INSECTS WITH PARENTAL INSTINCTS
More than two centuries ago, a Swedish scientist named Modeer described what appeared to be maternal behavior in the acanthosomatid shield bug Elasmucha grisea. He noted that the female did not fly away when an intruding object threatened her compact egg mass; instead, she remained steadfast and tilted her body towards the object (Tallamy). Unfortunately, this evidence, no matter how well documented, was not enough to convince countless people of the possibility of insects having parental instincts. The acknowledgement of parental behavior in insects was not a widely accepted idea for a number of years. Many people believed insects were too primitive to care for their young and that only when physical conditions became extremely severe were insects capable of expressing paternal abilities. The traditional view of maternal care is that it is an exceptional and relatively recent evolutionary leap forward (Tallamy).
Fortunately, the assumptions made about maternal care in insects do not have to be accepted or rejected based only on faith or an educated guess; today it is possible for these predictions to be empirically tested so that the data may be recorded and analyzed. The following experiment is just one example of the various ways in which ideas regarding insects and maternal care may be effectively evaluated.
Reginald B. Cocroft, of the Neurobiology and Behavior Department at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, researched insects known as Umbonia crassicornis, or the thornbug treehopper. U. crassicornis offspring thrive in large aggregations on the often exposed stems of host-plants. These offspring are incredibly vulnerable, making them easy targets and subject to intense predatio...
... middle of paper ...
...ymphs unequally. The mother distributed her protection equally throughout the entire aggregation along the length of the branch.
Main Points:
Location in relation to the mother is possibly competitive
Location independent of the mother is possibly competitive, but only exploitation competition
Signaling is not competitive for maternal care, it is cooperative and the mother distributes protection along the aggregation equally.
WORKS CITED
Cocroft, Reginald B. 2002. Antipredator Defense as a Limited Resourse: Unequal Predation Risk and Broods of an Insect With Maternal Care. Behavioral Ecology, 13, 1, 125-133.
Tallamy, D. W. and C. Schaefer. 1997. Maternal behavior in the Hemiptera: Ancestry, Alternatives, and Current Adaptive Value. pp. 94-115, In B. Crespi and J. Choe (eds.). Social Behavior in Insects and Arachnids. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
The sowbugs remained in the damp soil for 34 minutes, and the dry soil for a short 6 minutes (Table 1). The sowbugs remained in the damp soil 85% of the time, as opposed to 15% on the dry soil (Table 1). These results suggest that moisture was a causative agent in environment preference for the sowbugs (Table 1).
To conduct the experiment, the beetles were massed, then attached to a petri dish with a 30 centimeter piece of dental floss. The beetle’s mass was the independent variable. Afterwards, the floss was tied to the beetle’s midsection with a slip knot. Then, the beetle was placed on a piece of fabric with the petri dish attached to it. As soon as the beetle was able to move with one paperclip inside the petri dish, more were added, one by one, until it could not move any further. After the beetle could not pull any more, the paperclips were massed and the results were recorded. The dependent variable was the mass that the beetles could pull. No control group was included in this experiment.
Intro: Charles Darwin’s natural selection comes to mind when viewing the aggressive behaviors in crickets. This interaction comes into play specifically when competition for resources, such as foods and females, are scarce. Thus, only the organism most fit in the environment would be allowed to survive and pass on its genes. Pioneers of animal behavior, pave the way to understanding the why animals act the way they act (von Frisch, 1967; Lorenz, 1952; and Tinbergen 1951). With further integration between different biological organizations, we see the rise of new possible research, especially in crickets (Wong & Hoffman, 2010). The house crickets, Acheta domesticus, would normally display little to no aggression between males because of their natural behavior to live in groups. But when isolated for a length of time, ag...
In the next essay, "On societies as organisms," Thomas points out that the writers of books on insect behavior go to great lengths to distinguish the uniqueness of insect life.
Broad, K.D, J.P Curley, and E.B Keverne. "Mother–infant Bonding and the Evolution of Mammalian Social Relationships." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Royal Society, 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
Cranshaw, Whitney. "Nuisance Wasps and Bees." Nuisance Wasps and Bees. Colorado State University, 08 Jan. 2014. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
Thomas, Pat. "Give Bees a Chance." Ecologist (London, England) Vol. 37, No. 5. June 2007: 30-35. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
L. humile is a very aggressive ant species. They will raid, immobilize and sometimes kill native ants (Zee and Holway 2006), even when unprovoked. This is a key component of L. humile’s ability to displace native ant species. A study by Zee and Holway monitored potential raiding behav...
Wofford, Sarah Jane. "Sex and Fighting: Male and Female Crayfish Utilize Different Assessment Strategies During Agonistic Behavior." MS thesis Graduate College of Bowling Green, 2013. Web.
1996). A study was done to examine the different parent-juvenile interactions of two different species of poeciliids: P. Monacha and P. Lucida. Individual females of the two species were place into chambers that had a mesh net to segregate it and allow juveniles to swim through and escape attack from the parent. The females were kept in these chambers as they birthed offspring and were recorded. It was found that the p. monacha females cannibalised their offspring immediately while the p. lucida females did not (Thibault 1974). The p. monacha juveniles that did escape the initial attack, swum to the bottom and through the mesh net. However, the juvenile p. lucida remained in the same section of the chamber with the female near the water
Evolutionary Psychology has been controversial since its rise in the 1990s, with critics and proponents debating its merits as a science. While critics (e.g. David Buller, Elizabeth Lloyd) have extensively criticized the fundamentals of Evolutionary Psychology, few philosophers or scientists have challenged them. Given the growing influence of the evolutionary behavioral sciences within mainstream science like Psychology and Anthropology, it is important analyze the critiques and see if the arguments against Evolutionary Psychology have merit. This paper will focus on two of the most often cited critiques of Evolutionary Psychology: the critique of the concept of the modular model of the mind and the critique of the two “signature achievements” in Evolutionary Psychology, Martin Daly and Margot Wilson’s Cinderella Effect and David Buss’s studies of male-female differences in jealousy. I will describe and respond these critiques of Evolutionary Psychology, making the case that these critiques are not valid and have little merit on scientific basis of Evolutionary Psychology.
The notion of difference among the sexes has been studied extensively in terms of cognition and brain activity. An MRI can back these claims, showing male and female brains 'lighting up' in different locations based upon different stimuli. Anyone with a close relationship to a child can attest to the fact that they were born with certain traits. Perhaps their nephew is very shy, while their niece has never met a stranger. In other words, some difference among individuals is innate, fundamental. This notion has been applied to studies in the animal world. Susan Allport, author of A Natural History of Parenting,, notes that "Males provide direct childcare in less than 5 percent of mammalian species, but in over 90 percent of bird species both male and female tend to their young." While researchers have focused on other species, they have been hesitant to apply this sort of lens to human families, largely because this sort of biological inherency does not directly align with the push for equality and equal rights that have been so important in recent history in the United States. Fundamentally, to state that biology creates difference in humans and that this sort of difference has the ability to manifest itself in divergent capabilities carries political and social risk for minority and oppressed groups.
Forensic entomology is the study of insects and arthropods and their relation to a criminal investigation. Forensic entomology can determine the postmortem interval (PMI) or how long since the descendants’ death, whether the body has been moved since expiring, and what injuries may have been sustained (Ryan, 2011). When decomposition begins, insects establish a colony to lay eggs on the remains; these eggs will hatch into larvae that will eat the human organs and tissues. Forensic entomologists can determine the specific insects present in the body and estimate how long a body has been left exposed by examining the stage of development of the fly larvae; however, these findings are not always plausible. The fly larvae look and act different at each stage of development. The time required for stage development is not only affected by environmental influences such as geographical location, climate, and weather conditions, but also by type of insect. The forensic entomologist must consider these conditions when estimating the postmortem interval. Knowledge of insects, their life cycles, and their habits make entomological evidence a priceless tool for an investigation. Forensic entomology has proved its significance in a number of cases; though circumstances such as weather, temperature, and time of year clearly affect the development of insect infestation, and the expert must keep these in the forefront of his/her mind (Innes, 2000).
There are nearly one million species of insects known. Insects are defined by having six legs and a body divided into three segments: head, thorax, and abdomen. Chitin is an organic material that makes up an insects exoskeleton. There are three life cycles of insects, ametabolous or incomplete and paurometabolous or gradual, and homotabolous or complete metamorphosis. These life cycles are important in the aging of insects for aiding in legal investigations, (Houck and Siegel. Entomology).
Seventh, in some groups of insects, truly social behavior has evolved. Social behavior will allow a large population to survive through difficult periods via cooperation in food gathering, food storage, temperature control, and colony