Exam 2, Ornithology, EEB 484/585

KEY
Your name:____________________________________

Section 1: fill in the blanks (2 pts each) Note: Some questions have more than correct
answer.

nests
1. ______________________are structures that physically protect, insulate, and hide
attract a female or mate
eggs and young birds, whereas bowers function only to __________________________.
leks do not usually involve the creation
One difference between bowers and leks is ____________________________________
of physical structures, leks involve more than 1 male that display together .
_______________________________________________________________________

2. Optimal foraging theory has proven a useful tool in studying the choices birds make
about what they eat. Basic OFT assumes that birds forage in such a way that they
energy intake
maximize their net ______________________________________________.

stable isotopes (deuterium, C13…)over the

3. Natural geographic variation in _________________________________
earth’s surface means that biologists can sample feathers from a bird (captured anywhere)
and determine where that feather was grown.
any parental care behavior: e.g., feeding rate, nest defense, ability to defend
lots of resources, predator-freed territory, attentive to nest incubation
4. _________________________________________________ is an example of one
direct phenotypic benefit to females for being choosy regarding the males with whom
they mate with.

5. Different materials are often used in different parts of nest building. The 4 physical
elements of a nest are structure, attachment, and sometimes adornment and
lining
_______________________________ . One important factor that affects what materials
susceptibility to water-logging,
used in this last component of nest building is __________________________________.
insulation needs, softness of structural materials, susceptibility to nest ectoparasites
6. List one way that the foraging ecology of a bird has affected one of that bird’s sensory
organs (list both foraging niche, and element of sensory organ that functions in obtaining
e.g., nocturnal predator/3-d sound localization, probing for buried
that food): __________________________________________________________ .
prey/herbst corpuscles in bill, aerial insectivore/regions of visual acuity

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7. All birds have tetra-chromatic vision but species differ in the wavelengths their 4th
cone type is sensitive to. Only 4 lineages including parrots and most passerines have the
UV (ultra-violet) light
ability to see _____________________________________________________.

Section 2: True/False (2 pts each)

8. The “mafia hypothesis” is one explanation for why hosts of Brown-headed Cowbirds
often fail to eject parasitic eggs, even though cowbird eggs are usually very different in
size and color than the host egg. The basis of this hypothesis relies on Cowbirds
revisiting nests and vandalizing the nests of hosts that eject their parasitic egg.
TRUE FALSE

9. Whereas it is clearly beneficial for males to engage in EPC (extra-pair copulations),

there is no reason for a female to solicit EPC’s because she has close to 100% certainty of
maternity.
TRUE FALSE

10. The hearing capabilities of most birds far exceed those of humans.
TRUE FALSE

11. The partial molt that some birds undergo prior to breeding season is called the pre-
alternate molt.
TRUE FALSE

12. In MacArthur’s study of warbler foraging niches, the fact that different species
foraged in different parts of the tree was attributed to disruptive selection driven by
competition.
TRUE FALSE

13. The pecten is a sensory structure in the tips of bills of Kiwis and some shorebirds that
help them detect prey in the sand or earth.
TRUE FALSE

Section 3: matching
14. Match the following life history traits with what you would expect of two different
species of similar size nesting in the following two nest substrates (place appropriate
number/letter in table cell). (6 pts)
open cup shrub secondary cavity-
nesting species nesting species
1. Egg coloration
1A: mottled 1A 1B
1B: white
2. Incubation duration
2B 2A
2A: 20 days

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2B: 11 days
3. Vocalizations
3A: sings frequently from nest site 3B 3A
3B: sings > 20 m from nest

15. Place the letter in the space on the right associated with the breeding systems that best
matches the attribute. (4 pts)

c
______ relies upon females aggregating for reasons
a) monogamy
unrelated to male quality
b) polygyny (male- d
______ cooperative breeding does not arise in this system
dominance defense)
in most extreme cases, results in lekking behavior
c) polygyny (harem b
______ and the most exaggerated cases of sexual
defense)
dimorphism known in birds
a definition made more complex with the discovery of
d) polyandry ______
widespread EPC’s

Section 4: graphics/multiple choice (2 pts each)

Circle the answer that best answers the questions
related to the associated figures.

16. If you found evidence for a relationship similar

to this in a species of bird you were studying,
would you demonstrate that:
a) this particular type of parental effort
represented parental investment
b) the best interests of parent and offspring differ
in this species
c) offspring survival increases with increasing
parental care
d) all of the above

17. Berthold conducted selection

experiments with captive Blackcaps in
Europe. The figure here represents his
results that show:
a) migratory behavior is learned in the
species from the parental generation
b) common garden experiments are not an
effective means of studying the basis of
migratory behavior
c) migration, as measured by zügenruhe,
has a strong heritable genetic basis
d) all of the above

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18. This sonogram depicts a vocalization of a Wood Thrush. In your text, this image
illustrates the fact that:
a) that the 2 sides of the syrinx can
produce sounds independently
b) that high frequency sound travels
better in open country than in forest
c) that calls have multiple functions
d) none of the above

The x-axes on sonograms such as this

represent:
a) amplitude
b) pitch
c) modulation
d) time

Section 5: scientific reasoning (10 pts each)

Carefully read the scenarios below and answer the questions in a few complete sentences.

19. You are designing an experiment to determine how an unstudied species of bird
navigates from its breeding area to its non-breeding area. It is known that in a closely-
related species, young birds make this migration on their own without ever having
interacted with their parents. Furthermore, preventing birds from smelling has no effect
on the ability to navigate efficiently. You would like to distinguish between the
following three hypotheses:
i) the birds use a magnetic grid map sense to figure out where they are relative to their
destination, and also magnetic compass system to guide them there.
ii) the birds use a magnetic compass to guide them through a series of “instructions”
regarding the direction & distance they must follow.
iii) the birds use a celestial compass (patterns of polarized light +/or stars) to guide them
through a series of “instructions” regarding the direction & distance they must follow.
a) You perform a “clock-shift” experiment—you alter the bird’s circadian and circannual
rhythms by placing them on constant 8 hour light/dark cycles in the lab for several weeks
before migration. The first night following release, the birds do not navigate correctly
(whereas control birds kept on ambient daylength cycles do navigate correctly). Explain
& justify what you can conclude regarding your 3 hypotheses from the results of this
experiment? (5 pts)
You cannot distinguish between these hypotheses on the basis of this experiment.
Both magnetic and celestial compass systems must be calibrated to the
appropriate latitude and time of day/night – circadian and circannual rhythms
provide a means of calibration for both systems.

b) In a second experiment, you keep the birds under normal daylength conditions, but you
attach a free-floating magnet to the birds’ heads which creates random patterns of

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magnetic fields. In this experiment, all birds navigate properly. Explain & justify what
you can conclude regarding your 3 hypotheses from the results of this experiment? (5 pts)
This experiment demonstrates that the birds in your experiment are not using a
magnetic compass system in their navigation. If they were, then disrupting the
magnetic fields should have thrown them off course. Congratulations! you have
eliminated 2 of your hypotheses. You must make sure there are no alternative
hypotheses consistent with the data you have so far before concluding that option
iii) truly describes the navigational processes in this species.

20. You read a paper in which the authors examine the relationship between seed-caching
behavior and an index of intelligence (associated with brain size) by correlating these two
traits in species of landbirds. The results show that these two traits are highly and
positively correlated. The authors conclude that living in cold places where seed caching
is highly advantageous has selected for smart birds with good spatial memories. Evaluate
the following elements of this study:
a) Does this study demonstrate that differences in foraging behavior have caused the
difference in intelligence? Why or why not? (4 pts)
No, we cannot conclude that differences in foraging behavior have caused the
differences in intelligence. Comparative studies such as this are inherently
correlational, and only by conducting manipulative experiments can we infer cause
and effect relationships.

b) You note that most of the seed-caching birds in their database belong to just 2 families
of birds. What kind of analysis should the authors conduct to demonstrate that there has
been correlated evolution of foraging behavior and intelligence? (2 pts)
By conducting an analysis of phylogenetically-independent contrasts, the authors
could have controlled for the possibility that the correlation between seed-caching
and high intelligence is an artifact of both those traits evolving by chance for
different reasons in a couple of lineages, and then being conserved in all
subsequent speciation events in that family.
c) If (even after doing ii) there appears to be a strong correlation between foraging
behavior and intelligence, offer an alternative cause-effect scenario consistent with these
results. (4 pts)
It is possible that high levels of intelligence evolved due to a set of selective
pressures unrelated to foraging. Once the high levels of intelligence evolved, birds
possessing those superior capabilities for remembering where they put things were
able to begin successfully caching and retrieving seeds.

Section 6: essay (30 pts)

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21. Choose ONE of the following questions (a or b) upon which to write a short essay.
Be sure to answer ALL PARTS of the question. Please pay attention to the structure
individual paragraphs and your essay as a whole.
a) A non-biologist friend invites you over to watch a video on birds in which a Superb
Lyrebird imitates a huge range of sounds present in its environment. Your friend asks
why it is that some birds sing such complex songs and others sing such simple ones.
Answer this question by explaining the typical process of song learning and identifying
how inputs during that process could affect song repertoire size (proximate explanation)
and then offer an hypothesis for why selection on vocal repertoire size might vary among
species (ultimate explanation).
• trying (2 pts)
• English, essay structure (6 pts)
• Proximate (12 pts):
o Typical song learning: 1) critical learning, 2) silent, 3) subsong, 4)
song crystallization (6 pts)
o Variation in # of songs heard during critical learning period (how
many individuals it hears singing, how big the repertoires of
neighbors), could influence final repertoire size (6 pts)
• Ultimate (8 pts), anything coherent based on one of these 3:
o relative reproductive pay-offs of having a large repertoire
o relative benefits of sharing songs with your neighbors
o trade-offs associated with increased learning and neural
development necessary to have bigger repertoire.

b). Both migration and nest-building involve a coordinated suite of complex behaviors.
Thus, you could argue that both behaviors might be expected to be phylogenetically
conserved (e.g., within orders or families). Explain whether or not this is true in birds
and back up your assertions with evidence. Hypothesize why we might see the
phylogenetic patterns that we do for both migration and nest-building.

• trying (2 pts)
• English, essay structure (6 pts)
• True for nest building, false for migration (4 pts)
• Good examples for nest building conservatism: vireos always build
hanging cup in fork of tree, woodpeckers nest in tree cavities (3
pts)
• Good examples for migration lability: variation among species of
Catharus thrushes, variation even a species-level in Black-caps,
White-ruffed manakins, Dark-eyed Juncos (3 pts)

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• Good hypotheses for conserved nest-building (6 pts) [can be at

either prox or ultimate levels]:
o little genetic variation for use of novel substrates
o constrained by other life-history-related traits
o constrained by morphology
• Good hypotheses for labile migration (6 pts):
o patterns of climate and resource abundance change rapidly
so cost/benefit tradeoffs change rapidly relative to
speciation events
o migratory genetic programs can be turned on/off, don’t
have to re-evolve them de-novo each time