Ecology and the environment | academiascholars.com

QUESTION

ecology and the environment

Answer the following questions based on the reading provided:

1) What categories did Sunyer et al. (2013) use to classify “acorn use” and “mice behavior”? Broadly, what were the tools Sunyer et al. used to track these uses and behaviors? (2 pts)

2) What was the role that scent played in influencing mice behavior (i.e. the 4 behavior categories)? How did Sunyer et al. (2013) determine this? (2 pts)

3) How would the role of genets change if live genets were used instead of their scent? What might happen to the population size of mice and their seed predation patterns? (2 pts)

4) In Sunyer et al. (2013), compare and contrast the observed effects of conspecific and predator scents on mice acorn predation and dispersal. (2pts)

5) In the Hughes et al. (2014) paper, what was the observed difference between acoustic and chemical cues? What environmental conditions might affect the chemical cues? (2 pts)

6) In Hughes et al. (2014), what explanation do the authors give for the black drum and catfish acoustic cues having a greater effect on crab foraging behavior than the toadfish or snapping shrimp? (2 pts)

7) What physiological mechanisms within crabs allowed them to detect acoustic cues from marine fish? (1 pt)

8) What are non-consumptive effects? From your reading of Sunyer et al. (2014) and Hughes et al. (2014), what aspects of prey can we measure to understand if non-consumptive effects are influencing prey populations? What would we need to measure to understand consumptive effects? (3 pts)

9) Define “cascading effects” and explain an example of these effects from either Sunyer et al. (2013) or Hughes et al. (2014). (2pts)

10) Write out the citation for both journal articles using Journal of Ecology formatting. (2 pts)

Subject	Environmental Science	Pages	3	Style	APA

Answer

- Ecology and the Environment
  1. The categories to classify “acorn use” and “mice behavior” were ‘handling’ and ‘vigilance’ respectively. The video camera was used to record and analyze the behavior of mice and authors used tagged acorns to assess the patterns of acorn predation and dispersal
  2 Sniffing, ‘vigilance and freezing, handling, and other
  1. They would not influence the movement of the rodents. While the population of the mice would remain the same, the spread patterns of the seed would be affected while their population would be high at specific places.
  2. Wood mice use chemosensory cues to assess the presence of predators and conspecific competitors
  3. Water-borne chemical cues from predators are highly influenced by hydrodynamic conditions such as velocity and turbulence, particularly in structured habitats such as oyster reefs.
  4. Black drum and catfish have high sense of hearing hence high ability to sense the predators more than toadfish or snapping shrimp
  5. Hearing ability/ sense of hearing.
  6. Non-consumptive effects refer to behavioral changes in prey to reduce the risk of predation. One aspect we can measure to understand if non-consumptive effects are influencing prey populations is the behavior of the prey such as their movements. We need to check prey population size to measure to understand consumptive effects
  7. A cascade effect is an inevitable and sometimes unforeseen chain of events due to an act affecting a system. An example according to Hughes et al. (2014) is fish vocalizations that create non-consumptive effects in their crab prey.
  8. Sunyer, P., A. Muñoz, R. Bonal, and J. M. Espelta. 2013. The ecology of seed dispersal by small rodents: a role for predator and conspecific scents. Functional Ecology 27:1313–1321.
  Hughes, A. R., D. A. Mann, and D. L. Kimbro. 2014. Predatory fish sounds can alter crab foraging behaviour and influence bivalve abundance. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281:20140715.