title
stringlengths 7
100
| text
stringlengths 1
16k
|
|---|---|
Information Exchange | And so I'll talk about
courtship behavior in sage-grouse and how that's been learned over years and how that's
been passed down from organism to organism. |
Information Exchange | And then finally I'm going to talk about how
cooperation, not only competition, but cooperation is also important in flocking behavior and
how that maybe has arisen through natural selection through years and years and years. |
Information Exchange | And so let's start with signaling. |
Information Exchange | And so if you're a bee, you live in a colony and
you have to go gather nectar. |
Information Exchange | And so you gather nectar from flowers. |
Information Exchange | And it's kind of a hit
or miss. |
Information Exchange | So once they get a hit, once they find some nectar, there's actually a chemical
switch in their brain and they associate the time of the day, location of the flower and
where it is. |
Information Exchange | Now if you're a bee, when you fly back to the hive, you now have to send
that information to other bees so they can find it. |
Information Exchange | Because a colony is going to work
more effectively if all the bees are able to quickly identify where the flower is and
move it. |
Information Exchange | In ants they'll leave a chemical message. |
Information Exchange | But in a bee they've got to fly there. |
Information Exchange | So you can't leave chemicals to find that. |
Information Exchange | And so what's the information that they have
to send? |
Information Exchange | Well they have to send where it is. |
Information Exchange | In other words what's the angle to the flower. |
Information Exchange | And they use the sun. |
Information Exchange | The position of the sun tells them the time of the day. |
Information Exchange | But the
angle with the sun tells them where the flowers are found. |
Information Exchange | And then the other thing they have
to tell them is the distance. |
Information Exchange | And so they've evolved a really cool way to signal other
bees. |
Information Exchange | It's called the waggle dance. |
Information Exchange | And so if you look at a colony of bees it seems chaotic. |
Information Exchange | But the more you look at it you'll start to see that certain bees are doing this waggle
dance. |
Information Exchange | And so what they'll do is they'll waggle their body back and forth. |
Information Exchange | And then they'll
move in a figure 8. |
Information Exchange | And then they'll waggle their body back and forth. |
Information Exchange | And then they'll
move in a figure 8 like that. |
Information Exchange | Now all the other bees are just gathered around and they're
watching this dance. |
Information Exchange | Because that dance tells them two things. |
Information Exchange | First of all if you were
to draw that angle right here through that dance it actually is the same angle that we
have in relation to the sun to the flower. |
Information Exchange | And so the angle at which they dance tells
them the angle to the flower. |
Information Exchange | And then how do they say the distance to the flower? |
Information Exchange | Well
it's the number of waggles tell them in bee distance how far it is to that flower. |
Information Exchange | So
that's a crazy kind of a way to signal other bees. |
Information Exchange | And so if you're a scientist how does
that occur? |
Information Exchange | Well as we look at other, not bees, but as we look at other insects as they
return they're also doing some kind of a primordial dance. |
Information Exchange | And that dance is giving a small bit
of information but it's highly evolved in bees because they live such a social life. |
Information Exchange | Okay. |
Information Exchange | What about behavior and how that affects other organisms? |
Information Exchange | Well one that I'm familiar
with here in Montana are wolves of Yellowstone Park. |
Information Exchange | And so once they reintroduce the wolves
in Yellowstone Park they quickly establish territories. |
Information Exchange | And they're fiercely territorial. |
Information Exchange | Most people don't know this about wolves. |
Information Exchange | If another wolf enters into their territory
all the wolves will kill it. |
Information Exchange | And occasionally that's manifested by the wolves going into
a town and killing all the dogs in that town. |
Information Exchange | Because they're fiercely territorial. |
Information Exchange | And
they'll team up on them. |
Information Exchange | Here's a group of wolves that are just moving and they're surveying
their territory. |
Information Exchange | Now how do they signal other wolves, hey keep out? |
Information Exchange | They do that through
howling is one way. |
Information Exchange | And so they howl to let other wolves know where they are. |
Information Exchange | But if you
look at these, this is after they were introduced in 2002, these are all the different wolf
packs in Yellowstone Park. |
Information Exchange | And they have really clear lines of territory. |
Information Exchange | And so how do they
make sure that other wolves don't come into their territory? |
Information Exchange | Well they use a signal as
well. |
Information Exchange | In this case they will urinate on trees. |
Information Exchange | And that's territorial marking. |
Information Exchange | So what does
that urine leave? |
Information Exchange | And we see that manifested in our dogs. |
Information Exchange | What does it leave? |
Information Exchange | It's a chemical
message. |
Information Exchange | It's not only saying hey stay out. |
Information Exchange | It's saying this is the wolf I am. |
Information Exchange | This is
the pack I am. |
Information Exchange | So it's sending a lot of chemical information to other wolves. |
Information Exchange | Grizzly bears
will do the same thing. |
Information Exchange | They'll scratch really high on a tree and other bears can see that
and they know to keep out. |
Information Exchange | And so that's a great way to signal other organisms of your
intent. |
Information Exchange | Next learn behavior. |
Information Exchange | So how do we get this learn behavior? |
Information Exchange | And more importantly,
that's why I put Charles Darwin here. |
Information Exchange | How does this evolve over time? |
Information Exchange | So this is another
organism that you can watch here in Montana. |
Information Exchange | It's called the sage-grouse. |
Information Exchange | This would be
a male sage-grouse over here. |
Information Exchange | And then this is a female sage-grouse over here. |
Information Exchange | The males
will have these pouches that they'll puff up in the front and they make this really
cool kind of a noise. |
Information Exchange | And they actually have a really cool courtship where they'll develop
what's called a lek. |
Information Exchange | And so a lek is going to be an area where the males will just hang
out. |
Information Exchange | And I've seen this in Montana. |
Information Exchange | It's really cool to watch. |
Information Exchange | The males aren't interested
in humans. |
Information Exchange | They're just interested in mating. |
Information Exchange | And so what happens is that male, the alpha
male of the sage-grouse will defend this lek. |
Information Exchange | You'll have some beta males and then some
gammas around the outside. |
Information Exchange | But only the alpha and the beta males are able to mate. |
Information Exchange | And so
the females will actually find this lek. |
Information Exchange | They'll mate with the alpha and then they'll leave
on their way to lay their eggs. |
Information Exchange | And so this courtship behavior in birds is very important
because you want to make sure that you're only mating with an organism that's very close
to you. |
Information Exchange | And so there's a really, there's this ritualistic way that they mate. |
Information Exchange | In other words
a male, a typical bird may have to be the right color. |
Information Exchange | It may sing the right song. |
Information Exchange | It
has to dip its head three times. |
Information Exchange | And the female has to spin around. |
Information Exchange | They have these really
delicate ways of courting. |
Information Exchange | And the reason why is that if you get the courtship wrong
then you have gotten eaten over time. |
Information Exchange | And so by that selective pressure we have these
really elegant courtship mechanisms. |
Information Exchange | The lek is just kind of an exaggerated version of
that in birds. |
Information Exchange | Flocking is another example of that. |
Information Exchange | These are the red-billed qualia of
Africa and they'll form these beautiful flocks. |