VMartin
Posts: 525
Joined: Nov. 2006
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| Quote (deadman_932 @ Oct. 01 2007,17:44) | Those little works lead me to things like:
C. Barnett, M Bateson, and C Rowe. State-dependent decision making: educated predators strategically trade off the costs and benefits of consuming aposematic prey
Behav. Ecol., July 1, 2007; 18(4): 645 - 651. http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/4/645
and:
M. V. Trotter and H. G. Spencer. Frequency-Dependent Selection and the Maintenance of Genetic Variation: Exploring the Parameter Space of the Multiallelic Pairwise Interaction Model. Genetics, July 1, 2007; 176(3): 1729 - 1740.
commentary on early models of "Speedian" or "quasi-Batesian" mimicry:
Joron, M. ; Mallet, JLB.(1998) Diversity in mimicry: paradox or paradigm? Trends in Ecology & Evolution. Vol. 13, no. 11, 461 p. Nov 1998. http://zeldia.cap.ed.ac.uk/joron/joron98.pdf
A proposed mathematical model and a good overview of various theoretical models of aposematism:
Evol Puurtinen M,Kaitala V (2006) CONDITIONS FOR THE SPREAD OF CONSPICUOUS WARNING SIGNALS: A NUMERICAL MODEL WITH NOVEL INSIGHTS. Evolution 60(11): 2246 http://users.jyu.fi/~hemipu/2227_Puurtinen.pdf |
As I have already told to Jeannot - please pick up only one of those materials and put it here for discussion. It doesn't mean that giving links to ten materials in two consecutive posts you prove story of aposematism. You see I have also other interests as study all selectionists links you put here.
The last link is of no avail - armchair mathematical models are proving nothing. It is ridiculous to make armchair computation and charts how are wasps protected where there are bird predators specialised on wasps.
In the other link you have given is written these sentence:
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This result challenges classic theoretical models of the evolution of aposematism based purely on predator learning and forgetting rates and demonstrates the need to consider energy-toxin trade-offs in foraging decisions on defended prey.
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In other words it told us what we know more than 70 years. This "trade-off" is nothing more and nothing less than the fact if the foraging bird is hungry or not.
If it is hungry it will eat aposematics regardless of their poison.
The most important are experiments outdoors and from those are the most important studies of the content of stomachs of real birds.
These experiments was done by Biological Survey Division of United States Department of Agriculture. They wanted to estimate harmfulness of birds. These results are neglected by selectionists, because they show something selectionists do not like - wasp, bees are readily eaten by birds.
McAtee made statistics from these results and argue with Poulton about efecteveness of "warning coloration" of wasps, etc...
The same study was done in Hungary 1905-1910 by Csiki, who studied contents of stomachs of almost 2.800 birds. The result corresponds with those done in USA. Heikertinger quoted results in his book refuting selectionists explanation of mimicry.
Such studies are not done anymore, but instead we are facing the great number of indoor experiments and "mathematical models" proving aposematism.
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Professor Beal on the Food of our More Important Flycatchers...
Of this hymenoptera-- bees, wasps, etc. constitute more than a
third and as these insects are for the most part beneficial, this element must be weighed against the destruction of noxious species, which Prof. Beal considers more than balances it....
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Food.--The 186 stomachs of the tufted titmouse examined by Professor Beal (Beal, McAtee, and Kalmbach, 1916) were irregularly distributed throughout the year and were considered by him too few "to afford more than an approximation of the bird's economic worth." ...
The food consisted of 66.57 percent animal matter and 33.43 percent vegetable. He says that the food "includes one item, caterpillars, which form more than half the animal food, and two items, caterpillars and wasps, which are more than half of the whole food."
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This is reality, not armchair mathematical models.
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I could not answer, but should maintain my ground.-
Charles Darwin
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