Behaviour BFI

For each type of signal, describe one advantage, one disadvantage, and an example of a situation where that signal would be

Visual

Advantage: Can see detail in depth

Disadvantage: Relying too much on vision can make your other signal weak.

Situation: Mating dance

Auditory

Advantage: Can be used to communicate at night, when it is too dark to see

Disadvantage: Could be overheard by a predator, revealing the sender's location

Situation: Groups of frogs use calls to find mates

Olfactory

Advantages: Can be used when the animal can't hear or see anything

Disadvantages: It may be deceiving

Situation: Hunting

Tactile

Advantages: Can be used in unusual situations, such as the dark.

Disadvantages: Misinterpret the seriousness of a situation, can confuse touch with something else

Visual: A mother lion licking her cubs

Watch the video and write down as many communication behaviors as you can identify (minimum of three) and the signals and senses involved. (Be as specific as you can.) (elephant)

Sound

Tactile

Auditory

Sound: the big elephant makes a quiet noise, and the other two elephants come near it

Tactile: as soon as the big elephant felt the other two elephants touching it, it moved away and protected its food

Auditory: the big elephant repeatedly makes the same sound when the second elephant comes near it, may be protecting its child- trunks touched multiple times

describe the Sniff forward by signals and sense involved

signal: Medium sized elephant sniffed towards the big elephant

Sense involved: olfactory

describe the social rub behaviour by signals and sense involved

Signal: Smaller elephant rubbed against the bigger one

Sense involved: tactile

describe the solicit food behaviour by signals and sense involved

Signal: Medium sized elephant tried to take food from the big one

Senses involved: visual

describe the food sharing behaviour by signals and sense involved

signal: The three elephants

Senses involved: visual

describe the gruble rumble behaviour by signals and sense involved

signal: The big elephant grumbles

Senses involed: auditory

describe the tusking behaviour by signals and sense involved

signal: smaller elephant goes toward the big elephant

senses involved: tactile

describe the redirecting aggression behaviour by signals and sense involved

signal: redirected aggression toward the small and big elephant

senses involved: tactile, visual

describe the forward trunk swing behaviour by signals and sense involved

signal: big elephant swings its trunk toward the medium elephant

senses involved: tactile

describe the back kick behaviour by signals and sense involved

signal: big elephant kicks back towards the small elephant

senses involved: tactile

describe the head swing behaviour by signals and sense involved

signal: big elephant swings its head towards the small elephant

Senses involved: tactile

Keeping in mind that signals and senses have evolved by natural selection, write down your ideas about what advantages and disadvantages communicating with sound may have over communicating with the other senses.

Advantages: Sound is effective in sending out signals throughout a fairly long distance and for reaching multiple organisms. It is fast and can be altered in a variety of ways to send out different messages that can produce different responses and it can also alert other companions

Disadvantages: Sound can be hard to hear when the distance is very long. Can be misinterpreted and can be loud enough for their predator to hear.

Describe the advantages of using low-frequency sounds for communication. What aspect of an elephant's life makes it important to use low-frequency sounds?

Some advantages of using low frequency include

1. They do not "alternate with distance" meaning they can travel much farther than sounds with lower frequencies.

2. They can pass through objects without being reflected.

3. Can also travel huge distances and the low frequencies allows them to communicate the location of preys and predators to their companions.

What was the question that the scientist was exploring?

The scientists wanted to know if elephants can detect other elephant calls.

Describe how the elephants responded to the alarm call played back in the air.

The elephants left the watering hole immediately

Describe how the elephants responded to the alarm call played back by the shaker

The elephants froze, huddled together then left the area (not as immediately as the above ground sound

What could account for the difference in the elephants' responses?

It was stated to be low frequency sound move slower but can reach a farther distance than high frequency sounds. This would mean that its more likely that the lower the frequency of the sound, the closer the predator is. This gives elephants to feel and sense of danger.

Page 6: Detecting Ground Vibrations Through the Bones; Page 7: Bone Conduction

10. Describe another example of "hearing" by bone conduction. It could include your personal experience.

Certain hearing aids enhances the idea of bone conduction to help different types of hearing loss because it depends on what parts of the ear is damaged.

11. Write down your ideas for how the ability to communicate using low-frequency sounds may provide an adaptive advantage for survival and reproduction to elephants.

Avoiding predation Finding each other or mates or babies Communicating over long distances

12. What do you think the cardinal is trying to communicate with its song?

The first sound was light and pretty, and it sounds like something you would hear in a early sunny morning. I think that is their general calling or signal to each other. The second call sounds like there is danger around. Third call sounds like a mating call.

How do the hearing ranges of birds compare to those of bats, elephants, and humans? What does this tell you about the evolution of the communication systems of birds and humans compared to those of bats and elephants?

The hearing range of birds is in the middle of bats and elephants, and it is very close to humans. Bats hear more at high frequencies and elephants at low therefore they are likely not very closely related. Humans and birds are more closely related because their hearing ranges overlap.

How many individuals did you misclassify?

2 songs according to one of my groupmates.

How difficult was sorting by song alone (Page 5) compared to sorting by song with a spectrogram (Page 6)? What does this tell you about human perception of birdsong?

Most found the sonogram easier to interpret, generally humasn are unable to detect the minuet differences in bird song

Write down your ideas for how species-specific songs might provide an adaptive advantage in survival and reproduce

Having different for different species ensures that birds from one species are not attracted to the song of another species, so they don't mate, keeping their species 'pure'. It also enables communication within the species if there are a number of different species in an area.

How many calls did the bats make?

23

Some bat calls appear fainter in the spectrogram, and others appear brighter. What does this signify?

Fainter lines might indicate quieter calls while brighter louder and higher frequencies, it also could indicate different messages

Estimate the frequency range (from low to high) of the most powerful portion of the bat call.

Bats' frequency range is between 15,000 Hz - 90,000 Hz.

What is the advantage of higher frequencies compared to lower frequencies for echolocation? Page 6: Bats and Moths Are in an Evolutionary Arms Race

Higher frequencies have shorter wavelengths than lower frequencies, so they may "bounce" off smaller objects, which helps echolocation.

What are two ways described in the video that moths use to avoid predation?

1. Moths have ears that detect the ultrasound of bats.

2. Moths send an ultrasound signal back to the bat to signal that they sense a bat (saying either I am not here or I taste bad)

What did the scientist conclude from the tethered moth experiments (tethering moths that do and do not make sound, then letting bats hunt them)?

They concluded that moths who produce sound has a higher chance of survival whereas those who don't has a lesser chance because they cannot jam or block the bats echolocation.

By observing the bats' hunting behavior, what did the scientist conclude about the strategy the soundmaking moth was using? Why?

The scientist concluded that the moths send a signal that they taste bad. The bat would sweep in to get the moth then back off at the last minute.

Write down your ideas on how ultrasound provides an advantage to bats and moths in their particular habitat.

Ultrasound enables bats to sense their surroundings in the dark and find prey. Both bats and moths send signals that identify if the moth should be preyed upon or not, and bats can sense this signal to ensure that they do not consume a moth that may harm them