BIOL 3062 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: African Buffalo

• School: Dalhousie University
• Department: Biology
• Course: BIOL 3062
• Professor: Andy Horn

Document Summary

Cues vs. signals: cues are traits are actions that benefit the receiver only, whereas the individual sending the cue is not aware or not actively sending the communication, ex. Mosquitoes sense co2 to find humans co2 acts as a cue for the mosquito, but is not a signal sent by the animal: cues are byproducts of other, non-signalling behaviour, ex. Hermit crabs conveying info: deter(cid:373)i(cid:374)e o(cid:374)e a(cid:374)other"s size to figure out (cid:449)ho gets the shell, size is a cue, ex. Signals too costly to fake: handicaps, e(cid:454). Wi(cid:373)p(cid:455) red deer (cid:272)a(cid:374)"t roar as ofte(cid:374) need to be physically fit to roar at a high rate as it"s e(cid:374)ergeti(cid:272)all(cid:455) (cid:272)ostl(cid:455) Signals in which faking is punished: status signals often used in systems with dominance hierarchies, ex. Roosters: crowing is not more energetically expensive there is not physical/energetic cost to crowing whether a dominant rooster or not. Instead, when dominant roosters hear subordinate roosters crow at high rates, they fight the subordinates.