It has been a crazy few months for us recently. Obviously, we’ve had the busy season with lots of amazing critters – but we have also been doing some studying. Simon had studied the rEvo IANTD course over the summer, but has now added his Poseidon MK6 SSI Instructor certs. Read more…
Prey are well adapted to evade predators, and predators are correspondingly well adapted to catch prey. For most of us it is pretty reasonable to accept that such adaptation happens by natural selection, leading to long-term evolution of animals, making them better to either catch prey or evade predators, whatever end of the food chain you happen to be on. Thus natural selection affects traits such as foraging efficiency or anti-predator behaviours that lead to longer lives, quicker growth rates and, both directly and indirectly, higher reproduction rates. Most of my earlier blogs have more or less built on the assumption of natural selection affecting adaptations of animals.
Bright warning colours on nudibranch. Probably a result of natural selection favouring nudis clearly advertising their poisonous properties.
There is another kind of selection, sexual selection, that is a little bit harder to understand. Sexual selection is the process where traits that directly affect the likelihood of securing a mate is changed over time, leading to the evolution of traits that sometimes seem to act contrary to natural selection in that sexually selected traits rather decrease life expectancy and growth rates. There are many examples of traits governed by sexual selection on land. Bird song, brightly colored males in many birds and lizards, antlers on deer and males adapted for fighting other males for access to females are examples that we all can relate to. It is thought that sexual selection in terrestrial systems are well as important as natural selection in shaping many aspects of populations and also a major force in driving speciation. (more…)
In every documentary I have seen and book I have read about Lembeh, it is stated that the waters of Lembeh are exceptionally productive partly due to the currents that bring nutritious water through Lembeh strait regularly, partly due the black lava sand more or less defining Lembeh that leaks Read more…