Download Homework Assignment # 5 – Chapter 12

Homework Assignment – Chapter 9 - Parental Care
1.
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
If a bird has a low adult mortality rate, they should ___________ confronted with a predator.
minimize their risk (leave the nestlings) when
maximize their risk (protect the nestlings) when
be able to reproduce again fairly easily after leaving when being
both a and c
both b and c
2. Explain the appealing explanation for why mother treehoppers (Membracinae) are believed to exhibit
maternal care but males don’t.
3. What is David Queller’s explanation for maternal care?
4. What is the Exception to the Rule? (Use stickback fish as the example)
5.
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
Why do male Water Bugs do all the work in caring for the eggs?
large eggs need protection from predation
large eggs need to remain moist
large eggs need to keep oxygenated
female Water Bugs with young are less attractive
two of the above are true
6. Mexican free-tailed bat mothers must find their young among broods of 4000 pups per square meter.
How do they find their own young? How effective are they in finding their own young?
7. What is the difference between barn swallows and cliff swallows in the way they nest? How does this
relate to the way their children call when the parents appear?
8. Why do Ring-billed gulls chicks sometimes leave their nest to find adoptive parents? How do
behaviorists explain this “Darwinian” puzzle?
9. What type of life style probably led to brood parasitism in cuckoos from a standard nester? What is the
gradual shift hypothesis? What is the advantage of being larger than the bird that is being parasitized?
10. Why not abandon a nest that has been parasitized? How does if affect the following:
a. Small species unable to remove the egg
b. Mafia hypothesis
c. The arms race
11. What is the parent-offspring conflict? How is this demonstrated by the boobies? How is this
demonstrated in egrets?
12. Which of the following were reasons promoted for the red gape seen in baby birds?
a) an honest signal (health)
b) easier to see in a dark nest
c) birds can’t see colors like yellow or green
d) only a and b
e) only a and c