This chapter discusses the notion of reproduction, dispersal, and migration as fundamental processes that enable living populations to grow and exploit new habitats. It explains that on the one hand dispersal is the undirected movement of an individual to a new place, while on the other hand, migration involves directed movement between specific places. The adaptive value of sex is the maintenance of genetic diversity, which increases adaptability to disease and other challenges. Meanwhile, nonsexual reproduction permits the same genetic type to increase rapidly in an open environment. The chapter also explains that genetic variation can be used to identify barriers to coastal zone dispersal.
Chapter
Reproduction, Dispersal, and Migration
Chapter
Large-scale navigation: Migration and homing
This chapter focuses on long-distance migrations of animals, introducing some key concepts of these phenomena. It discusses different modes of migration and briefly reviews previous experiments on the genetic control of migratory behavior. The chapter also explains homing, or the ability of an animal to specifically return to the place it considers home. Then it takes a closer look at the general methods used to study animal migration, including the use of tags, radar, and microtransmitters, and satellite-based radiotelemetry. Moreover, the chapter provides a detailed discussion of the behavioral, sensory, and neural mechanisms involved in orientation during migration and homing, using representatives of two particularly well-studied animal groups — birds and fish.
Book
Shawn E. Nordell and Thomas J. Valone
Animal Behavior uses broad organizing concepts to provide a
framework for understanding the science of animal behavior. Featured studies
illustrate each concept and emphasize the experimental designs and the hypothesis
testing methods scientists use to address research questions. Concepts are related
to real life to help with the understanding of the broader significance of animal
behavior research, including applications to human behavior and conservation. Topics
covered include behavioral genetics, sensory systems, communication, learning, and
cognition. There are also chapters on antipredator behavior, dispersal and
migration, habitat, mating, parental care, and sociality.
Chapter
Dispersal and Migration
This chapter considers the mechanisms and benefits of dispersal and migration
of animals. Dispersal is a relatively short-distance, one-way movement away
from a site to another location. The locations can differ from its
availability of resources and its breeding opportunities. Animals migrate in
response to environmental change. Proximate mechanisms involved with the
timing of migration are often linked to a series of internal factors such as
annual rhythms and associated physiological changes. The chapter also
provides a model of the evolution of migration. Orientation and navigation
are often issues migrating animals face. They mitigate these issues by using
environmental cues and compass systems.
Chapter
Turtles
This chapter notes the unique structure of turtles. The unique body form of turtles makes them immediately recognizable, but their anatomical rearrangements have obscured morphological characteristics which are used to determine evolutionary affinities among other vertebrates. The shells of different turtle species reveal their habitat and lifestyle of living in terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments. The chapter discusses the form, diversity, social behavior, reproduction, and migration of turtles. It then acknowledges how more than half of the extant species of turtles are facing extinction as they are not safe from humans even though they are relatively safe from natural predators.
Chapter
Geography and Ecology of the Cenozoic
This chapter explores the geography and ecology of the Cenozoic era. It cites how changes in continental positions have affected Earth's climates and the ability of vertebrates to disperse between its regions. By the late Mesozoic era, continental separation and epicontinental seas had isolated populations of terrestrial tetrapods and freshwater vertebrates, which limited possibilities for their migration between continents. While the best-known Cenozoic extinction took place at the end of the Pleistocene era, and this mainly affected only larger land animals. The chapter also considers debates on whether Pleistocene extinctions were mainly caused by climate changes or the spread of humans across the globe.
Chapter
Movement, Locomotion, and Migration
This chapter looks into the reasons for the movement, locomotion, and migration of individual organisms across the planet. Complex free-living organisms may respond to changes in their immediate surroundings by actively determining where to position themselves and for how long. Some organisms preferred other locations for breeding and feeding, and many undertake movements from one location to another on a seasonal basis for either reasons of protection, production, or resource availability. The chapter examines the concept of plant dispersal as part of the reproductive process. Meanwhile, animal movement depends on the active transfer of metabolically generated kinetic energy to the surface.
Book
Dustin R. Rubenstein
Animal Behavior opens with an introduction to the topic. The next chapter looks at the integrative study of behavior. The text also covers the development and genetic basis of animal behavior. Chapters also examine the neural basis of behavior, the physiological basis of behavior, avoiding predators, finding food, territoriality, migration, and communication. Towards the end, the text discusses reproductive behavior, mating, parental care, social evolution, and social behavior and sociality.
Chapter
Genomics and Anthropology: Human Evolution, Migration, and Domestication of Plants and Animals
This chapter acknowledges that genomics, archaeology, and languages merged to explain important transitions throughout human history. It considers the evidence for the origin of modern humans in Southern and Eastern Africa. It explicates how the sequencing of mitochondrial and nuclear genomes establishes links between modern humans and our early European relatives, which are known as Neanderthals and Denisovans. It explores how DNA sequencing informs the tracing of patterns of human migration. The chapter highlights the domestication of animals and plants as an experiment in directed genomes. It states the phenotypic qualities required for domestication and discusses the genome changes associated with animal domestication, using dogs, horses, rice, and corn as prime examples. It also mentions the genome effects that domestications have had on human civilization.
Chapter
Territoriality and Movement
This chapter covers the territoriality and movement of animals. It looks into the important decisions animals make concerning their respective survival and reproduction. The ideal free distribution theory predicts which habitat an animal should select in order to maximize its reproductive success, while a cost-benefit analysis determines the fitness trade-offs for establishing and maintaining a territory. The chapter examines the causes and consequences of territoriality, dispersal, and migration. It cites how studying migratory connectivity can help identify regions of conservation importance critical to a species' survival. Meanwhile, understanding behavioral variation allows scientists to help conserve species with declining populations.
Book
Shawn E. Nordell and Thomas J. Valone
Animal Behavior uses broad organizing concepts to provide a framework for understanding the science of animal behavior. Featured studies illustrate each concept and emphasize the experimental designs and the hypothesis testing methods scientists use to address research questions. Concepts are related to real life to help with the understanding of the broader significance of animal behavior research, including applications to human behavior and conservation. Topics covered include behavioral genetics, sensory systems, communication, learning, and cognition. There are also chapters on antipredator behavior, dispersal and migration, habitat, mating, parental care, and sociality.
Chapter
Dispersal and Migration
This chapter considers the mechanisms and benefits of dispersal and migration of animals. Dispersal is a relatively short-distance, one-way movement away from a site to another location. The locations can differ from its availability of resources and its breeding opportunities. Animals migrate in response to environmental change. Proximate mechanisms involved with the timing of migration are often linked to a series of internal factors such as annual rhythms and associated physiological changes. The chapter also provides a model of the evolution of migration. Orientation and navigation are often issues migrating animals face. They mitigate these issues by using environmental cues and compass systems.
Chapter
Potentials, interfaces, electrodes, and mass transport
This chapter looks into potentials, interfaces, electrodes, and mass transport. It presents dynamic and static categorization of electroanalytical methods. The chapter then explores the surface of an electrode. Following from this, the chapter explains the process behind electrode polarization and electrode potentials. It notes the consequences of differences in the concentrations of electrolytes in pairs of half-cells by referencing transference numbers and the transfer of ions across a phase boundary and liquid junction potentials. The chapter shows how indicator electrodes are commonplace in laboratories and make use of ion-selective membranes. The chapter notes the measure of the concentration of species in particular oxidation states. This is called potentiometry. The chapter also describes diffusion, convection, and shows that migration is the phenomena of mass transport at an electrode.
Chapter
Genetics of Populations
This chapter examines population genetics, which analyses the patterns of genetic variation shown by groups of individuals, i.e. by populations. This contrasts with the main concern of Mendelian genetics and, to a large extent, of quantitative genetics, as both focus on the genotype of individuals and the genotypes resulting from single mating. Population genetics explores the evolutionary processes that shape a population’s genetic variation, i.e. mating systems, migration, mutation, population size, and selective forces. The chapter then considers how the analysis of genetic diversity in populations of endangered species helps formulate conservation policies. Ultimately, the genetic variation within and between different populations is described in terms of frequencies of alleles and resulting genotypes. The chapter looks at the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, non-random mating, natural selection, and genetic drift.
Chapter
Spatial Ecology
This chapter highlights patterns of movement by amphibians and reptiles, including the use of limited home ranges for normal daily activities, territoriality, migration, and dispersal. This study of movement patterns and the associated use of habitats by animals comprises the field of spatial ecology. Animals move from one place to another for many reasons, but ultimately all movement is related to the acquisition of resources, including food and water, mates, basking or hibernation sites, nesting sites, and shelter—in short, anything required for survival and reproduction. Most animals move only when absolutely necessary, but species differ dramatically in how often and how far they move. Ultimately, patterns of movement affect, and are affected by, almost every other aspect of an animal’s biology, including its water and temperature relations, foraging ecology and energetics, mating system, responses to predators, and interactions with other species.
Chapter
Evolution: Processes and Change
This chapter explicates the process of evolution by natural selection. Through this process, just a few simple consequences of biology and natural laws have resulted in the vast diversity of life. The chapter emphasizes that all of the species that make up ecological communities arose through evolution, and ecological processes provide the context for that evolution. The chapter then presents some examples of the results of natural selection. It discusses the reasoning behind the conclusions concerning the shaping of the trait by natural selection. Natural selection is only one of the factors that cause evolutionary change. Other processes may act in concert with natural selection, or they may act against it, or they may act independently of it. It then outlines the four processes which can produce results that might at first be assumed to be the outcome of natural selection: mutation, migration, genetic drift, and nonrandom mating.
