Communication and Signals - An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology - page 423

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Suggest examples of indices that have been exaggerated. How would you test your ideas?
2. Discuss whether the Hamilton and Zuk (1982) hypothesis, described in Chapter 7, is likely
to revolve around indices or handicaps and how you would test this empirically.
3. Does the production of pheromones in yeast provide an example of a handicap signal of
mate quality (Pagel, 1993; Smith & Greig, 2010)?
4. Lachmann et al . (2001) contrast situations in which honesty is maintained by the cost of
producing signals, in which signals are costly, with those in which honesty is maintained
by the social cost of dishonest signals, in which signals would be relatively cost free. How
would you distinguish between these types experimentally? Do they both represent
handicap signals?
5. Are elongated tails of birds likely to be costly signals (Norberg, 1994; Thomas & Rowe,
1997; Rowe et al ., 2001; Neuman et al., 2007)?
6. Discuss whether quorum sensing would be expected to occur between species.
7. Backwell et al . (2000) suggest that 44% of fiddler crab individuals dishonestly signal claw
strength. How can this high frequency of deception be maintained?
8. Discuss the use of the concept of information in categorizing and defining communication
(Scott-Phillips, 2008, 2010; Rendall et al ., 2009; Font & Carazo, 2010; Scarantino, 2010;
Seyfarth et al ., 2010).
9. Compare quorum sensing in bacteria (this chapter) with that in ants (Franks et al ., 2008).
10. Could animals be selected to deceive themselves (Trivers, 2000 , 2011)? How would you test
this?