GUEST DISCUSSION by Friday Seminar Speaker

Al Uy and Floria Mora-Kempfer

Snacks & Who is Who by Hulali and Avehi

Reading:

Mora-Kepfer**, F. 2014. Context-dependent acceptance of non-nestmates in a primitively eusocial insect. Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology 68(3): 363-371. 

QUESTIONS:

What genomic tools could you apply to address questions related to this topic?

1) Make a list of all the words you don't know, and google a few of them.
2) In your own words, possibly with some background reading, explain the "Optimal Acceptance Threshold Model"
3) In your own words, try to reconstruct the ethogram that was used.
4) Describe the controls that were used in this experiment, and what they "controlled" for.
5) What is a non-parametric statistical test? Why do you use them? What is the difference between a Mann-Whitney U test and a Kruskall-Wallis test and when is each used? What is the parametric equivalent or each?
6) What are a few of the unanswered questions?
7) Design an experiment to answer one or two of them?
8) What is Brood Theft?
9) What is the evidence against "kin selection" as the explanation for acceptance of non-nestmates?
10) How would you use genomic techniques to determine the degree of relatedness within wasp colonies and whether this influenced the acceptance rate?
11) What is meant by the term "plasticity" and how is that different (if it is) from simply saying "behavioral response"?
12) How could you use behavioral genomics to study to mechanisms that underlie "context dependent non-nestmate acceptance"?