EXAMINATION PAPER
Examination Session:
Year:
Exam Code:
May
2018
BIOL3561-WE01
Title:
Behavioural Ecology
Time Allowed:
3 hours
Additional Material provided:
Materials Permitted:
None
Calculators Permitted:
Yes
Models Permitted:
Casio fx-83 GTPLUS or Casio fx-85 GTPLUS calculator.
Visiting Students may use dictionaries:
No
Instructions to Candidates: Answer
two questions.
Please use separate books for each answer.
Do not attach
your booklets together with treasury tags unless you have used
more than one booklet to answer the same question.
Answers should be illustrated with labelled diagrams wherever
these are useful.
Revision: 1
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BIOL3561-WE01
Answer TWO questions
1) Behavioural ecology is a broad discipline but the underlying concepts and tools for
studying the subject are consistent across a wide range of topics. Discuss those
concepts and tools and how they have been utilised to improve our understanding of
ONE of the following topics: play; tool use; human impacts on wildlife behaviour; altruism
and spite; female competition; sexual conflict; or collective behaviour. You should clearly
state which topic you are addressing.
2) In 1948, David Lack observed that birds show a strong relationship between clutch size
and latitude, as illustrated by the examples in Figure 1, below. What approaches are
available to develop and test hypotheses for this phenomenon and what are the benefits
and limitations of each approach?
Figure 1: Relationship between clutch size and latitude in two avian genera. Each
data point represents a different species.
3) Using the behavioural evolutionary ecology concepts you have learned, describe why
humans demonstrate choosiness when it comes to selecting a mate and what
characteristics they may be evaluating. Provide examples. What factors might make
human mating patterns differ from animals?
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BIOL3561-WE01
4) You have discovered a new species of seabird. You collect data on the relationship
between reproductive success (number of chicks surviving to fledging) in relation to the
number of mates (Figure 2, below). Based on this plot, make a hypothesis about the
strength of sexual selection in males and females. Explain how/why you came to that
conclusion and what additional data you could collect to gain additional support.
Figure 2: Distribution of reproductive success in relation to the number of mates in
males and females of a new species of seabird.
5) Ecologists recognise that competition is most intense when organisms show high niche
overlap. Niche overlap is likely to be highest among individuals of the same species.
Why, then, do individuals of many species form social groups?
END