Chapter 6: The Evolution of Habitat Selection, Territoriality, and Migration

1. If the distribution of individuals over a set of habitats is consistent with ideal free
distribution theory, then

a. the fitness of individuals in different habitats will be the same.

b. the areas associated with higher fitness will be occupied before habitats linked
to lower fitness.

c. the mean survival time of individuals in the different habitats will be different.

d. some habitats will attract territorial individuals while others will not.

2. Contest resolution that is mediated by harmless, non-contact threat displays a

Darwinian puzzle because

a. the winners of these interactions have nevertheless expended time and energy
asserting control of the resources they secure by winning.

b. the losers of these interactions concede defeat without actual fighting and thereby
prematurely give up resources that would raise their fitness.

c. the winners of these interactions would benefit from injuring or killing those
competitors that will again return to challenge them for key resources.

d. the losers refusal to fight strips the species of the means by which it could remove
excess individuals from the population.

3.–4. Refer to the figure below.

[see the ch. 6 figure]

3. If we apply optimality theory to flight behavior in the African great pelican, we can
conclude that

a. they cannot fly with less expenditure of energy.

b. every attribute of this species is an adaptation.

c. the flight decisions made by a pelican should generate a better benefit-to-cost

ratio than reasonable alternatives.

d. the benefits of flight exceed the costs.

4. In flocks of five pelicans, the bird in position _______ does not provide the slightest
Darwinian puzzle for an observer.

a. 1

b. 2

c. 3

d. 4

e. 5

5. If a population is subject to frequency-dependent selection, then

a. two alternative forms of a trait can persist indefinitely in the population.

b. the rarer of two forms of a trait will become somewhat rarer in the next generation.

c. the frequency of an adaptation will become greater over time, depending on the
extent to which individuals with that trait out reproduce individuals with the
alternative attribute.

d. neither form of the trait is considered an adaptation but instead these forms are kept
in the species in order to provide flexibility should the environment change.