Male willow warblers have song repertoires which vary in complexity along several dimensions. We examined whether female choice,
as measured by date of pairing, was based on these song characteristics in 4 different years. Pairing date was negatively
correlated with song repertoire size in 1 year, and with song versatility in another year, but there was no consistent effect
of any song characteristic on pairing throughout the years or in the pooled sample. The variable that best explained how soon
a male pairs is male arrival date (only males that had settled territories before the first female arrived were considered
in the analysis). This correlation is consistently significant in all years. This is most parsimoniously interpreted as females
choosing some habitat characteristic in the same way that males do. A small percentage of males (8.3%) attracted and paired
with a second female. The likelihood of becoming polygynous was not explained by any measured song characteristic, but it
was related to arrival date: early males were more likely to pair with two females. Males with large repertoires fledged more
young in their primary nests, and there was a trend for the offspring of these males to have a greater probability of being
recruited into the population. In conclusion, the results show that in most years there is no sexual selection by female preference
on song characteristics, although the data on reproductive success is consistent with the idea of repertoire size being an
indicator of male quality.
Received: 4 June 1999 / Received in revised form: 1 December 1999 / Accepted: 31 December 1999 相似文献
In the meerkat (Suricata suricatta), a cooperative mongoose, pups follow potential feeders while the group is foraging and emit incessant calls when soliciting
food from them. In contrast to a ’stationary’ brood of chicks, in which nestlings are fed at a fixed location, meerkat pups
are ’mobile’ and become spread out. The question arises whether meerkat pups that experience different constraints to those
facing chicks have evolved similar begging strategies. This paper describes the vocalisations that meerkat pups emit in the
context of begging and investigates the influence of these calls on food allocation by older group members and on the behaviour
of littermates. Meerkat pups use two types of calls when soliciting food from a potential feeder. The most common is a ’repeat’
call, which pups emit continuously when following an older forager over several hours a day. In addition, when a potential
feeder finds a prey item, the pups next to it emit a bout of calls with increased calling rate, amplitude and fundamental
frequency, termed ’high-pitched’ calls. Observations, together with playback experiments, showed that more prey was allocated
to pups that called longer and more intensely. The pup closest to a feeder was almost always fed. The probability of emitting
high-pitched calls did not depend on the time since a pup had received food, and the change from repeat to high-pitched calls
occurred suddenly. The main function of the high-pitched call, therefore, does not appear to be to signal a pup’s hunger state.
More likely, the two calls, in the context of begging, may be an adaptation to energetic constraints in a mobile feeding system.
Pups, which are dispersed during foraging, may emit repeat calls over long periods to prevent potential feeders from eating
all the prey themselves. At the moment a potential feeder finds prey, pups may give the more intense high-pitched calls to
direct feeders to bring the food item to them and not to a littermate. Therefore, unlike the stationary feeding system where
chicks emit one type of begging call when the feeder approaches the nest, meerkats, with a mobile feeding system, have evolved
two discrete types of vocalisations in the context of begging.
Received: 22 November 1999 / Revised: 1 July 2000 / Accepted: 17 July 2000 相似文献
Abstract: The koala currently needs conservation intervention. There is clear evidence of decline in many populations, but the existence of other stable or expanding populations offers the possibility of a variety of creative solutions to their conservation problems. The 1998 National Koala Conservation Strategy emphasizes the need to obtain demographic information and to use this information to assess management options for koalas. We need accurate diagnoses of the status of koala populations and forecasts of their demographic future with and without particular management actions. In a qualitative fashion, this process has been undertaken many times on a local and national scale. Quantitative demographic forecasting tools are increasingly available, and koala management could benefit from their application both at the scale of individual populations and more broadly. There is already a considerable body of suitable data on the dispersal, effects of normal and catastrophic environmental variation on reproduction and survival, and on the effects of habitat change. Demographic forecasting, however, is hampered because the full suite of information is rarely available from a single population. In two Queensland populations, retrospective population viability analyses provided forecasts that were in agreement with observed population trends. Work is needed to determine whether data from one population can be applied to other populations. Models can then be developed to make projections at a multipopulation level on the basis of local population dynamics and dispersal. Certain koala populations, because of their long history of study, offer the opportunity to test demographic models retrospectively. These tests will not only aid in fine-tuning the models for koala biology and data but will also assist with the more general process of validating the models. 相似文献
Maternal investment in offspring is expected to vary according to offspring sex when the reproductive success of the progeny
is a function of differential levels of parental expenditure. We conducted a longitudinal investigation of rhesus macaques
to determine whether variation in male progeny production, measured with both DNA fingerprinting and short tandem repeat marker
typing, could be traced back to patterns of maternal investment. Males weigh significantly more than females at birth, despite
an absence of sex differences in gestation length. Size dimorphism increases during infancy, with maternal rank associated
with son’s, but not daughter’s, weight at the end of the period of maternal investment. Son’s, but not daughter’s, weight
at 1 year of age is significantly correlated with adult weight, and male, but not female, weight accounts for a portion of
the variance in reproductive success. Variance in annual offspring output was three- to fourfold higher in males than in females.
We suggest that energetic costs of rearing sons could be buffered by fetal delivery of testosterone to the mother, which is
aromatized to estrogen and fosters fat accumulation during gestation. We conclude that maternal investment is only slightly
greater in sons than in daughters, with mothers endowing sons with extra resources because son, but not daughter, mass has
ramifications for offspring sirehood. However, male reproductive tactics supersede maternal investment patterns as fundamental
regulators of male fitness.
Received: 23 July 1999 / Received in revised form: 23 February 2000 / Accepted: 13 March 2000 相似文献
Dipolydora armata (Langerhans, 1880) is a small (4 to 5 mm) spionid polychaete found burrowing in the calcareous hydrozoan Millepora complanata Lamarck, 1816, on coral reefs at Barbados, West Indies. It excavates complex networks of interconnecting burrows and forms
aggregations of worms in cavities within branches of the coral. Adult worms have a mixed feeding mode (suspension feeding
and deposit feeding). Size–frequency distributions of worms in branch samples suggest that they mature in a single year and
that reproduction occurs throughout the year. Burrow openings on the surface of the coral develop distinctive, erect spines
caused by combined growth of worm tubes and host tissue. Millepore zooids were absent in the vicinity of tube openings and
on spines, and thus the potential feeding surface of the coral will be reduced in heavily colonized branches. Burrows and
openings were densest at the bases of millepore branches where weakening of the skeleton would be expected to occur. The absence
of openings near the branch tips suggests difficulty in larval settlement there, amongst stinging zooids. Reproduction␣and
larval development of the worms were examined, and a sequence of larval stages from one to 20 segments and a juvenile stage
of 22 segments are described. Eggs are deposited in brood sacs attached to the burrow wall, and the larvae feed upon nurse
eggs (adelphophagy). The presence of larvae and juveniles occurring free in the burrows suggests that larval development may
be completed within the host coral as an alternative or in addition to a planktonic larval phase. Lack of provisional larval
setae, early development of adult capillary setae, production of special spermatophores and a protracted breeding cycle in
D. armata are all traits which would favour complete development within the host skeleton.
Received: 6 March 1997 / Accepted: 25 October 1997 相似文献
To assess the role of celestial rotation during daytime in the development of the magnetic compass course, pied flycatchers
(Ficedula hypoleuca Pallas, Muscicapidae) were handraised in Latvia under various celestial and magnetic conditions. Tests were performed during
autumn migration in the local geomagnetic field (50 000 nT, 73° inclination) in the absence of celestial cues. A group of
birds that had never seen the sky showed a bimodal preference for the migratory southwest-northeast axis, whereas a second
group that had been exposed to the natural sky from sunrise to sunset in the local geomagnetic field showed a unimodal preference
for the seasonally appropriate southwesterly direction. A third group that had also been exposed to the daytime sky, but in
the absence of magnetic compass information, also oriented bimodally along a southwest-northeast axis. These findings demonstrate
that observing celestial rotation during daytime enables birds to choose the right end of the migratory axis for autumn migration
at the Latvian test location. This transformation of axial behavior into appropriate migratory orientation, however, requires
the birds to have simultaneous access to information on both celestial rotation and the geomagnetic field.
Received: 19 September 1997 / Accepted after revision: 22 November 1997 相似文献
Understanding how cities can transform organic waste into a valuable resource is critical to urban sustainability. The capture and recycling of phosphorus (P), and other essential nutrients, from human excreta is particularly important as an alternative organic fertilizer source for agriculture. However, the complex set of socio-environmental factors influencing urban human excreta management is not yet sufficiently integrated into sustainable P research. Here, we synthesize information about the pathways P can take through urban sanitation systems along with barriers and facilitators to P recycling across cities. We examine five case study cities by using a sanitation chains approach: Accra, Ghana; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Beijing, China; Baltimore, USA; and London, England. Our cross-city comparison shows that London and Baltimore recycle a larger percentage of P from human excreta back to agricultural lands than other cities, and that there is a large diversity in socio-environmental factors that affect the patterns of recycling observed across cities. Our research highlights conditions that may be “necessary but not sufficient” for P recycling, including access to capital resources. Path dependencies of large sanitation infrastructure investments in the Global North contrast with rapidly urbanizing cities in the Global South, which present opportunities for alternative sanitation development pathways. Understanding such city-specific social and environmental barriers to P recycling options could help address multiple interacting societal objectives related to sanitation and provide options for satisfying global agricultural nutrient demand.
In this study, balanites Aegyptiaca (L.) Del biodiesel was blended in proportions of 10% and 20% on the volume basis with diesel fuel and tested in a single cylinder, VCR diesel engine under measured load conditions with varied EGR rates (0, 10 and 20%). The results showed that B10 and B20 blends shown a significant reduction rate in terms of NOx emissions that were familiar with biodiesel blends. At peak load conditions, BTE increased slightly for test fuel blends compared with pure diesel fuel while the BSFC rate and EGT suffered from increasing and decreasing nature with respect to blending percentage. From the emissions point of view, with the increase in blends percentage, a significant reduction rate is observed in terms of CO and HC concentrations (up to 12.34 and 17.5%, respectively) while NOx emissions decreased at peak load conditions (up to 24.34%). HC and CO emissions decreased with increase in blends percentage. However, lower levels of NOx and EGT (up to 21.37 and 8.47%, respectively) and the average increase in terms of BTE and BSFC (up to 2.83 and 2.9%, respectively) can be realised with B20 test fuel blend under 20% EGR rate. 相似文献