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Annual Variation In Northern Bobwhite Survival And Raptor Migration, R. Douglas Holt, L. Wes Burger Jr., Bruce D. Leopold, K. David Godwin

National Quail Symposium Proceedings

We estimated survival of radio-marked northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) on a managed prairie site in northeast Mississippi during 2 disparate winters (15 Sep-14 Apr 2000–2002). We retrospectively examined factors that may influence bobwhite survival. Pooled survival rates differed substantially between years (S 1⁄4 0.03 6 0.02 in 2000–2001 and S 1⁄4 0.36 6 0.16 in 2001–2002). Regional relative abundance of 3 species of raptors thought to be important predators of bobwhite was greater during 2000 compared to 2001 based on kriging of Christmas Bird Count (CBC) data. We demonstrate an approach for characterizing annual variation in spatial distribution of migratory …

The Evolution Of Fear Ecology: A Fruit Fly (Drosophila Melanogaster) Perspective, Itachi Mills

Theses

Several mechanisms underlie how evolutionary lineages respond to predation pressures or predation risk. Further mechanisms link evolutionary predation responses to how animals forage, or find mates. However, gaps remain in our understanding about how predation and foraging interact in an evolutionary context.

In my first chapter, I elaborate on how predation and foraging relate in to one another in ecological, evolutionary and behavioral contexts. I start out with an overview of fear ecology. Then, I outline how trade-offs influence the evolution of morphological, chemical and behavioral responses to predation. I further elaborate on how these trade-offs influence reproduction. Finally, I …

Climate Change And The Threat Of Novel Marine Predators In Antarctica, Kathryn E. Smith, Richard B. Aronson, Brittan V. Steffel, Margaret O. Amsler, Sven Thatje, Hanumant Pratap Singh, Jeffrey S. Anderson, Cecilia J. Brothers, Alastair Brown, Daniel S. Ellis, J. N. Havenhand, W. R. James, P.-O. Moksnes, A. W. Randolph, T. Sayre-Mccord, J. B. Mcclintock

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Historically low temperatures have severely limited skeleton-breaking predation on the Antarctic shelf, facilitating the evolution of a benthic fauna poorly defended against durophagy. Now, rapid warming of the Southern Ocean is restructuring Antarctic marine ecosystems as conditions become favorable for range expansions. Populations of the lithodid crab Paralomis birsteini currently inhabit some areas of the continental slope off Antarctica. They could potentially expand along the slope and upward to the outer continental shelf, where temperatures are no longer prohibitively low. We identified two sites inhabited by different densities of lithodids in the slope environment along the western Antarctic Peninsula. Analysis …