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

Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Pp. viii, 282. £3·50, paperback £1. 1970. (Cambridge University Press.)

Beginning with Emlen (1966) and MacArthur and Pianka (1966) and extending through the last ten years, several authors have sought to predict the foraging behavior of animals by means of mathematical models. These models are very similar,in that they all assume that the fitness of a foraging animal is a function of the efficiency of foraging measured in terms of some "currency" (Schoener, 1971) -usually energy- and that natural selection has resulted in animals that forage so as to maximize this fitness. As a result of these similarities, the models have become known as "optimal foraging models"; and the theory that embodies them, "optimal foraging theory." The situations to which optimal foraging theory has been applied, with the exception of a few recent studies, can be divided into the following four categories: (1) choice by an animal of which food types to eat (i.e., optimal diet); (2) choice of which patch type to feed in (i.e., optimal patch choice); (3) optimal allocation of time to different patches; and (4) optimal patterns and speed of movements. In this review we discuss each of these categories separately, dealing with both the theoretical developments and the data that permit tests of the predictions. The review is selective in the sense that we emphasize studies that either develop testable predictions or that attempt to test predictions in a precise quantitative manner. We also discuss what we see to be some of the future developments in the area of optimal foraging theory and how this theory can be related to other areas of biology. Our general conclusion is that the simple models so far formulated are supported are supported reasonably well by available data and that we are optimistic about the value both now and in the future of optimal foraging theory. We argue, however, that these simple models will requre much modification, espicially to deal with situations that either cannot easily be put into one or another of the above four categories or entail currencies more complicated that just energy.

Citation classic - optimal foraging - a selective review of theory and tests

Sensory information undergoes extensive associative elaboration and attentional modulation as it becomes incorporated into the texture of cognition. This process occurs along a core synaptic hierarchy which includes the primary sensory, upstream unimodal, downstream unimodal, heteromodal, paralimbic and limbic zones of the cerebral cortex. Connections from one zone to another are reciprocal and allow higher synaptic levels to exert a feedback (top-down) influence upon earlier levels of processing. Each cortical area provides a nexus for the convergence of afferents and divergence of efferents. The resultant synaptic organization supports parallel as well as serial processing, and allows each sensory event to initiate multiple cognitive and behavioural outcomes. Upstream sectors of unimodal association areas encode basic features of sensation such as colour, motion, form and pitch. More complex contents of sensory experience such as objects, faces, word-forms, spatial locations and sound sequences become encoded within downstream sectors of unimodal areas by groups of coarsely tuned neurons. The highest synaptic levels of sensory-fugal processing are occupied by heteromodal, paralimbic and limbic cortices, collectively known as transmodal areas. The unique role of these areas is to bind multiple unimodal and other transmodal areas into distributed but integrated multimodal representations. Transmodal areas in the midtemporal cortex, Wernicke's area, the hippocampal-entorhinal complex and the posterior parietal cortex provide critical gateways for transforming perception into recognition, word-forms into meaning, scenes and events into experiences, and spatial locations into targets for exploration. All cognitive processes arise from analogous associative transformations of similar sets of sensory inputs. The differences in the resultant cognitive operation are determined by the anatomical and physiological properties of the transmodal node that acts as the critical gateway for the dominant transformation. Interconnected sets of transmodal nodes provide anatomical and computational epicentres for large-scale neurocognitive networks. In keeping with the principles of selectively distributed processing, each epicentre of a large-scale network displays a relative specialization for a specific behavioural component of its principal neurospychological domain. The destruction of transmodal epicentres causes global impairments such as multimodal anomia, neglect and amnesia, whereas their selective disconnection from relevant unimodal areas elicits modality-specific impairments such as prosopagnosia, pure word blindness and category-specific anomias. The human brain contains at least five anatomically distinct networks. The network for spatial awareness is based on transmodal epicentres in the posterior parietal cortex and the frontal eye fields; the language network on epicentres in Wernicke's and Broca's areas; the explicit memory/emotion network on epicentres in the hippocampal-entorhinal complex and the amygdala; the face-object recognition network on epicentres in the midtemporal and temporopolar cortices; and the working memory-executive function network on epicentres in the lateral prefrontal cortex and perhaps the posterior parietal cortex. Individual sensory modalities give rise to streams of processing directed to transmodal nodes belonging to each of these networks. The fidelity of sensory channels is actively protected through approximately four synaptic levels of sensory-fugal processing. The modality-specific cortices at these four synaptic levels encode the most veridical representations of experience. Attentional, motivational and emotional modulations, including those related to working memory, novelty-seeking and mental imagery, become increasingly more pronounced within downstream components of unimodal areas, where they help to create a highly edited subjective version of the world. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)

http://zielinskifam.com/lit/gumc_nsci_papers/Mesulam_98_Brain_cog_review.pdf

From sensation to cognition.

Let's read! We will often find out this sentence everywhere. When still being a kid, mom used to order us to always read, so did the teacher. Some books are fully read in a week and we need the obligation to support reading. What about now? Do you still love reading? Is reading only for you who have obligation? Absolutely not! We here offer you a new book enPDFd the perception of the visual world to read.

The Perception of the Visual World. By James J. Gibson. U.S.A.: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950 (George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., London). Price 35s.

How fixed is the fixed action pattern

Tonic communication: continual effects of discrete signs in animal communication systems.

Ultraschall-Laute bei jungen Mäusen

Zusammenfassung

Aufgabe der vorliegenden Abhandlung ist es:



1
einen Uberblick uber die historische Entwicklung der Begriffe Angeborenes auslosendes Schema (Lorenz 1935) und Angeborener auslosender Mechanismus (Tinbergen 1948) zu geben

2
die bisherigen Definitionen des AAM zu prufen, inwieweit sie den heutigen Anforderungen entsprechen und

3
neue Definitionen fur den AAM und verwandte Auslosemechanismen aufzustellen, die den gegenwartigen Bedurfnissen besser entsprechen.





Der Vergleich der Definitionen von v. Uexkull, Lorenz und Tinbergen zeigt, das mit dem Ubergang vom Angeborenen auslosenden Schema zum Angeborenen Auslosemechanismus ein Bedeutungswandel einherging. Das Schema war ursprunglich als vereinfachtes Abbild des “Auslosers” (Lorenz 1935) bzw. der korrespondierenden Schlusselreize gedacht, wahrend der AAM allgemeiner definiert ist als Instanz, die eine Verknupfung zwischen einem bestimmten Reiz und einer bestimmten Reaktion bewerkstelligt.



Die zuletzt von Tinbergen 1951 gegebene Definition des AAM last zwei I'ragen offen, die in den letzten Jahren zu Kritik am AAM-Konzept gefuhrt haben: a) Ist die Selektivitat des AAM wirklich nur durch neurale Strukturen bedingt? b) Was meint das Attribut “angeboren” beim AAM? Zur Beantwortung der ersten Frage mussen wir neben ethologischen auch histologische und physiologische Methoden mit heranziehen. Es bestatigt sich die Vermutung von Lorenz (1943), das in manchen Fallen die Filterwirkung eines Sinnesorganes ausreicht, um eine selektive Empfindlichkeit fur bestimmte Reize zu erklaren, in anderen Fallen wirken Filterwirkungen von Sinnesorganen und nachgeschalteter neuraler Strukturen zusammen. Daher ist es notwendig, die Sinnesorgane grundsatzlich in den AAM mit einzubeziehen. — Die Antwort auf die zweite Frage ist: Angeboren heist hier, das eine Information uber bestimmte physikalische oder chemische Gegebenheiten der Umgebung im Verlauf der Stammesgeschichte im Genom der Art gespeichert worden ist, und eine gleichlautende Information beim einzelnen, nachgewiesenermasen unerfahrenen Individuum eine bestimmte Reaktion auslost.



Ist bei einem erfahrenen Tier ein Auslosemechanismus besonders selektiv, so wird dies haufig, aber zu Unrecht als Hinweis fur einen AAM gewertet. Immer dann, wenn nur ein ganz bestimmtes Objekt eine Reaktion auszulosen vermag, mussen wir damit rechnen, das die personliche Erfahrung des Individuums wesentlich zur Selektivitat des Filters beigetragen hat.



Ist bei einem erfahrenen Tier eine Reaktion durch einfache Attrappen auslosbar, so spricht dies eher fur einen AAM (Lorenz 1954), wirklich beweisend ist aber nur das “Experiment mit Erfahrungsentzug”.



Die Filterwirkung der AAMs wird im Verlauf der Ontogenese sehr haufig durch Hinzulernen weiterer Merkmale oder durch Gewohnung an wiederholte Reize weiter verstarkt. Ich schlage vor, vom AAM den “durch Erfahrung modifizierten AAM” (EAAM) begrifflich abzutrennen. Auslosemechanismen, bei denen das ursprunglich vorhanden gewesene Gerust des AAM nicht mehr nachweisbar ist oder die ohne Mitwirkung eines AAM zustande gekommen sind, konnen als “Erworbene Auslosemechanismen” (EAM) davon unterschieden werden. Fehlen experimentelle Befunde oder soll offen bleiben, ob eine Verknupfung zwischen Reiz und Reaktion durch phylogenetische oder ontogenetische Anpassung an Gegebenheiten der Umgebung entstanden ist, so soll der Ausdruck “Auslosemechanismus” (AM) ohne nahere Bezeichnung verwendet werden.



Bei Wirbeltieren ist im erwachsenen Zustand der EAAM die Regel. AAMs sind meist nur in fruhen ontogenetischen Stadien nachzuweisen.

Wolfgang M. Schleidt

Papers

How fixed is the fixed action pattern

Tonic communication: continual effects of discrete signs in animal communication systems.

Ultraschall-Laute bei jungen Mäusen

Die historische Entwicklung der Begriffe „Angeborenes auslösendes Schema” und „Angeborener Auslösemechanismus” in der Ethologie

Reaktionen von Truthühnern auf fliegende Raubvögel und Versuche zur Analyse ihrer AAM's