Feeding Behaviour

Question 1

What did Tinbergen observe in songbird feeding behaviour?

Answer 1

When a new type of caterpillar appeared in a woodland the songbirds rarely brought it to their nests

When a few had been located the birds collected them at a greater rate

Birds formed a search image for the caterpillars

Question 2

When is blue jay search image better?

Answer 2

When they were only presented with one species of moth and not both

Question 3

How do skunks find food?

Answer 3

Nocturnal so has to rely on olfaction

Food was found at greater distances as they gained experience

Question 4

What are the different types of foraging in lizards? What is the evolutionary history

Answer 4

Vision/ambush

Olfaction/searching

Ancestral form was an ambush predator

Diverged into a searching predator 4 times and is now shown in 8 groups

The other 8 group shown ancestral ambush form

Question 5

What are the types of social foraging?

Answer 5

Social insects:

• groups composed of related individuals
• cooperation is favoured by kin selection
• delibrate communication with nestmates e.g. waggle dancing

Other group living animals:

• groups normally composed of mostly unrelated individuals
• cooperation is not favoured by kin selection
• incidental communication with conspecifics e.g. observing location of successful foragers

Question 6

What is the waggle dance?

Answer 6

Round dance means food is < 50m

Figure of eight dance means food is > 50m

Duration of the waggle dance correlates how far the food source is from the hive

Question 7

Describe Karl von Frisch experiment

Answer 7

Trained scout bees to feed at feeder F

He then put out feeders of equal attractiveness at all 7 stations and counted the recruits

More arived at the advertised location F than the other locations

Question 8

Do all bees waggle dance?

Answer 8

No, only foragers that find better quality flowers will dance

Question 9

How do ospreys show social foraging?

Answer 9

Ospreys form loose nesting colonies

Shoaling fish are a good prey item

When no osprey returns with prey, all osprey fly out randomly

When an osprey returns with shoaling fish, all other osprey fly out in the direction they have come from

Informed birds find fish faster than naive birds