Question

NATIONAL CENTER FOR CASE STUDY TEACHING IN SCIENCE The Waiting Game: A Case Study on the Behavioral Ecology of Long-Tailed Manakins by Susan Bandoni Muench Department of Biology SUNY Geneseo, Geneseo, NY PartI- Courtship The long-tailed manakin is a perching bird from Central America with very unusual courtship behavior. Males of the long-tailed manakin form leks. Leks are gatherings in which males display either communally or competitively to attract females. In the long-tailed manakin, leks consist of two males, an alpha and a beta male. In addition, there can be as many as 11 other males that take part in the lek. The alpha and beta males perform a leapfrogging dance and butterfly Blights for visiting females, accompanied by synchronous vocalizations called toledo calls. After the two males dance and call together in a display for females, only one male will acrually mate. The leks persist over multiple years. Female long- tailed manakins visit multiple leks over the breeding season, but mate at a single lek each season. Questions 1. Propose a list of questions that an evolutionary biologist might ask about this system in order to design an experiment 2. What possible explanations can you propose for cooperative displays in the long-tailed manakin? Are there some possibilities you can rule out easily with just a little more information? What information do you need? 3. Choose one question and formulate a testable hypothesis

Answer 1

1.a)why the two males dance together even though only one male going to mate?

B) what is the evolutionary benefit by this cooperation ?

2)lekking builds a community for males.By this behaviour females Have the chance to choose the best males and pass the good traits to the offspring.we can rule out easily with the information that males are already helping each other in food and living together.further research can be done for more information.

3)if they are helping each other to reproduce

,Then it can be continued as a species as a whole .