1. Chapter 13, page 283: When they were discussing transparency they talked about how terrestrial animals do not have transparency because of refractive index's and the effects of ultraviolet radiation. Is it possible, that over time, the environment could change so drastically that transparent would become useful for terrestrial animals and they would evolve to use it?
2. Chapter 13, page 284. In the other functions of color section they discuss how color affects heat balance and has to do with thermoregulation. In terms of global warming, as everything becomes warmer, would the color of certain species change with it to make thermoregulation easier? Would this cause the species to begin to die out due to the color change affecting mating behaviors, or would the mating behavior change with the color change? Would the species adapt to the color change and ate just the same?
3. Chapter 13, page 299: In regards of the dilution effect, I know there is saftey in numbers so the bigger the group size the better. It also mentions that this actually harms the population because there are predators that occur in higher rates. Why hasn't this cause the species to change they way they travel? Why hasn't the higher predation risk cause them to swim independently rather that in a group since in a group they may have a higher chance of being picked off by a predator?
Chapter 13, page 279: Some animals, such as cuttlefish, can change their camouflage to match their surrounding backgrounds. How does this physical change happen? What do species physiologically need in order to be able to change colors? Chapter 13, page 280. For disruptive coloration, the breakup of an animals body line can help a predator not see their prey or delay hem being noticed. when they say delay, do they mean this give the prey time to escape? what is the delay for? Chapter 13, page 292: For feigning injury or death, i am a little confused on how this works. When a predator is near and the prey begins dragging their wing and then then flies away and makes a loud noise, is that to have the predator follow the adult prey and forget about the nest? what happens to the adult prey after that? how do they get away from the predator and back to their young?
1. Chapter 13, page 279: Do animals that change color to match with their surroundings need to have the ability to see the colors of their surroundings in order to match it? In other words, do these animals have color vision? Or is the ability to change color unrelated from actually seeing color and consciously matching it? Is color matching an unconscious act?
2. Chapter 13, page 284: When discussing the technique of masquerade, the author states that deems the animal inedible. However, when given the example of resembling a leaf, how would this work if the predator was an omnivore? Wouldn't leaves be edible to them in that case?
3. Chapter 13, page 287: On the topic of warning coloration, do predator species need to actively learn that these bright colors mean that a prey species has noxious qualities? Or is it something that they are just born knowing to avoid?
Q2. You have found the one potential kink in the system! So, at present, the benefit of evading predators and likelihood of getting eaten by a veggie eater in a sea of real leaves outweighs the potential cost of getting eaten as a leaf. You could imagine that this ratio could change if circumstances changed.
Q3. What process might be the mechanism by which this happens?
P)268: Is camouflage specifically related to color-orientation and changing, or does it apply to any method of survival by changing or altered visual appearance? It physical change, as in skin, also considered as a camouflage to match the substrate of the environment? P)272: How does self-shadow concealment work? The only animal I see it working effectively for is fish, where they can be seen less from above the water surface. Is this method efficient for other kinds of animals than fish? do not understand how it works in the wild as an advantage. P)287: Do some animals falsely color-warn as a type of inverse camouflage? Is risking to fake being poisonous or toxic a common or rare method of survival among animals? I feel like tropical frog could fake being toxic by mimicking poison-darts frogs.
Yep, camo is blending into the background (you could even imagine a scenario where there was scent camouflage vs. visual camo). I'll try to explain this further in class.
Q3. This is what mimicry is all about. We'll talk more about this tomorrow.
Chapter 13, Page 280: so the real difference between disruptive coloration and color matching the visual background is that disruptive coloration is viable in more distinct environments, giving that animal environmental plasticity, correct?
Chapter 13, Page 289: do Mullerian and Batesian mimicry differ only in whether or not both individuals are poisonous or only one of the set is poisonous and the other is essentially harmless?
Chapter 13, Page 291: can animals who have autotomy, like lizards and sea cucumbers, do this multiple times throughout their lifetime or is this a single second chance opportunity?
Q1 While there are some situations where species can do some pretty impressive background matching (we'll look at one in class), you're right that in general disruptive coloration is more plastic since it creates an optical illusion that works based on the individual's own coloration rather than the background.
Q2. Yup; in Batesian only one species is poisonous and the other takes advantageous of this. In Mullerian, they're both vomit-inducing which serves to strengthen the association between color and don't eat me.
Q3 Depends on the species but most can do it multiple times.
1.) Chapter 13, page 280: I understand what Disruptive coloration is by the definition the book gives, but I'm confused why evidence for it is limited and I'm confused by the mealworm and bird example. It says this example supports disruptive coloration as an effective form of camouflage, but I'm still confused about the experiment as a whole, and why other evidence for this is limited?
2.) Chapter 13, page 284, after talking about the various forms of camouflage, did these forms evolve over time to become different? Meaning was basic coloration matching the visual background the first form and the others evolved and formed over time?
3.) Chapter 13, Page 289: Here it talks about batesian mimicry and I was wondering how this behavior falls in the spectrum of animal cognition, do people think this is an example that animals can learn? Would this also be an example of operant conditioning, because they are making a connection between another animals behavior and the positive reinforcement of survival?
I'll try to clarify the examples for your Q1 and Q2. For mimicry, no cognition is needed. A mutation that makes an individual look like a poisonous species would clearly be really beneficial and selected for which would increase its frequency in the population.
1.) Chapter 13, Page 279, they are discussing how sepia having a dark dorsal coloration to make it practically invisible to predators, is this why sharks for instance have white on their bellies to blend into the bright lights on the surface of the water and dark colors on their dorsal to mimic the deep water dark color to make it almost invisible to prey at all angles?
2.) Chapter 13: page 280, Are there any predators known that use disruptive coloration to increase their success when hunting, would a leopard be an example of one using disruptive coloration.
3.) Chapter 13: page 285, would owls be an example of polymorphimsm or background matching because some of them live in an environment that has changing environmental conditions between seasons such as winter and summer, and change their color from brown to white to match their environment?
1. Chapter 13, page 283: When they were discussing transparency they talked about how terrestrial animals do not have transparency because of refractive index's and the effects of ultraviolet radiation. Is it possible, that over time, the environment could change so drastically that transparent would become useful for terrestrial animals and they would evolve to use it?
ReplyDelete2. Chapter 13, page 284. In the other functions of color section they discuss how color affects heat balance and has to do with thermoregulation. In terms of global warming, as everything becomes warmer, would the color of certain species change with it to make thermoregulation easier? Would this cause the species to begin to die out due to the color change affecting mating behaviors, or would the mating behavior change with the color change? Would the species adapt to the color change and ate just the same?
3. Chapter 13, page 299: In regards of the dilution effect, I know there is saftey in numbers so the bigger the group size the better. It also mentions that this actually harms the population because there are predators that occur in higher rates. Why hasn't this cause the species to change they way they travel? Why hasn't the higher predation risk cause them to swim independently rather that in a group since in a group they may have a higher chance of being picked off by a predator?
Chapter 13, page 279: Some animals, such as cuttlefish, can change their camouflage to match their surrounding backgrounds. How does this physical change happen? What do species physiologically need in order to be able to change colors?
ReplyDeleteChapter 13, page 280. For disruptive coloration, the breakup of an animals body line can help a predator not see their prey or delay hem being noticed. when they say delay, do they mean this give the prey time to escape? what is the delay for?
Chapter 13, page 292: For feigning injury or death, i am a little confused on how this works. When a predator is near and the prey begins dragging their wing and then then flies away and makes a loud noise, is that to have the predator follow the adult prey and forget about the nest? what happens to the adult prey after that? how do they get away from the predator and back to their young?
I'll be sure to talk more about injury/death feigning behavior in class tomorrow. It's such a cool behavior!
Delete1. Chapter 13, page 279: Do animals that change color to match with their surroundings need to have the ability to see the colors of their surroundings in order to match it? In other words, do these animals have color vision? Or is the ability to change color unrelated from actually seeing color and consciously matching it? Is color matching an unconscious act?
ReplyDelete2. Chapter 13, page 284: When discussing the technique of masquerade, the author states that deems the animal inedible. However, when given the example of resembling a leaf, how would this work if the predator was an omnivore? Wouldn't leaves be edible to them in that case?
3. Chapter 13, page 287: On the topic of warning coloration, do predator species need to actively learn that these bright colors mean that a prey species has noxious qualities? Or is it something that they are just born knowing to avoid?
Q2. You have found the one potential kink in the system! So, at present, the benefit of evading predators and likelihood of getting eaten by a veggie eater in a sea of real leaves outweighs the potential cost of getting eaten as a leaf. You could imagine that this ratio could change if circumstances changed.
DeleteQ3. What process might be the mechanism by which this happens?
P)268: Is camouflage specifically related to color-orientation and changing, or does it apply to any method of survival by changing or altered visual appearance? It physical change, as in skin, also considered as a camouflage to match the substrate of the environment?
ReplyDeleteP)272: How does self-shadow concealment work? The only animal I see it working effectively for is fish, where they can be seen less from above the water surface. Is this method efficient for other kinds of animals than fish? do not understand how it works in the wild as an advantage.
P)287: Do some animals falsely color-warn as a type of inverse camouflage? Is risking to fake being poisonous or toxic a common or rare method of survival among animals? I feel like tropical frog could fake being toxic by mimicking poison-darts frogs.
Yep, camo is blending into the background (you could even imagine a scenario where there was scent camouflage vs. visual camo). I'll try to explain this further in class.
DeleteQ3. This is what mimicry is all about. We'll talk more about this tomorrow.
Chapter 13, Page 280: so the real difference between disruptive coloration and color matching the visual background is that disruptive coloration is viable in more distinct environments, giving that animal environmental plasticity, correct?
ReplyDeleteChapter 13, Page 289: do Mullerian and Batesian mimicry differ only in whether or not both individuals are poisonous or only one of the set is poisonous and the other is essentially harmless?
Chapter 13, Page 291: can animals who have autotomy, like lizards and sea cucumbers, do this multiple times throughout their lifetime or is this a single second chance opportunity?
Q1 While there are some situations where species can do some pretty impressive background matching (we'll look at one in class), you're right that in general disruptive coloration is more plastic since it creates an optical illusion that works based on the individual's own coloration rather than the background.
DeleteQ2. Yup; in Batesian only one species is poisonous and the other takes advantageous of this. In Mullerian, they're both vomit-inducing which serves to strengthen the association between color and don't eat me.
Q3 Depends on the species but most can do it multiple times.
1.) Chapter 13, page 280: I understand what Disruptive coloration is by the definition the book gives, but I'm confused why evidence for it is limited and I'm confused by the mealworm and bird example. It says this example supports disruptive coloration as an effective form of camouflage, but I'm still confused about the experiment as a whole, and why other evidence for this is limited?
ReplyDelete2.) Chapter 13, page 284, after talking about the various forms of camouflage, did these forms evolve over time to become different? Meaning was basic coloration matching the visual background the first form and the others evolved and formed over time?
3.) Chapter 13, Page 289: Here it talks about batesian mimicry and I was wondering how this behavior falls in the spectrum of animal cognition, do people think this is an example that animals can learn? Would this also be an example of operant conditioning, because they are making a connection between another animals behavior and the positive reinforcement of survival?
I'll try to clarify the examples for your Q1 and Q2. For mimicry, no cognition is needed. A mutation that makes an individual look like a poisonous species would clearly be really beneficial and selected for which would increase its frequency in the population.
Delete1.) Chapter 13, Page 279, they are discussing how sepia having a dark dorsal coloration to make it practically invisible to predators, is this why sharks for instance have white on their bellies to blend into the bright lights on the surface of the water and dark colors on their dorsal to mimic the deep water dark color to make it almost invisible to prey at all angles?
ReplyDelete2.) Chapter 13: page 280, Are there any predators known that use disruptive coloration to increase their success when hunting, would a leopard be an example of one using disruptive coloration.
3.) Chapter 13: page 285, would owls be an example of polymorphimsm or background matching because some of them live in an environment that has changing environmental conditions between seasons such as winter and summer, and change their color from brown to white to match their environment?