work to understand stress in natural contexts. It places modern stress research into an evolutionary context and provides predictions on how wild animals might cope with human-altered habitats.
Download or read book Dispersal Ecology and Evolution written by Michel Baguette and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-27 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an overview of the fast expanding field of dispersal ecology. The causes, mechanisms, and consequences of dispersal at the individual, population, species, and community levels are all considered.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Animal Science Print written by Wilson G. Pond and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2004-11-16 with total page 955 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PRINT/ONLINE PRICING OPTIONS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST AT [email protected]
Download or read book Hormonally Active Agents in the Environment written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2000-02-03 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some investigators have hypothesized that estrogens and other hormonally active agents found in the environment might be involved in breast cancer increases and sperm count declines in humans as well as deformities and reproductive problems seen in wildlife. This book looks in detail at the science behind the ominous prospect of "estrogen mimics" threatening health and well-being, from the level of ecosystems and populations to individual people and animals. The committee identifies research needs and offers specific recommendations to decision-makers. This authoritative volume: Critically evaluates the literature on hormonally active agents in the environment and identifies known and suspected toxicologic mechanisms and effects of fish, wildlife, and humans. Examines whether and how exposure to hormonally active agents occursâ€"in diet, in pharmaceuticals, from industrial releases into the environmentâ€"and why the debate centers on estrogens. Identifies significant uncertainties, limitations of knowledge, and weaknesses in the scientific literature. The book presents a wealth of information and investigates a wide range of examples across the spectrum of life that might be related to these agents.
Download or read book The Neuroendocrine and Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Stress induced Maternal Effects in the Threespine Stickleback written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
