LIFESCI 3C03 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Melanin, Group Selection, Melanocortin 1 Receptor
10 Jan 2017
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Ultimate explanations: explain why and how the individual evolved a behaviour: function: adaptive advantage, why the behaviour provides an adaptive benefit (ultimate, phylogeny: evolutionary history of the behaviour in the species (ultimate) There must be behavioural alternatives in the population. The differences must be heritable (or some proportion) Some behavioural alternatives must confer greater reproductive success. Gene differences can bring about differences in behaviour. Rovers: wander in search of food (heterozygous in foraging gene), better at short-term memory of olfactory cues, do best under patchy food and high larval densities. Sitters: remain in one small area to feed (homozygous for sitter allele in foraging gene), better at long-term memory of olfactory cues, do best when food is uniformly distributed and larval density is low. In the absence of food, rovers and sitters do not differ in general activity. Mcr1: melanocortin-1 receptor, expressed in melanocytes that produce melanin.
