Study Questions for Alternative Strategies

1.How are sperm and egg the basic reproductive strategies?

2. Draw a graphical model that explains why reef fish should transform from male to female.

3. Describe an ultimate reason why sex has evolved?

4. Why is a 50:50 sex ratio stable?

5. What is meant by condition dependent versus genetically determined strategies? Use the isopod and blue gill examples to explain your answer.

6. What is the hotspot hypothesis for the origin of leks? What is the traffic hypothesis? Outline an example that proves or disproves one?

7. How do the lizards of the rock-paper-scissors game illustrate the three basic male mating strategies? Why does no strategy win in the long run in the rock-paper-scissors game? Describe each strategies strength and weakness.

8. What is an Evolutionary Stable State? Contrast an ESState with an ESS. Is the RPS and ESState?

9. In Caro and Bateson scheme, contrast genes versus plasticity as sources of variation. Give four examples in which you illustrate purely genetic, purely plastic and mixtures of plasticity and genetic control.

 10. What two types of frequency dependent selection contribute to the RPS cycles in isopods, lizards, and damselflies? Describe the force that destabilizes the frequency from the equilibrium and the force that tends to return the frequency back to the equilibrium.