Today in Biology class

[dna9488]

So our professor talked about mating courtships of animals and then went on to talk about marine life and how they survive. We saw a movie about marine life and how they stay alive.

Here is a clip of the movie with a good explanation of whats going on. I think this is fascinating.

YouTube - A Truly Astonishing Natural Illusion - Disappearing Octopus

[dna9488]

Actually here is the clip we saw and talked about. Found this on the powerpoint lecture my professor posted

YouTube - Underwater astonishments

[Shibby]

That along with a book I'm reading makes me realize how much we are just really animals. I just started reading a book called The Red Queen by Matt Ridley. It's more about life being about surviving to reproduce. But we all do what we can to survive, weather it be by camouflage or "blending in" to the life around us. Every move we make to enhance our survival always leads back to a chance to procreate.


side note: I am just a couple chapters in, so I may not have the full picture of the book...

[Turbo3000]

Originally Posted by Shibby

That along with a book I'm reading makes me realize how much we are just really animals. I just started reading a book called The Red Queen by Matt Ridley. It's more about life being about surviving to reproduce. But we all do what we can to survive, weather it be by camouflage or "blending in" to the life around us. Every move we make to enhance our survival always leads back to a chance to procreate.


side note: I am just a couple chapters in, so I may not have the full picture of the book...

SHIBBY. Nice to see you post.

Hope you and the family are good.

[Shibby]

Originally Posted by Turbo3000

SHIBBY. Nice to see you post.

Hope you and the family are good.

Everything is good and getting better. Balance is everything.

I was actually going to make a thread directed towards you in about an hour, but I'll give you a heads up. I'm watching "Gamer" right now and it's pleasantly but unexpectedly good. Don't remember hearing about it until I watched the on demand preview.

[Turbo3000]

Originally Posted by Shibby

Everything is good and getting better. Balance is everything.

I was actually going to make a thread directed towards you in about an hour, but I'll give you a heads up. I'm watching "Gamer" right now and it's pleasantly but unexpectedly good. Don't remember hearing about it until I watched the on demand preview.

Good to hear.

I love movie threads directed at me.

[dna9488]

Glad to see you posted shibby

yes Gamer was a good movie.

I am taking this 300 level Biology class called Ecology/Evolution. Its taught by 3 different professors. So far I love it, we talked about the beginning of time until now in less than a month, lol


In a way I agree with what you're saying. We are all here to reproduce and move on.

What i really found interesting was the circle of life in different species. Many animals produce for the sake of it and other have selected mating rituals.

[Shibby]

Originally Posted by dna9488

Glad to see you posted shibby


What i really found interesting was the circle of life in different species. Many animals produce for the sake of it and other have selected mating rituals.

What is the cognitive intelligence level of each category and/or species...?

[dna9488]

Originally Posted by Shibby

What is the cognitive intelligence level of each category and/or species...?

We haven't studied their intelligence. We have looked the reasons why they mate a certain way and how they came to be from their ancestors.

[Turbo3000]

Biology, man I love it.

[dna9488]

Originally Posted by Turbo3000

Biology, man I love it.

Yea its fun. This class really got my attention again. In biology 101 and 102 I wanted to shoot myself. Gayest shit ever. Sat in the back, slept for a bit, and studied the powerpoints before exams and did well.

This class just opened my eyes, and i am like WOAH!!!

[Turbo3000]

Originally Posted by dna9488

Yea its fun. This class really got my attention again. In biology 101 and 102 I wanted to shoot myself. Gayest shit ever. Sat in the back, slept for a bit, and studied the powerpoints before exams and did well.

This class just opened my eyes, and i am like WOAH!!!

That is what I did in those classes, I was a chem major and was bored as hell, then I got in molecular cell, and making 100's on the test was a fucking drug for me, I loved reading the entire textbook. I actually started liking school when I switched.

[dna9488]

Originally Posted by Turbo3000

That is what I did in those classes, I was a chem major and was bored as hell, then I got in molecular cell, and making 100's on the test was a fucking drug for me, I loved reading the entire textbook. I actually started liking school when I switched.

Yea bro, I am still a Chem major. Analytical Chem raped my ass bro. No curve and about 65% of the class failed, including me

You learn valuable knowledge in that class though. Stuff that you can actually apply in the real world and stuff that you can use to work.

[Shibby]

Originally Posted by dna9488

We haven't studied their intelligence. We have looked the reasons why they mate a certain way and how they came to be from their ancestors.

and what is their level on the food chain versus which ones do things simply to procreate and which ones do it as a ritual (awareness to some degree).

[dna9488]

Originally Posted by Shibby

and what is their level on the food chain versus which ones do things simply to procreate and which ones do it as a ritual (awareness to some degree).

I'll go ahead and answer that second part.

When it comes to mating, depending on the species, it will flow right into sexual selection.
Many species use sexual ornaments: Differences in male and female morphology at sexual maturity, beyond primary sexual traits.

Also it comes to Sexual Selection: Changes in allele frequency due (specifically) to competition over mates

Depending on what specie they are, they have to fight for their mate through different forms, such as:
• Scramble: The race to locate a mate
• Mate choice: Competition to be preferred
• Direct contest: Physical conflicts
• Endurance Rivalry: Remaining active longest
• Sperm competition: Post-copulatory competition

They compete for Anisogamy: Unequal gamete size. “Sperm are cheap, eggs are expensive.”
Human example: A human female will produce a few hundred thousand eggs in her lifetime, while a human male will produce trillions of sperm cells


• Competition makes sense, but why be picky?
o Direct benefits
 Nuptial gift
 Territory Access
 Protection
o Indirect benefits
 Fisherian “Sexy Sons” Hypothesis
 Genetic Compatibility
o Pre-Existing Sensory Bias
 Where signal is favored because it “exploits” a pre-existing sensory bias in the receiver (e.g. female), thereby stimulating association and conferring a mating advantage to the sender (e.g. male).
• Example moth: The pheromone contains the same compound that is emitted by fermenting fruit, the moths’ primary food source.
• The major histocompatibilitycomplex (MHC) genes are important for mate choice in house mice.
• Preferences appeal to be innate in females, learned in males, and beneficial for both.
• MHC preferences encourage disassortativemating: mating between different phenotypes or genotypes.

Conventional Sex Roles:
• In sexually reproducing species, males are often conspicuously “competitive” and females are “choosy,” conventional sex roles described by Darwin.

Reversed Sex Roles:
• Where males are the limiting sex, females may be selected to compete for them.
o Many pipefishes, seahorses, and shorebirds
o Female is often larger and/or more conspicuously ornamented
o Males are choosy, females are competitive
• Pot-bellied seahorse males are choosy, females appear not to be.

Flexible Sex Roles:
• Where the social environment varies and neither sex is reliably the limiting sex, males and females may be flexible in their levels of choosiness and competition

[THE BOUNCER]

good shit.

goes to show how creatures have adapted to their environment over millions of years. that kind of thing doesn't happen over night. aka evolution...

[Shibby]

Originally Posted by THE BOUNCER

good shit.

goes to show how creatures have adapted to their environment over millions of years. that kind of thing doesn't happen over night. aka evolution...

Part of what's so fascinating about the book I'm reading so far is how we keep evolving to stay in the same place (Sisyphean struggle). The book is based off of this Red Queen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and a couple examples given are:

Cars move through the congested streets of London no faster than horse=drawn carriages did a century ago.

Computers have no effect on productivity because peopl learn to complicate and repeat tasks that have been made easier.

Word Spy - revenge effect

A biological example was that Polar bears. At one time if a bear wasn't completely white it was hard to sneak up on seals. So seals were relatively fearless. Then the more dominant white bears prevailed since that gene survived the best and had no problem catching seals. Now that the bears are white the seals became nervous and timid making it hard for the white bears to sneak up on the seals again.

[Turbo3000]

Originally Posted by Shibby

Part of what's so fascinating about the book I'm reading so far is how we keep evolving to stay in the same place (Sisyphean struggle). The book is based off of this Red Queen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and a couple examples given are:


A biological example was that Polar bears. At one time if a bear wasn't completely white it was hard to sneak up on seals. So seals were relatively fearless. Then the more dominant white bears prevailed since that gene survived the best and had no problem catching seals. Now that the bears are white the seals became nervous and timid making it hard for the white bears to sneak up on the seals again.

I don't know if I like the polar bear example. That example makes it seem like if the polar bear population experienced a bottleneck, and the frequency of the allele for a pure white coat was basically lost due to genetic drift, and a spotted coat became dominant (with a higher allelic frequency in the population, making most of the coats spotted), that the seals would be fearless when spotting this new spotted coat bear, and I don't think that would be the case.

[blm]

I love this type of stuff.

Here is a neat one too.

YouTube - !!COCONUT-SHELL CARRYING OCTOPUS!!

[dna9488]

Originally Posted by blm

I love this type of stuff.

Here is a neat one too.

YouTube - !!COCONUT-SHELL CARRYING OCTOPUS!!

That is really cool.

[Shibby]

Originally Posted by Turbo3000

I don't know if I like the polar bear example. That example makes it seem like if the polar bear population experienced a bottleneck, and the frequency of the allele for a pure white coat was basically lost due to genetic drift, and a spotted coat became dominant (with a higher allelic frequency in the population, making most of the coats spotted), that the seals would be fearless when spotting this new spotted coat bear, and I don't think that would be the case.

I think you are missing the point of sexual selection, but yes, eventually the seals would become less skittish. To what degree would be the product of continued evolution.

[Turbo3000]

Originally Posted by Shibby

I think you are missing the point of sexual selection, but yes, eventually the seals would become less skittish. To what degree would be the product of continued evolution.

I don't see where sexual selection even belongs in this discussion. Are you referring to the fact that the female will pick a pure white male due to the thought of a higher fitness level? Then, after generations, the white coat will be in an extremely high frequency? I understand that part, and I agree with that, the example just sucks.

I liked every example you posted, the cars in London, the computer, etc..

I just don't like the polar bear example. A group of seals will not sit patiently on the ice while a big lumbering bear walks up, no matter the color, the polar bear usually doesn't feed in that manner anyway. A polar bear will sit at a break in the ice and wait for a seal to come up for air, and then snatch his ass.

[THE BOUNCER]

i figured the polar bear was white so that he could blend in and hunt better in its native surroundings.

[Turbo3000]

Originally Posted by THE BOUNCER

i figured the polar bear was white so that he could blend in and hunt better in its native surroundings.

Yes, that among many other reasons.

[Shibby]

I think we are going in two different directions with the subject. The examples given weren't the same side of evolution. The computers and London cars are one type of evolution and the Polar Bear is another type of evolution. Both showing that as much as one thing evolves so does the world around it. Bringing the status quo right back to where we started.

[Turbo3000]

Originally Posted by Shibby

I think we are going in two different directions with the subject. The examples given weren't the same side of evolution. The computers and London cars are one type of evolution and the Polar Bear is another type of evolution. Both showing that as much as one thing evolves so does the world around it. Bringing the status quo right back to where we started.

Where did sexual selection fit in?

I see what you are saying, but trying to discuss this over the internet could lead to some confusion. I don't think I am explaining my point very well, some of it is getting lost in the typing.

[Shibby]

Originally Posted by Turbo3000

Where did sexual selection fit in?

I see what you are saying, but trying to discuss this over the internet could lead to some confusion. I don't think I am explaining my point very well, some of it is getting lost in the typing.

I get your point, I just couldn't figure out how it was related to what I was saying. Then I realized we were kind of going two different directions. Sexual selection has a lot to do with the book I'm reading. Evolution has a lot to do with selecting the best mate. What type of characteristics are best to survive and pass on those genes.

[Turbo3000]

Originally Posted by Shibby

I get your point, I just couldn't figure out how it was related to what I was saying. Then I realized we were kind of going two different directions. Sexual selection has a lot to do with the book I'm reading. Evolution has a lot to do with selecting the best mate. What type of characteristics are best to survive and pass on those genes.

Yes, Fitness.

[dna9488]

Hey Shibby, how's the book so far? Is there anything about the "Principle of Parsimony" in there?

[dna9488]

bump for Shibby. We talked about the Behavioral Ecology yesterday.