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Presentation
G-2 Hot and Bothered II: Climate Change, Cannibalism, and Ovulation Synchrony
Celebration of Research and Creative Scholarship
  • Shandelle M. Henson, Andrews University
  • James L. Hayward, Andrews University
Presenter Status
Department of Mathematics
Second Presenter Status
Department of Biology
Location
Buller Room 251
Start Date
1-11-2013 3:15 PM
End Date
1-11-2013 3:30 PM
Disciplines
Presentation Abstract

In the previous talk, “Hot and Bothered I”, we found that increasing sea surface temperatures (SST) are associated with a lack of food for surface-feeding marine birds, which leads to a higher rate of egg cannibalism in seabird colonies. If more eggs are laid at one time, each egg has a smaller chance of being cannibalized due to “predator satiation”; hence, ovulation synchrony could confer a selective advantage in the presence of egg cannibalism. We demonstrated the existence of ovulation synchrony in two species of colonial birds and formulated the following hypothesis: Rising SST and its concomitant food scarcity selects for cannibalism, which in turn selects for reproductive synchrony.

Citation Information
Shandelle M. Henson and James L. Hayward. "G-2 Hot and Bothered II: Climate Change, Cannibalism, and Ovulation Synchrony" (2013)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/shandelle_henson/22/