Guest Lecture 1: Dr. Paul Martin (Slides on OnQ)

  • Trade-offs
  • Factor for diversity in an environment
  • Allows for species diversity
  • Division of energy and resources
  • Trade-off allows fitness advantages in one function, but will decrease function in another
  • Cannot have both
  • Allocative trade-off
  • Involved in allocation of resource for offspring for females
  • Fewer large young vs many small young

There are 4 to consider:

  1. Widespread trade-off
  2. Consideration of resource availability
  3. Growth, survival, and reproduction
  4. Difference in body sizes
  5. Factors of surface area and volume ratio
  6. Larger animals require more resources
  7. Larger size allows for behavioural dominance
  8. Smaller animals require less resource
  9. Greater rate of generation
  10. Faster spread of genotype/ phenotypes
  11. Looked at Desert Gerbils (possible quiz question)
  12. Are nocturnal seed feeders
  13. Decrease seed abundance at night
  14. Why does the graph show gerbil differences (dominant vs non-dominant)?
  15. Dominant one is more aggressive, results in the non-dominant to forage later throughout the night
  16. Ecological defence widespread
  17. Guard and defence vs death
  18. Looked at plant resistance to bacteria and viral competition
  19. Cost in resources
  20. Bacteria, alter receptors and results in virus defence
  21. Uptake of nutrients decrease because of receptors reduced
  22. Abiotic challenges
  23. Extreme conditions (pH, temperature, salinity, etc)
  24. Diversity and trade-offs in allocation or function
  25. Looked at serpentine soil
  26. Low Ca2+: Mg2+ and is toxic
  27. most plants cannot live/ thrive off this soil
  28. Mg2+ is used for photosynthesis in plants
  29. Some can live on it – compromises resources and development
  30. Low temperature (<5oC)
  31. Enzymes change for adaptation
  32. Binding sites change, allows for stability changes, increase temperature ranges, decreases specificity
  33. Decrease efficiency and function
  34. Trade-off and coevolution
  35. Example of hummingbirds
  36. Specific humming bird and flower have both developed morphological traits to deal with one another
  37. Flower has grown to longer lengths (trade-off) in development
  38. Hummingbird has grown a very long mouth (trade-off) in development
  39. Hummingbirds use there mouths to clean/ groom, but this one uses its legs because the mouth is too long
  40. Is the Red Queen Hypothesis in play (in terms of back and forth competition)?
  41. Constraints of divergent evolution
  42. Geo-isolation – decrease in gene flow, promotes divergence
  43. Character displacement
  44. Species (2+) will exploit environment
  45. Trade-off as an ecological framework
  46. Niches change – describes change in ecological strategies
  47. No one species can “do it all”
  48. Allows for coexistence

Guest lecture 2: Amanda Cicchino (M.Sc. candidate) and Haley L. Kenyon (Ph.D. candidate)

Amanda Cicchino

  • Selective pressure shaping intraspecific signal variation in the Spring Peeper
  • Song calls in Spring Peeper
  • What organisms produce acoustic signals ?
  • Many species
  • arthropods
  • Mammals
  • Invertebrates
  • Fish
  • Intraspecific – focus on how acoustics ties with reproduction
  • Hypothesis – What are the drivers involved in acoustic reproduction?
  • Morphological/ ecological adaption hypothesis
  • Sexual selection
  • Genetic drift
  • Heterogenous range - > East North America has a high abundance
  • Spring peeper songs are inherited
  • Birds songs are learned
  • Gathering in marshes that can exceed >1000 individuals and they all call at the same time
  • Use of phylogenetic trees
  • Allopatry divergence – genetic tree
  • Call tree (self-made)
  • Morphological adaptation hypothesis
  • Higher pitch: South > West > North
  • Correlation with peak frequency
  • Snout size and length
  • Indeterminate growth
  • Temporal attributes changes
  • Predict that calls will transmit best in their native-habitat
  • No evidence for associated adaptation
  • Native habitats have less degradation from her findings
  • Studies on genetic drift and sexual selection are on going
  • Genetic drift: Predicts a strong, positive correlation between genetic drift and adaptive variation
  • Sexual selection: predicts exaggerated call difference in 2ndary contact zone
  • Reproduction character displacement
  • Females in this frog species are hard to find
  • Why:
  • Females only stay for a fixed amount of time
  • Will spend a maximum of 1 night in the marsh
  • Predation risk is calculated
  • Males stay for prolonged periods
  • Are found in great abundance, like a Lek
  • Will all sing together

Haley L. Kenyon

  • Signal divergence and species coexistence
  • What factors allow closely related species to live together?
  • Signalling traits -> ecological change and disproportional isolation
  • Allopatry vs sympatry
  • What selection pressures drive this divergence?
  • Selection against hybridization
  • Selection against intraspecific aggression
  • Selection against ecological similarities
  • Everything are drivers
  • Example of Chickadee at QUBS
  • Colour patterns)
  • Allopatric
  • Black capped chickadee and Mexican chickadee
  • Sympatric
  • Black capped chickadee and mountain chickadee
  • Hypothesis: Colour pattern divergence in similar function
  • Video showed that black capped chickadee attacked only models of black capped chickadee
  • Suggest intraspecific is not a driving force