The coevolution of flowering plants and their pollinators has filled the earth with a diversity of life-forms: a quarter-million species of plants, and almost as many animal pollinators, including at least 1,200 vertebrates. Most tropical and subtropical plants are pollinated by insects, a small but ecologically and economically important group of plants are pollinated by birds and mammals(Devy and Davidar, 2003). Bats and birds have families within their orders that are nectar feeding, both these groups have developed similar traits for this ecological niche. Nectar feeding has evolved at least three times in birds and twice in bats. Since birds have been heavily studied in this area, looking at the evolution of hummingbird nectar feeding traits is quite easy. Nectar feeding in bats has not been studied to a great extent and it is still being determined where the divergence happened in the evolutionary line, the leaf-nosed bats have the most research on nectar feeding. Hummingbirds are within the order Apodiformes which also include swifts, their family is Trochilidae, which includes all hummingbirds. Leaf-nosed bats are within the order Chiroptera, which include all bats, their family is Phyllostomidae(leaf-nosed bats), which includes the new world nectar and fruit feeding bats. These traits can be seen as functionally convergent yet that are not anatomically convergent. When looking at the morphological differences between animals, it’s comparing the structure, while looking at the physiological differences it’s comparing the function of these structures. Looking at hummingbirds and leaf-nosed bats tongues, their structures are very different while the function is very similar. Another unique adaptation the hummingbird and lea...
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...ectar production in a tropical ecosystem. The biology of nectaries (ed. by B. Bentley and T. Elias), pp. 30–79. Columbia University Press, New York.
Paton, D. C., & Collins, B. G. (1989). Bills and tongues of nectar‐feeding birds: A review of morphology, function and performance, with intercontinental comparisons. Australian Journal of Ecology, 14(4), 473-506.
Pellmyr, O. (2002) Pollination by animals. Plant–animal interactions: an evolutionary approach (ed. by C.M. Herrera and O. Pellmyr), pp. 157–184. Blackwell Science Ltd, Oxford.
Schuchmann, K. L. (1999). Family Trochilidae (Hummingbirds). Handbook of the birds of the world, 5, 468-680.
Voigt, C. C., & Winter, Y. (1999). Energetic cost of hovering flight in nectar-feeding bats (Phyllostomidae: Glossophaginae) and its scaling in moths, birds and bats. Journal of Comparative Physiology B, 169(1), 38-48.
..., Department of Zoology, Miami University, Oxford, OH, Available from Journal of Insect Physiology. (46 (2000) 655–661)Retrieved from http://www.units.muohio.edu/cryolab/publications/documents/IrwinLee00.pdf
The life cycle of a monarch revolves around the Butterfly weed plant. First the monarch lays its egg on the leaf of the plant. Once the Caterpillar is born it eats the leaf for nutrition. The Monarch caterpillar is striped black and yellow. As it grows and becomes ready to become a chrysalis by forming a cocoon it uses the plant again. The caterpillar forms its cocoon on the Butterfly Weed. By the time the caterpillar is ready to become a chrysalis it has grown to be about 45 millimeters in length. The chrysalis is pale green and spotted with gold. It becomes more transparent as the butterfly gets ready to break free. The adult Monarch has a wingspan of about 4 inches. The m...
Abstract: The house cricket, Acheta domesticus, was used to test whether food and potential mates drive aggressive behavior. Male crickets were randomly selected in pairs and place into a cage to observe aggressive behaviors in the presence of no food, food, and female. The cage provided a confine area for the crickets to fight one another while the variables of food and female were used in attempts of increasing aggressive interactions between the male crickets. There was no significance found through this experiment due to a lack of data. It was discovered that the experiment would have to be done at a larger scale to be able to see any significance in the two variables.
The silver-haired bat is a small bat that is recognized by the unique ≥silvery≤ highlights that are found in the hair on the bats back. Despite there being over 900 different species of bats within the microchiroptera group, the silver-haired bat has become the focus of much research in recent years as it has been found to carry a unique strain of rabies that has been determined to be the cause of numerous deaths over the last few decades. The silver-haired bat is a medium-sized bat that when fully grown can range in length from two and ¾ inches to four and ¼ inches and the bat can range in weight from four grams to twelve grams (ttu.edu). The silver-haired bat is one of the more common species of bats and has been found to live in suitable areas in Alaska, southern portions of Canada, the northern tip of Mexico and all but the southern most states in the United States (unm.edu). Unlike most other species of bats which tend to hibernate during the colder months when flying insects are unavailable, the silver-haired bat is one of the few species which migrates during the colder months. During the spring and summer the silver-haired bat has been found to be distributed quite evenly throughout...
Piping plovers are small shorebirds that usually lives on sandy beach and is considered to be endangered. It has a pale color that blend perfectly with dry beach sand. During the spring and summer, it appears to have a single black neckband and a narrow black band across its forehead. The plover’s bills and legs are yellowish but their bills have a black tip. During their flight its rump is white in color. The sexes appear similar, in both their size and color. During the winter, their legs and bill gets darker. Piping plovers are seen in small flocks or singularly.
Nutritive mimicry is when a non-rewarding flower mimics the appearance of a rewarding flower that provides food for the pollinator. Over a period of time the flowers that rely on nutritive mimicry have adapted to mirror the appearance of rewarding flowers. However the mimic is not an exact depiction of the model flower in which they aspire to mirror. This is why it is beneficial for the deceptive flowers to bloom slightly before their model species, as it has been theorized that it does not require a strong resemblance in appearance. In order to increase the chances of pollination the species of mimics have slightly different mimics to the same model flower. These multiples of species of mimics make it difficu...
The titmouse is a small songbird that searches acrobatically for insects among foliage and branches. The tufted titmouse, also known by their scientific name of baeolophus bicolor, is a widespread species from North America. Because the species is so widespread, it can be assumed that the species is not limited by the biotic and abiotic factors that other species are limited by. The titmouse eats only insects in the summer, including caterpillars, beetles, ants, wasps, stink bugs, and treehoppers; they also eat seeds, nut, and berries. However, every population, or a group of individuals of a single species living in the same general areas, is limited by a carrying capacity, or the maximum population size that a particular environment can sustain. At one point, the biotic or abiotic factors will limit the dispersion and dispersal of the
Fossil evidence suggests that the Cathartid (New World) vultures have been around for quite some time with two fossil species dated from the early Oligocene (about 35 million years ago). During the Pliocene and Pleistocene (about 2 million years ago) th...
Several models have been proposed to explain why might Archaeopteryx or its decedents develop the ability to fly. The “pouncing proavis” or “trees-down” model was proposed by J.P. Garner and colleagues in 1999. They theorize that birds evolved to the ability to fly by first living in trees and then gliding down to ambush prey. Natural selection favoured individuals that could glide the furthest to catch prey and eventually led to the origin of flight. Garner and colleagues (1999) believed that this theory explained three aspects of early flight: the model matches observed secession in flight evolution based on fossil records, it predicts a primitive bird-like animal had few adaptions to flapping but very complex aerodynamic feathers, and it explains the origin of rachis in feathers.
Two studies have shown that the resting metabolic rate of 11 species of cockroaches were VO2=0.261 Moles (Coelho and Moore, 1989) and 3 species of crickets were VO2=0.277 (Prestwich and Walker, 1981) are very similar.
After the blocks died out, pony bead seeds grew on the island. These very tiny seeds caused some difficulty for the birds studied. All finches, with the exception of Tosserus saladis, increased slight to moderately.
Pollinators are very important to the environment because many plant species rely on reproduction to be carried out by pollination1. Bees are dependent on plants for pollen and nectar and in return, are the most common pollinator of plant species and around 90 percent of plants require pollination by an animal7. Bees are used in farming, both for pollinating crops and for producing honey, and the estimated value of bees to the United Kingdom is £400 million per year9. Plants are the primary producers in many food webs and, as so many are dependent on pollination in order to reproduce, a decline in pollinators would have a detrimental effect on whole ecosystems. Therefore, the declining numbers of pollinators, particularly bees, are a cause of concern because of the environmental knock-on effects.
Zacherl, Danielle. “Biology 171 Evolution and Biodiversity.” National Association of Research in Science Teaching 2007 Annual Meeting, New Orleans LA. (2007):n. page. Print.
There is an abundant amount of animal species in the world. They all have adapted and evolved to survive in their surroundings. Some have grown fins, others legs, and still others wings. One of the animals that has grown wings is the bat. The bat is a truly great creature. It has all the characteristics of mammals while also possessing the skill of a bird in flight.
There are many different types of pollinators, these include, hummingbirds, moths, bats, bees, beetles, flies, wasps and many more creatures. One of the most unusual pollinators, the hummingbird, is attracted to red, yellow, and orange tubular flowers, such as tulips (U.S. Forest Service). The hummingbird utilizes it’s long bill by sticking it down the flower to retrieve nectar, this results in their heads lightly covered in pollen. Nocturnal blooming flowers are pollinated by moths and bats who both work at night. The most efficient of all...