Question 1: A Caribbean rove beetle specializes on locating and burying eggs of the striped sand snake (Serpentus barberpolensis). The island snakes lay eggs in the leaf litter, and provide no further parental care. The beetles, upon locating a snake egg, bury it up to a 1/2 meter below ground, and use it as a provision for their brood. On the one studied island population, competition among beetles was intense, and it was observed that both males and females cooperated in the burial of snake eggs. Furthermore, as with the carrion beetle example covered in class, male rove beetles remained with the females inside the underground burrows until the young completed their development.

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Give me three hypotheses and predictions

Question 1: A Caribbean rove beetle specializes on locating and burying eggs of the
striped sand snake (Serpentus barberpolensis). The island snakes lay eggs in the leaf
litter, and provide no further parental care. The beetles, upon locating a snake egg, bury
it up to a 1/2 meter below ground, and use it as a provision for their brood.
On the one studied island population, competition among beetles was intense, and it was
observed that both males and females cooperated in the burial of snake eggs.
Furthermore, as with the carrion beetle example covered in class, male rove beetles
remained with the females inside the underground burrows until the young completed
their development.
After surveying the surrounding islands, you find that your rove beetle species appears to
have colonized all of the islands of the archipelago, and that on all but two of them, males
show the same pattern of behavior: they remain with the females below ground for the
duration of larval development. On two of the islands, however, they do not. As soon as
the snake egg is buried, and the female is mated, the males on these islands leave in
search of other females and other snake eggs.
Use what you have learned about sexual selection, the evolution of parental care, and any
other relevant topics, to formulate three alternative hypotheses for why extended male
parental care has been lost in these two island populations of beetle. How might islands
with and without male parental care differ in habitat structure, or in the distribution
and/or behavior of snakes or beetles? Derive predictions and tests that would permit you
to distinguish between these as possible explanations for the evolutionary significance of
this change in parental care behavior.
Transcribed Image Text:Question 1: A Caribbean rove beetle specializes on locating and burying eggs of the striped sand snake (Serpentus barberpolensis). The island snakes lay eggs in the leaf litter, and provide no further parental care. The beetles, upon locating a snake egg, bury it up to a 1/2 meter below ground, and use it as a provision for their brood. On the one studied island population, competition among beetles was intense, and it was observed that both males and females cooperated in the burial of snake eggs. Furthermore, as with the carrion beetle example covered in class, male rove beetles remained with the females inside the underground burrows until the young completed their development. After surveying the surrounding islands, you find that your rove beetle species appears to have colonized all of the islands of the archipelago, and that on all but two of them, males show the same pattern of behavior: they remain with the females below ground for the duration of larval development. On two of the islands, however, they do not. As soon as the snake egg is buried, and the female is mated, the males on these islands leave in search of other females and other snake eggs. Use what you have learned about sexual selection, the evolution of parental care, and any other relevant topics, to formulate three alternative hypotheses for why extended male parental care has been lost in these two island populations of beetle. How might islands with and without male parental care differ in habitat structure, or in the distribution and/or behavior of snakes or beetles? Derive predictions and tests that would permit you to distinguish between these as possible explanations for the evolutionary significance of this change in parental care behavior.
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