Good genes new name for sexy sons???

Steve Gangestad was here at UT this week and gave about the same talk he gave last year at FAU. He also gave our seminar a new in-press paper at JPSP to read (about women's mate preference shifts across the menstrual cycle). He presented some of the data from that paper in his talk but basically these results show that women prefer men who are confrontative, arrogant, attractive (etc) when fertile and do not prefer men who are faithful, intelligent, kind (etc). Well...I started thinking about this...if women want these men when they are fertile, they are obviously attempting to produce offspring with these men. And these are traits that researchers have termed markers of "good genes". But they are only good genes for male offspring who can short-term mate. So how are is this theory different from sexy sons? I asked Gangestad what he thought and got a round-about answer. Then I asked him, "Well you certainly wouldn't want these traits in your daughters would you?" (particularly arrogance and confrontative personalities) and he said no. So I said "well then it seems like to me if you don't want these traits in daughters, these women are trying to get good STM genes for their male offspring, which seems like sexy sons to me." And he summed it up by saying more research is needed.

So I guess the point of all this is...what do you guys think? I'm certainly not denying the research that shows that women drastically shift their preferences when they are fertile, but I guess what I want to know is, are they choosing then to have male offspring who will be good at STM? And what then about their female offspring? (Or I guess I'm also asking...am I totally crazy and way off-base here? ha ha)

Entertainment for Evolutionists

So back when I had time to waste, as an undergrad, my roommates and I loved to play Sims--to play "god" with other people's lives. And now, apparently, we can all be god (or natural selection ;) in a video game, Spore, where you evolve from a single cell organism all the way to an interplanetary traveler. It sounds a little goofy, but kinda cool, because you have to use your "DNA points" (or reproductive success) to "mutate" and adjust your features to fit a particular environment. Anyway, just thought y'all might find it of interest. You can watch an entertaining little demo here, or catch the interview I caught here (click on "intelligent design"). It'll be a merry christmas for all the little evolutionists out there. ;)

Dawkins Dawkins everywhere!

So he was on the Colbert Report, he's on myspace, he's been on NPR...and now he's been mocked on South Park! I'm sure the episode will turn up on YouTube or you can probably see clips of it on Comedy Central's webpage. Basically, Ms(r) Garrison refuses to teach evolution to his class because he doesn't believe it (he says we are the retarded offspring of five monkeys having butt sex with retarded fish frogs) and so the principal brings in Richard Dawkins to explain evolution. Of course he promotes his atheism, converts Ms. Garrison to atheism and apparently changes the whole world. Go Dawkins Go! :)

Ammunition for Evolutionists

Hey guys,

Yes, I'm back. Sorry that I've been delinquent in my blogging duites. I won't let it happen again. And I will read the other blogs you guys have posted while I've been on sabbatical. They look really interesting.


Today, a student in our Comparative Animal Behavior class asked Todd and I if we had seen a film called "Icons of Evolution." The student (who is actually very bright) told us that she just viewed this documentary where scientists were discussing some of the problems with evolution by natural selection. Our first response was that she wasted her time with religious propaganda. She then told us that she's atheist and that the film made no mention of God or religion or even Intelligent Design. And she kept stressing the supposed scientific merit of the documentary. Of course, Todd and I didn't think that this film was a legitimate threat, but we promised the student that we would check it out.

Well, our suspicions were correct. The film, which was first a book by the same title, is the work of a creationist, Jonathan Wells. But this guy isn't you're ordinary creationist. He's got a PhD in biology and he's pretty cleaver because his book/film attacks evoluion from a (supposedly) scientific perspective. Check out some of the questions below. These are questions that Wells encourages people to ask their biology teachers, to stump them.

Q: ORIGIN OF LIFE. Why do textbooks claim that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how life's building blocks may have formed on the early Earth -- when conditions on the early Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and the origin of life remains a mystery?

Q: DARWIN'S TREE OF LIFE. Why don't textbooks discuss the "Cambrian explosion," in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor -- thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?

Q: HOMOLOGY. Why do textbooks define homology as similarity due to common ancestry, then claim that it is evidence for common ancestry -- a circular argument masquerading as scientific evidence?

Q: VERTEBRATE EMBRYOS. Why do textbooks use drawings of similarities in vertebrate embryos as evidence for their common ancestry -- even though biologists have known for over a century that vertebrate embryos are not most similar in their early stages, and the drawings are faked?

Q: ARCHAEOPTERYX. Why do textbooks portray this fossil as the missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds -- even though modern birds are probably not descended from it, and its supposed ancestors do not appear until millions of years after it?

Q: PEPPERED MOTHS. Why do textbooks use pictures of peppered moths camouflaged on tree trunks as evidence for natural selection -- when biologists have known since the 1980s that the moths don't normally rest on tree trunks, and all the pictures have been staged?

Of course, the three of us can give an answer to many of these questions, but image a high school biology teacher trying to respond to some of these! And as further proof that this tactic of scientifically debating evolutionary theory can be effective comes from the fact the bright student in our class was really interested in our responses to these questions.

So as the title of this blog suggests, I've got ammunition for my fellow evolutionists. This link (http://www.natcenscied.org/icons/), which is sponsored by the National Center for Science Education, provides answers to Wells's questions. Another really great resource Todd found is a review of Wells's book that appeared in Nature (http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/Coyne-IconsReview.htm). Read this, if you've got time.

So now you're armed.

"I care about what's true, not about what's comforting"--more Dawkins

So, as Aaron would say, 'Dick Dawkins' is really hitting his book press tour hard these days. He was on the NPR program the World today, and this interview is slightly more informative (but notably less amusing) than his one with Stephen Colbert last week.

Check it out here.

Dawkins on inclusive fitness

So we discussed the mother guarding paper (posted below) this week at our journal club, and Alan Rogers (a geneticist here) pointed out that the authors did not model inclusive fitness correctly. No one but him caught this, of course, but we'd all fallen for a common misconception about inclusive fitness. He passed around this brief excerpt from the Extended Phenotype where Dawkins addresses this. I thought I'd include it here, so we can all be certain of our definitions of this prettttty pretttty prettty important concept. (imagine that last bit in my best Larry David voice.)

Check it out, it's worth a read: (click to enlarge)

Does God exist. Go.

So I may be a little late to this, but Dawkins was on the Colbert Report the other day. Check it out below.

Groovy UV (so cheesy)

Apparently birds that nest in dark places have eggs with UV properties, just as we use UV to spot detergent on Aaron's shirts. ;) See below--pretty amazing that they can do that!

Dark nests and egg colour in birds: a possible functional role of ultraviolet reflectance in egg detectability

Abstract:

Owing to the conspicuousness of ultraviolet (UV) colour in dark environments, natural selection might have selected UV egg coloration because it would enhance egg detectability by parents in murky nests. Here, we tested this hypothesis by using comparative and experimental approaches. First, we studied variation in egg coloration of 98 species of European passerines measured using UV–visible reflectance spectrometry (300–700nm) in relation to nesting habits. Analyses based on raw data and controlling for phylogenetic distances both at the species and the family levels revealed that hole-nester species produced eggs with higher UV reflectance than those nesting in open habitats. The experimental approach consisted of the manipulation of UV reflectance of the experimental eggs introduced outside the nest-cup of the hole-nester spotless starling Sturnus unicolor and the study of the retrieval of these eggs. Ultraviolet-reflecting eggs (controls) were more frequently retrieved to the nest-cup than non-reflecting (–UV) eggs. These results were not due to ‘–UV’ eggs being recognized by starlings as parasitic because when a parasitic egg is detected, starlings removed it from the nest-box. Therefore, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that UV egg colours are designed to provide highly detectable targets for parent birds in dark nest environments.

Interesting NAS conference

Another student here at Utah will be attending an upcoming NAS "Sackler colloquium." I'd never heard of these before, but this one sounds particularly interesting. I thought I'd post the link just in case any of you feel like attending a short conference at the last minute (and there are apparently still travel funds through NAS available!). There are also other interesting evolution related ones--check 'em out, attend one, and then tell me all about it! ;)

Here's the link.

MILG--Mother I'd like to Guard

Hey guys,

Did you see this theoretical paper in Proceedings that models when offspring should "mother guard" to protect their inclusive fitness interests? Pretty intriguing! Any thoughts on how/if this might work in humans? See the abstract below.

Mother guarding: how offspring may influence the extra-pair behaviour of their parents
Justin A. Welbergen* and Suhel Quader

In this paper we propose a novel form of social control of mate choice. Through mother guarding, offspring can help in protecting the paternity of their father by preventing their mother from engaging in extra-pair matings. We present a model that predicts the circumstances under which mothers should be selected to seek or avoid extra-pair matings, and existing offspring should be selected to prevent or promote such matings. In its simplest form, our model shows that offspring are selected to mother guard as long as the viability of extra-pair young is less than twice that of within-pair young; when the relative viability is greater, offspring are selected to promote extra-pair mating by their mother. If the existing offspring are not necessarily sired by their mother’s social mate, then the potential for conflict is further reduced. We also consider whether offspring have an interest in the extra-pair reproduction of their fathers. We show that when the costs of the father’s infidelity to the mother’s brood are high, existing offspring are selected to prevent extra-pair mating by their father; when such costs are low, offspring are selected to promote extrapair mating by their father. In principle, our model applies to all species where offspring show delayed dispersal and where breeding pairs raise multiple broods or litters. This situation exists in, but is not limited to, the majority of cooperatively breeding species. The significance of this model with regard to our current understanding of the evolution of extra-pair behaviour in such species is discussed.

Great minds think alike????

So we all know about Alastair's love of black culture....

Did you know he's not alone in this???

Apparently Robert Trivers identifies more with black individuals than with white individuals. He used to be a member of the Black Panther party, he owns a home in Jamaica, he prefers all-black bars, and he owns some culture typical clothing (well a hat...but I couldn't describe it if I tried).

Anyway...maybe there's something to this? Perhaps it's true that great minds think alike? Or maybe crazy minds? :-P

SPSP pre-conference

Also, I don't know if you guys already saw this or not, but this year's SPSP pre-conference looks interesting!

F mate prefs among the Ache

I'm reading a chapter from Hill and Hurtado's 1996 book on the Ache, and I thought this was an interesting conversation revealing what women prefer in a partner. I whole-heartedly agree with these Ache women! ;) But is this captured in a single measure in the 18 Buss prefs, or do you think it's a combination of a few? Anyway, thought y'all might find it interesting too. (Note the joke telling part! ;)

Kim Hill: Achipura, what kind of man could get many women, what kind did women love, the kind who could easily find a wife?

Achipuragi: He had to be a good hunter.

KH: So if a man was a good hunter he could easily find a wife.

A: No, not just a good hunter. A good hunter could find a wife, but a man needed to be strong.

KH: When you say strong, do you mean a man who could beat up others in a club fight?

A: No, women don't like those men. Women don't like men who love to hit others. I mean a strong man. One who would walk far to hunt, one who would carry heavy loads. I mean a man who would work hard when everyone was tired, or build a hut when it was cold and rainy, a man who would carry his children and get firewood at night. I mean a man who was strong. A man who could endure and would not get tired.

KH: Did women love big men then (i.e., men of large body size)?

A: No, they would love a small man or a large man, but he had to be strong.

KH: What other men would be able to acquire a wife easily?

A: A man who was a "good man."

KH: What does that mean, "a good man"?

A: A good man is one who is handsome (attractive face). One whom women love. One who is nice and smiles and tells jokes. He is a man who is handsome. A "good man" is a man whom women love.

You guys are gonna kill me, but...

I can't resist posting another cool abstract, this time from Behavioral Ecology. But wait, it's about an anti-predator adaptation I'd never thought about before! And for all you hunters out there, it'll be something fun to test next time you've got to clean your birds. (I'm totally paying attention to this next time I dove hunt with my family!)

Losing the last feather: feather loss as an antipredator adaptation in birds

Anders Pape Møller ^{1 *}, Jan Tøttrup Nielsen ², and Johannes Erritzøe ³

Birds often lose feathers during predation attempts, and this ability has evolved as a means of escape. Because predators are more likely to grab feathers on the rump and the back than on the ventral side of an escaping bird, we predicted that the former feathers would have evolved to be relatively loosely attached as an antipredator strategy in species that frequently die from predation. We estimated the force required to remove feathers from the rump, back, and breast by pulling feathers with a spring balance from a range of European bird species in an attempt to investigate ecological factors associated with ease of feather loss during predation attempts. The force required to loosen a feather from the rump was less than that required to loosen a feather from back, which in turn was less than that required to loosen a feather from the breast. The relative force needed to loosen rump feathers compared with feathers from the back and the breast was smaller for prey species preferred by the most common predator of small passerine birds, the sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus. Likewise, the relative force was also smaller in species with a high frequency of complete tail loss among free-living birds, which we used as an index of the frequency of failed predation attempts. The relative force required to remove feathers from the rump was smaller in species with a high frequency of fear screams, another measure of the relative importance of predation as a cause of death. Feather loss required particularly little force among solitarily breeding bird species that suffer the highest degree of predation. Antipredator defense in terms of force required to remove feathers from the rump was larger in species with a strong antiparasite defense in terms of T-cell-mediated immune response. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that different defenses are antagonistic and that they are traded off against each other.

Ewes young guys ain't got nothin' to worry about

Hi there, EP peeps,

I just thought I'd post an abstract of a study I found kind of amusing. I subscribe to eTOCs from the journal "applied animal behavior science" (which is generally not that useful, but whatever, I checked it off when I was signing up for a bunch of eTOCs). Anyway, I think it was the "sexual performance" bit in the title that piqued my curiosity. So see below for an abstract I found kind of amusing.

(To any self-conscious rams out there: apparently your "sexual performance"--how was that measured, I wonder? (I'm not curious enough to actually read the paper, however)--doesn't matter, just your age. )

A note on ram preference by oestrous ewes: Influence of rams' age and sexual performance

Ewes in oestrus, besides being receptive to rams, develop an active search for them. We performed two experiments to determine if oestrous ewes prefer: (1) high or low sexual-performance rams, and (2) 2-year-old or aged (>8-years-old) rams. In the first experiment, the preference of ewes for rams with high or low sexual performances was compared in 16 tests. In the second experiment, 17 tests were performed comparing ewes'’ preference for aged rams (>8-years-old) or young rams (2-years-old). In each test, two rams were tied at equal distances from the point of entrance of the ewe, with a maximum mobility for each ram of 2 m. The first approach to a ram, the quantity of approaches toward each ram (less than one body length), and the total time that the ewe remained near each ram were registered during 5 min. Oestrous ewes did not display any preference according to sexual performance of rams, but spent significantly more time (P = 0.02), and did it in more tests (P = 0.025), with young than with aged rams. Ewes also tended to approach first (P = 0.07), and more times in more tests (P = 0.06), to young than to aged rams. We conclude that ram's sexual performance seems not to influence oestrous ewes preference, and that ewesÂ’ prefer young (2-years-old) rather than aged rams (>8-years-old).


P. S. By "did it", in there, on first read, I thought, "They're using the euphemism "did it" in a (semi-) academic journal?!?!" (Is that what they mean?)

Conceptual Foundations of EP?

Ok for our Evolutionary Social Psych class, David assigned a 6 page paper on what we consider to be the conceptual foundations of evolutionary psychology. It's been interesting to me to see what my fellow lab mates chose...while there was some overlap, we all had some things different. What would you guys pick?

Here was the exact assignment: "I am looking for YOUR take--what you perceive to be the most fundamental conceptual foundations of the field. Perhaps 5 - 8 fundamentals, with a paragraph devoted to each, justifying it as a part of the conceptual foundation. Each foundational pillar must be justified, that is, precisely why do you view it as part of the conceptual foundation?"

I already made my choices (the paper is due tomorrow) so I'll reveal them after everyone else posts theirs (that way...mine aren't prompters...). (Please feel free to skip the paragraph but perhaps a sentence for why important would be good for discussion purposes...)

Have fun!!

Psychological mechanisms vs. behavior: which would win a boxing match?

Hi buddies,

I just thought I'd post a comment about a disappointing experience I had today in a discussion group. Basically, it was a frustrating (though brief--Elizabeth broke it up before it got too intense) discussion of psychological mechanisms vs. behavioral outcomes, and the value of each as products of evolution. Anyway, I probably should've expected as much, as I'm in anthropology here, but hopefully I can at some point get a few people to slow down and appreciate what is driving this behavior they so prize, and that mismatches between psychological preferences and behavior are not just something to be ignored in favor of pure emphasis on behavior. The mechanisms behind this behavior were selected, too. Anyway, arg, there's no need for comments in response to this, I just needed to vent to a sympathetic audience.

Self-deception

Hey guys,

This is a request asking you to keep your eyes out for any literature directly or indirectly related to self-deception. I'll probably have to wait until I leave FAU to start a self-deception project, but at least this gives me time to get my thoughts together.

I just found this study in Proceedings.
"Overconfidence has long been noted by historians and political scientists as a major cause of war. However, the origins of such overconfidence, and sources of variation, remain poorly understood. Mounting empirical studies now show that mentally healthy people tend to exhibit psychological biases that encourage optimism, collectively known as ‘positive illusions’. Positive illusions are thought to have been adaptive in our evolutionary past because they served to cope with adversity, harden resolve, or bluff opponents. Today, however, positive illusions may contribute to costly conflicts and wars. Testosterone has been proposed as a proximate mediator of positive illusions, given its role in promoting dominance and challenge behaviour, particularly in men. To date, no studies have attempted to link overconfidence, decisions about war, gender, and testosterone. Here we report that, in experimental wargames: (i) people are overconfident about their expectations of success; (ii) those who are more overconfident are more likely to attack; (iii) overconfidence and attacks are more pronounced among males than females; and (iv) testosterone is related to expectations of success, but not within gender, so its influence on overconfidence cannot be distinguished from any other gender specific factor. Overall, these results constitute the first empirical support of recent theoretical work linking overconfidence and war." [Overconfidence in wargames: experimental evidence on expectations, aggression, gender and testosterone]

I'm not particularly interested in overconfidence, but it is a form of self-deception.

Thanks.

Mate value experiment in birds

Hey guys,

Here's the abstract of a neat experiment in Animal Behaviour manipulating "mate value"/attractiveness in a bird species, and its effect on female choosiness. I haven't read it yet, but I thought you guys might find it interesting/relevant.

Variation in female choice of mates: condition influences selectivity

Nancy Tyler Burley^{, a,} and Valerie S. Foster^a

The occurrence and significance of variation in apparent mate choice within populations are poorly understood. While one possible explanation for variation is that individuals differ in their mate preferences, an alternative possibility is that individuals vary in their mate selectivity or ‘choosiness’: that is, some individuals may be willing to accept less attractive mating partners than are others. This latter possibility is likely to result from bidirectional mate choice and differential mating access of high- versus low-quality mating partners. Here we altered the physical condition of female zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata castanotis, through modest trimming of their flight feathers to explore the possibility that individuals adjust selectivity in response to their own condition. We compared the selectivity of individuals with clipped versus intact wing feathers. Female finches spent less time associating with attractive males when their wings were clipped than when wings were intact. To ascertain whether their choices were influenced by the behaviour of stimulus males that perceived their altered status, we performed a companion experiment that measured male mate choice of females with clipped versus intact wings; no discrimination against clipped females was found. Collectively, these results indicate that a female's mate selectivity is dynamically adjusted based on her assessment of her own condition or mate-getting ability. Future studies that investigate the relationship between realized and ideal mate preferences are necessary to better understand preference functions and the genetic basis of mate preferences.

( Animal Behaviour
Volume 72, Issue 3 , September 2006, Pages 713-719)

NYTimes Article on Sexual Cannibalism

Hi all!

This is an article from today's NYTimes regarding sexual cannibalism in animals. Talks a little about sperm competition as well.

September 5, 2006
This Can’t Be Love
By CARL ZIMMER

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/science/05cann.html

I was going to post the actual article, but it comes out looking rather odd so you'll have to go to the site if you're interested.

Enjoy!

APS blog

So maybe you guys already saw this in an email about renewing memberships, but APS has decided to create a blog too! Okay, well they did theirs before ours, but still, apparently (professional?) blogging's all the rage. Anyway, I thought it was a good sign that they did a write-up of some EP stuff a while back, which you can read here.

Also, if you're interested, we read this great overview of behavioral ecology written by Parker (G.A., of sperm comp fame) for class. He polled some other BE's about the most influential papers and people, so you can see how many of the top 10 people and papers you've actually read (I'm a bit embarassed by how few I have!). It's also a good theoretical and historical overview. Anyway, I'll try to put that up somewhere so you guys can check it out, or you can email me if you're interested.

What're y'all up to?

ABS

So, the conference. First of all, let me say, it was exhausting. I didn't really know anyone, and I'd paid good money for it, so I figured that I'd try to attend as much as possible. I learned a lot, but experienced a bit of burnout in the process. Anyway, I've always been interested in animal behavior and comparative psychology, and this was a good intro to the field because, 1. there were talks about a variety of things, so I gained a broad knowledge of the field, and 2. it's a good intro to the type of research being done currently. So, the moral of this tangent is if you have an interest in a related field, attend a conference of theirs. Anyway, on to the good stuff.

Clutton-Brock gave the first plenary on social mammals, specifically a cooperative breeding species of meerkats in Africa. He basically talked about the costs and benefits of such a structure, where there's one dominant F who does most of the breeding (and will practice infanticide if a subdominant F tries to breed), and a bunch of helpers raising the offspring. Why help? Collective benefits (a larger group size of more helpers means more food and better defense against other groups), inclusive fitness benefits, reciprocal exchange, and coercion from other members. Anyway, it was just a general review of costs of doing this, incidence (relatively low) of cheating, etc. The crazy part was at the end of the talk, this dude jumped up and despite claiming amicable intentions, proceeded to tear him apart because he "did a disservice" by not including info from the "vast and growing literature" on group selection, or "multi-level selection." Any guesses on who this person was? David Sloan Wilson. (whose BBS paper on the benefits of group selection I recently downloaded. Has anyone read it? Anything to it?) Anyway, he so accosted him, Clutton-Brock was left speechless and they had to move on to the next question. I t was really awkward and uncomfortable. And sadly, after Trivers's talk the next day, Jeff Galef from McMaster (who was hosting the conference) had to preface the Q& A period with, "And with a group this large, there are bound to be people who disagree with something Bob's said, but please keep those questions for discussion with him individually afterwards." It was crazy. D. S. Wilson even gave a talk titled, "Individual differences in humans" a few days later, which was actually not on individual differences in humans generally, but only on one measure--prosociality. What's his deal?


Okay, so I'm going to keep it relatively brief from here on out. Trivers gave the plenary the next day, and I'm gonna go ahead and suggest it was probably very similar to his HBES plenary the year before, but I'm not certain because it was so early in the morning I don't remember much from it! But generally he talked more about genomic imprinting, and made it relevant to animal behavior. Some of the bigger points: he suggested we use the study of animal behavior to better understand current events (he drew a parallel to the Israel/Hezbollah conflict, highlighting the relationship between religion and inbreeding importance as potential insights into the conflict), and also suggested its relevance to evolutionary biology. I only grasped the largest point from this, but it went like this: junk/fossil DNA are selfish elements no longer used (just replicated), which generally just increase the genome (and cell) size, which is bad for the organism. He illustrated this with the example of amphibians, who generally have a large genome size, and as a genome size increases, the brain cell (neuron) size increases, but with a cranial space that hasn't increased accordingly, this means there are fewer brain cells, fewer connections = dumb. Or, apparently as they say in their circles, "why salamanders are so dumb." And, the only other impressions that I walked away with were that, 1. He is TOTALLY Lewis Black. His delivery style, hand gestures, voice, everything. (although Trivers, unlike Black, was named one of Time Magazine's most 100 influential people of the 20th century. Pretty cool.) And 2. Given my own weakness for Q&A, it was somewhat heartening to hear him bow-out from a few questions (granted, he's dealing with genetics which is a little trickier ;).

The third plenary was from Carl Gehrhardt, and I must say that I really zoned out during that one. It had to do with acoustic communication. (Sorry)

As for the remaining general insights:

The conference was dominated by predator prey mechanism and sexual selection sessions (though there were some on communication and cognition and a few others). The sexual selection talks were clearly (mostly--the ones on sexual cannibalism not so much) relevant for humans, but much less work has been done (that I'm familiar with) in humans on predator prey mechanisms. I should probably read Clark Barrett's chapter on in the EP handbook. Also, the vast majority of the studies were experiments, which was interesting, too. You can't really give bees a pencil and paper survey, so you have to do something a little wackier to determine what's going on. Also, life history theory was big, too. A lot of energetic/metabolic cost studies, from measuring the cost of male sexual ornamentation to energy expenditure on selecting mates. And I've never seen so many different taxonomies in so few days; I guess that's necessary when you're attending a conference where so many different animals are studied, but their approaches were really comparative (and made for strong arguments). Also, something else that made for a good talk: if you're talking about something that exhibits ecological variation, it's particularly effective to show a chart/map illustrating the distribution of that particular threat or expected selection pressure, then show how your evolved response overlaps. (again, more difficult with mobile humans, but still effective). Also, nearly everyone there had NSF funding they had to acknowledge, and I attended a workshop on how to get an NSF DDIG (dissertation improvement grant) funded. Most of it was similar to what we heard in Laursen's professional development class, but it was striking to realize that so many of them get funded; we should too because we do the exact same thing on humans! Also, I learned that there's an NSF section that funds travel for these studies, so if you're thinking you may have to go somewhere (like I might for anthro, or if any of you want to do field work too), then it's a good idea to try for a grant from them.

A few interesting results:

A study of "egg competition" (like sperm comp--get it? ha-ha) in a sex role reversed species (so males invest, although still have smaller gamete)

Sue Savage-Rumbaugh (of Kanzi fame) talked, but didn't really have anything interesting to say. Just thought I'd add that.

I also already mentioned another study I thought was interesting: just as animals adjust vocal signals according to aural noise, so might they adjust visual signals, and they found this to be true of male lizard mate attraction demonstrations relative to a busy background (waving branches).

An experiment with birds that manipulated social status and investigated phenotypic expression of dominant traits like plumage and bill coloration, as well as an increase in androgens. (Another example of the relevance of relativity. It'd be interesting to manipulate this in humans and see if you get changes in non-verbal behavior and if there are any mediating hormones.)

A very well done study by a guy at FIU, investigating trade-offs in an electric fish between mating signals and predator eavesdropping of these signals. The fish vary signal production to when mating is most likely.

A study indicating that rats were able to differentiate familial odors from non-familial (by habituation). The rats also differentiated between more closely related family and less closely related. (sort-of. the results weren't resounding, but they were very suggestive.) So they're suggesting that at the general genotypic level (as opposed to the MHC level-they didn't look at that, although they're surely related, right?) there are differences in odor production. I've forgotten if this has already been investigated in the incest avoidance literature, but there it is anyway.

A mostly theoretical discussion of if humans are "obligate brood reducers" (as are species of sharks, birds, some mammals, etc.), in that they have some kids as backup, then get rid of them if they turn out not to be necessary. No, this is not a study of infanticide at birth, but one about twinning, showing that older mothers have more dizygotic twinning fertilizations (as insurance against embryo quality decline), and that twin conceptions are most likely to occur when they're least likely to survive.

A test of a life history theory prediction suggesting that older mothers invest more in offspring (to compensate for a declining reproductive value), and found this to be true in a mammalian species (squirrels), not from direct investment (mass of mother, litter at birth etc), but through behavioral/indirect investment (attempt to have 2nd round of breeding during season, bequeathing of territory to offspring, etc.).

Okay, that's way to much info. Hopefully there was something of interest to you guys in there.

Over 'n out,

Emily

FYI: variance in reproductive health in EEA vs. modern environment

I recently read the "Sex similiarities and differences in preferences for short-term mates: What, whether, and why" JPSP article for my DIS. The most interesting part of the paper was a footnote in the introduction explaining why many women who are considered somewhat physically unattractive by today's standards are still likely able to reproduce. One might wonder why selection would design a mechanism where judgements of female physical attractiveness did not correspond with actual fertility and reproductive health. It's not a flawed mechanism, just a mismatch between the current environment and the one in which we evolved.

"In harsh ancestral environments, fertility and reproductive health among females may have varied greatly, thereby creating the adaptive problem for males of identifying physically attractive partners (Buss & Schmitt, 1993). The resulting adaptive mechanisms for evaluating physical attractiveness have been hypothesized to operate in a relative, rather than absolute, manner. That is, what constitutes acceptable physical attractiveness may depend on comparisons within one’s local pool (Symons, 1979). Although the variance in reproductive health among modern day college-aged women may be much smaller and differences in physical attractiveness less meaningful than in the ancestral past, the standard-setting mechanisms for physical attractiveness are still expected to operate within this
pool."

Interesting Article

Hi all! (or y'all I suppose as the Texans say it....LOL)

I don't know if you guys have seen this article, Buss sent it around to us but also to Todd so if it's old news...sorry.

Anyway it's a commentary by Steven Pinker on Richard Dawkins.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,23114-2066881,00.html

Enjoy!!

Animal Behavior Society

Hey guys,

So I don't have enough time right now, but I've been at the Animal Behavior Society conference the past few days! And boy, have I learned a lot. I'll share as soon as I have a minute to type it out. I've got a few questions for ya'.

Emily

So, um....a question

Viviana, Judy and I are working on a chapter about our mate preferences in parents stuff, and we're suggesting that moms with kids (relative to un-moms) might be a little more wary about guys with great physical stature. So a guy with muscles certainly is a threat in that he has the potential to do some damage to her kids (or herself), but is anyone (Shanna, Mary Ann) aware of anything suggesting he's actually any more likely to?

P.S. As "team members", you guys are able to post your own blog topics, right? (I hope so!) Wait, you should try and see if you can. ;)

Welcome?

Hey guys! So, this may be wildly unsucessful, given that our labmeetings weren't always incredible raucous or anything, but I figure that since a few of us are more spread out now, this might be a good way for us to keep in touch and keep our evolutionary juices (eww) flowing.

What do you think? Any comments or suggestions? (re: Emily, this is wishful thinking?)

Will anyone post?