Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols Used xiii 1. The Importance of Islands 3 2. Area and Number of Speicies 8 3. Further Explanations of the Area-Diversity Pattern 19 4. The Strategy of Colonization 68 5. Invasibility and the Variable Niche 94 6. Stepping Stones and Biotic Exchange 123 7. Evolutionary Changes Following Colonization 145 8. Prospect 181 Glossary 185 References 193 Index 201

The Theory of Island Biogeography

Predation has long been implicated as a major selective force in the evolution of several morphological and behavioral characteristics of animals. The importance of predation during evolutionary ti...

Behavioral decisions made under the risk of predation: a review and prospectus

The influence of diet on the distribution of nitrogen isotopes in animals was investigated by analyzing animals grown in the laboratory on diets of constant nitrogen isotopic composition. 
The isotopic composition of the nitrogen in an animal reflects the nitrogen isotopic composition of its diet. The δ^(15)N values of the whole bodies of animals are usually more positive than those of their diets. Different individuals of a species raised on the same diet can have significantly different δ^(15)N values. The variability of the relationship between the δ^(15)N values of animals and their diets is greater for different species raised on the same diet than for the same species raised on different diets. Different tissues of mice are also enriched in ^(15)N relative to the diet, with the difference between the δ^(15)N values of a tissue and the diet depending on both the kind of tissue and the diet involved. The δ^(15)N values of collagen and chitin, biochemical components that are often preserved in fossil animal remains, are also related to the δ^(15)N value of the diet. 
The dependence of the δ^(15)N values of whole animals and their tissues and biochemical components on the δ^(15)N value of diet indicates that the isotopic composition of animal nitrogen can be used to obtain information about an animal's diet if its potential food sources had different δ^(15)N values. The nitrogen isotopic method of dietary analysis probably can be used to estimate the relative use of legumes vs non-legumes or of aquatic vs terrestrial organisms as food sources for extant and fossil animals. However, the method probably will not be applicable in those modern ecosystems in which the use of chemical fertilizers has influenced the distribution of nitrogen isotopes in food sources. 
The isotopic method of dietary analysis was used to reconstruct changes in the diet of the human population that occupied the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico over a 7000 yr span. Variations in the δ^(15)C and δ^(15)N values of bone collagen suggest that C_4 and/or CAM plants (presumably mostly corn) and legumes (presumably mostly beans) were introduced into the diet much earlier than suggested by conventional archaeological analysis.

Influence of Diet On the Distribtion of Nitrogen Isotopes in Animals

In the Hamadryas baboon, males are substantially larger than females. A troop of baboons is subdivided into a number of ‘one-male groups’, consisting of one adult male and one or more females with their young. The male prevents any of ‘his’ females from moving too far from him. Kummer (1971) performed the following experiment. Two males, A and B, previously unknown to each other, were placed in a large enclosure. Male A was free to move about the enclosure, but male B was shut in a small cage, from which he could observe A but not interfere. A female, unknown to both males, was then placed in the enclosure. Within 20 minutes male A had persuaded the female to accept his ownership. Male B was then released into the open enclosure. Instead of challenging male A , B avoided any contact, accepting A’s ownership.

Evolution and the Theory of Games

A growing number of studies quantify the impact of nonlethal human disturbance on the behavior and reproductive success of animals. Athough many are well designed and analytically sophisticated, most lack a theoretical framework for making predictions and for understanding why particular responses occur. Behavioral ecologists have recently begun to fill this theoretical vacuum by applying economic models of antipredator behavior to disturbance studies. In this emerging paradigm, predation and nonlethal disturbance stimuli create similar trade-offs between avoiding perceived risk and other fitness-enhancing activities, such as feeding, parental care, or mating. A vast literature supports the hypothesis that antipredator behavior has a cost to other activities, and that this trade-off is optimized when investment in antipredator behavior tracks short-term changes in predation risk. Prey have evolved antipredator responses to generalized threatening stimuli, such as loud noises and rapidly approaching objects. Thus, when encountering disturbance stimuli ranging from the dramatic, lowflying helicopter to the quiet wildlife photographer, animal responses are likely to follow the same economic principles used by prey encountering predators. Some authors have argued that, similar to predation risk, disturbance stimuli can indirectly affect fitness and population dynamics via the energetic and lost opportunity costs of risk avoidance. We elaborate on this argument by discussing why, from an evolutionary perspective, disturbance stimuli should be analogous to predation risk. We then consider disturbance effects on the behavior of individuals—vigilance, fleeing, habitat selection, mating displays, and parental investment—as well as indirect effects on populations and communities. A wider application of predation risk theory to disturbance studies should increase the generality of predictions and make mitigation more effective without over-regulating human activities.

/pdf/human-caused-disturbance-stimuli-as-a-form-of-predation-risk-ro9mekfw7k.pdf

Human-caused Disturbance Stimuli as a Form of Predation Risk

Publisher Summary The chapter describes a simple economic model that predicts in a qualitative way on how costs (lost feeding opportunity and risk) interact to produce an optimal flight distance from approaching predators. Animals often defer the decision to flee from an approaching predator and continue with their ongoing activities. The view is that, a profitable approach to the problem of why such decisions are deferred, and how they are eventually made, is to view the process as an economic, one in which the relative costs of fleeing and staying change as a predator approaches. It is suggested that the economic approach will prove useful in analyzing many aspects of predator-prey interactions.

The Economics of Fleeing from Predators

Protandry, the earlier arrival of males to breeding areas than females, is a common pattern of sex-biased timing in many animal taxa (e.g. some insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals). The adaptive significance of protandry is not fully understood and, since the 1970s, at least seven hypotheses for protandry have been proposed. We describe each of these hypotheses and summarize what is known about each. In three of these hypotheses, the relative arrival timing of males and females has no direct fitness consequences for males or females, but selection for different timing in each sex indirectly produces protandry. In the other four hypotheses, the difference between male and female timing has fitness consequences for males or females and selection directly maintains the fitness-maximizing degree of sex-biased timing. The hypotheses are not mutually exclusive, and the degree of multiple mating by males and the occurrence of male territoriality seem to determine the relative importance of each hypothesis. In order to understand the adaptive significance of sex-biased timing, future studies need to consider all the alternatives and to assess the costs and benefits to males of early arrival relative to calendar date, to other males and to females.

https://www.sfu.ca/biology/wildberg/NewCWEPage/papers/MorbeyYdenbergEcolLet2001.pdf

Protandrous arrival timing to breeding areas: a review

Neighbours, strangers, and the asymmetric war of attrition

Animals foraging in groups can either search for food themselves (producing) or search for the food discoveries of other individuals (scrounging). Tactic use in producer–scrounger games is partly flexible but individuals tend to show consistency in tactic use under different conditions suggesting that personality might play a role in tactic use in producer–scrounger games. Here we studied the use of producing and scrounging tactics by bold and shy barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis), where boldness is a personality trait known to be repeatable over time in this species. We defined individuals as bold, shy or intermediate based on two novel object tests. We scored the frequency of finding food patches (the outcome of investing in producing) and joining patches (the outcome of investing in scrounging) by bold and shy individuals and their feeding time. Shy individuals had a higher frequency of joining than bold individuals, demonstrating for the first time that personality is associated with tactic use in a producer–scrounger game. Bold individuals tended to spend more time feeding than shy individuals. Our results highlight the importance of including individual behavioural variation in models of producer–scrounger games.

The effect of personality on social foraging: shy barnacle geese scrounge more

Studies of begging have found a positive relationship between begging level and provisioning level. Studies of unequal nestlings, however, have found that small nestlings generally beg more but are fed less than their larger siblings. We manipulated the begging levels of yellow-headed blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus) chicks to investigate how begging benefits individuals in broods of unequal siblings. Food-deprived chicks begged more and were fed more; satiated chicks begged less and were fed less. When we deprived each chick of a brood in turn, large and small chicks generally increased begging and received more provisioning. Small chicks, however, rarely received more food than their larger siblings even when they behged relatively more. Parent yellow-headed blackbirds increase provisioning to hungry begging chicks, but also allocate food based on relative offspring size.

Ronald C. Ydenberg

Papers

The Economics of Fleeing from Predators

Protandrous arrival timing to breeding areas: a review

Neighbours, strangers, and the asymmetric war of attrition

The effect of personality on social foraging: shy barnacle geese scrounge more

Begging and provisioning in broods of asynchronously-hatched yellow-headed blackbird nestlings