Differential Reproductive Success of Brown-Headed Cowbirds with Northern Cardinals and Three Other Hosts

The Condor ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 98 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Scott ◽  
Robert E. Lemon
1991 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Steidl ◽  
Curtice R. Griffin ◽  
Lawrence J. Niles

2019 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-119
Author(s):  
Jay Y. S. Hodgson

Students often have difficulty understanding the underpinning mechanisms of natural selection because they lack the means to directly test hypotheses within the classroom. Computer simulations are ideal platforms to allow students to manipulate variables and observe evolutionary outcomes; however, many available models solve the scenario for the users without revealing the evolutionarily significant calculations. I developed a simplified bioenergetics model of a hammerhead shark for teaching natural selection that allows the users to manipulate variables and see the impacts of modeling while solving for the evolutionary consequences. Students generate variation within the population by controlling cephalofoil widths and swimming speeds of an individual, which affect its ability to detect and capture prey at the expense of energy lost as drag from swimming. The trade-off between energy gained from successful predation and energy lost from metabolic expenditures dictates rates of reproduction. By manipulating a subset of factors that influence differential reproductive success, students gain an improved understanding of natural selection.


2015 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-324
Author(s):  
Jelena Čvorović ◽  
Kosta Nikolić

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 1413-1422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Balaresque ◽  
Nicolas Poulet ◽  
Sylvain Cussat-Blanc ◽  
Patrice Gerard ◽  
Lluis Quintana-Murci ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias L. Kordsmeyer

According to evolutionary theory, human cognition and behaviour are based on adaptations selected for their contribution to reproduction in the past, which in the present may result in differential reproductive success and inclusive fitness. Because this depiction is broad and human behaviour often separated from this ultimate outcome (e.g. increasing childlessness), evolutionary theory can only incompletely account for human everyday behaviour. Moreover, effects of most studied traits and characteristics on mating and reproductive success turned out not to be robust. In this article, an abstract descriptive level for evaluating human characteristics, behaviour, and outcomes is proposed, as a predictor of long-term reproductive success and fitness. Characteristics, behaviour, and outcomes are assessed in terms of attained and maintained capital, defined by more concrete (e.g. mating success, personality traits) and abstract (e.g. influence, received attention) facets, thus extending constructs like embodied capital and the social capital theory, which focusses on resources embedded in social relationships. Situations are framed as opportunities to gain capital, and situational factors function as elicitors for gaining and evaluating capital. Combined capital facets should more robustly predict reproductive success and (theoretically) fitness than individual fitness predictors. Different ways of defining and testing these associations are outlined, including a method for empirically examining the psychometric utility of introducing a capital concept. Further theorising and empirical research should more precisely define capital and its facets, and test associations with (correlates of) reproductive success and fitness.


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