Animal Behavior (Biology) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Animal Behavior (Biology) - Essay Example sneaking behaviors are relevant due to the fact since females are the restraining sex, and females invest more in offspring than males, males tend to be competing for females. (Roche 2006) This proves to be a significant evolutionary requirement and is especially t evolutionary requirement and is especially relevant when taking evolution and sneaking behaviors into account. Given the evolutionary requirements and the success of sneaking behavior in the context of reproducing and the ability to do so it becomes obvious why the Haplochromis burtonii who succeed at this mating form of natural selection will prevail and evolve. In order for evolution to succeed natural selection is first required to be a success. My hypothesis as to why the sneaking strategy is favored in certain circumstances is that it succeeds evolutionary because f a disparity in the population of females. If the population of males is more than can be supported by the population in order to survive they can do so by being a sneaker. This is beneficial to the sneaker male because by impersonating a female he is able to a nest in a manner that does not require fighting and his chances of injury is reduced or eliminated. I also think that inclusive fitness may be beneficial to the survival and imminent evolution of the male. ... This premise means that as a minimum a number of this variation must be heritable. By that it is meant that a genetic basis of behavior must be present. This is because a basis for both successful natural selection and evolution behavior must affect the ability of an animal to survive and reproduce. By making reference to inclusive fitness it is meant that the male may have a better chance to reproduce if favored by the females in this respect. However it is important to observe altruism is not a high priority behavior within Haplochromis burtonii populations. However it can exist in regard to inclusive fitness behaviors and by practicing sneaking behavior the sneaker male has a better chance of benefiting from inclusive fitness from the females. Roche explains that "Inclusive fitness can be estimated using a coefficient of relatedness, which estimates the chances that two related individuals both have a given allele (alternately: the proportion of genes that are identical in two individuals because of relatedness)." (2006) I hypothesize that by participating in sneaker behavior the Haplochromis burtonii literally doubles chances of either reproducing or surviving until they are able to do so. 1) c) How could you test this empirically What predictions do you make if the hypothesis is true To test this hypothesis empirically would prove to be a challenge. The reason for that is the challenge of tracking the specific Haplochromis burtonii would be difficult and specific subjects would be impossible to distinguish during many parts of the observation. There is no way to mark the subjects. However the behavior of the Haplochromis burtonii can be observed. It is during the course of these observations that