Before I began graduate school at North Carolina State University I taught high school science, as well as anatomy and physiology to nursing students at ECPI University. I hold a Bachelors of Science degree from California State University San Bernardino, and a Masters of Science from The University of Nebraska. My background in biology is broad, and I enjoy doing both lab and field research. Currently my focus is on reproductive behavior and mate choice in house mice. I am particularly interested in the ecological and behavioral aspects of wild and lab mice, as well as how we humans perceive these mice. As a science educator I have long been interested in interdisciplinary studies and the social dimensions of science. Having an inter-disciplinary
Reproductive monogamy is defined as an exclusive sexual relationship between a female and a male based on their sexual interactions. Social Monogamy refers to male and female’s social living arrangement without sexual interactions. It refers to the living patterns, raising offsprings, and obtaining food. Monogamy is common in birds, but also occurs in invertebrates. Why would a male mammal choose to mate with one female when he can mate with more than one? Why would the male stay around instead of finding another female to live with? Many researchers have attempted to answer this question of why some mammals prefer monogamy over polygamy. Vole rats, one of the species that perform monogamous mating, demonstrate pair boding. Male and female pairs of vole rats have been observed together over several months, and the males stay with females even when the female is not reproductively active. A typical vole family in the wild is almost always consisted of one male, one female, and their offspring. In addition, unlike other species in which females are the only ones taking care of the offspring, vole rats share parental roles and even build nests together. Because they show these monogamous behaviors, they have served as a good species/model to learn about monogamy for neuroscientists. In this paper, monogamy, specifically in vole rats, will be explained along with its proximate and ultimate causes of this adaptation.
My passion for teaching and love for science is rooted in my desire to do something meaningful. I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience to further discuss my qualifications as a high school biology teacher in your school. Thank you for your time and
In his article, The Strategies of Finding a Mate, David M. Buss discusses the act of finding a mate and the characteristics that people are drawn to in a mate. He begins the article with a brief look at the history of mating and the theories that have previously been proposed. In particular he addressed Charles Darwin’s theory of sexual evolution and belief in preferential mate choice. Buss proposes that there are three components to human mating. He states that “human mating is inherently strategic… mating strategies are context-dependent… [and that] men and women have faced different mating problems over the course of human evolution and, as a consequence, have evolved different strategies” (Buss, 1994, p. 241). He uses this theory to propose nine different hypotheses to prove that despite humans being varied and different from each other, all humans look for similar characteristics when trying to find a mate (Buss, 1994).
There are many theories that try to explain relationships between sexual selection and human reproductive behaviour. Evolutionary theory is one such theory.
This essay aims to show a comparison between the differences between both female short-term mating strategies and female long-term mating strategies. It will explore the evolution of psychology that has shown reasons for human mating and how these reasons go above and beyond the general idea of physical attractiveness and love. This essay will identify how mate preferences have evolved and further identify psychological mechanisms that women have used to select their mates over the past. This essay will compare and critically discuss the differences and outline them between female short-term mating strategies and female long-term mating
This past year I have set the career goal of teaching high school science. After looking at a few different degrees Texas Tech offers, I decided that I want to further my education after high by studying Multidisciplinary Science in the College of Education. At the Texas Tech Preview Day last October, I found that Texas Tech offers a path I can take to get my Bachelor of Multidisciplinary Science with a Biology Emphasis and get a minor in Coaching. Graduating with this degree is my main educational goal for the next four years.
Our results show that there was not a significant difference between the different tank densities and the number of antennal groomings within them. (P=0.31). There was also no indication of a statistically significant difference between the tanks when pheromones were not present and when pheromones were present (see fig.1).
My hypothesis was that "If the murky pond is the best environment for the wild male, then that environment will have the highest score(for my fish) because the muddy water will give it the ability to survive every season". My hypothesis was not completely supported, therefore making it false. The statements was not completely correct because I did not account for the chance of mating. While I scored a decent amount on that environment, I realized that it was the same score (5) I got in the clear stream environment (the hardest for wild guppies). I only analyzed the way the stats of my guppy were combined with those of the murky environment. I only had to roll a one or higher in order to survive that season. This resulted in me not being able
The evolution of monogamy in mammals has been challenging to understand for ecologists for many years, because in most cases male mammals are thought to have higher fitness through polygamous mating. One of the principles of evolution is that animals want to maximize their reproductive success, so two animals committing to one another kind of seems counter-intuitive. Animals want to pass on their genes to the next generation, and having more offspring means there 's a higher chance of survival. When females have long lactation periods or gestation, they are unable to mate during this time, so it would seem to be advantageous for the male to move on to their next mate.
Communal nesting is beneficial for the public good. They found you get thermal buffering with nests. Their team put thermal loggers in the nest to see what ambient heat would be in the nest. In Central Namibia they set up two sites. Mist nets were used to capture individuals to take blood, put leg bands on, and take morphological measurements. They measured cooperation of individuals which was the amount of items they brought to the nest. Aggression was measured also, which counted as individuals who chased each other off. In addition, they measured the amount of items brought to individual nesting chambers. Blood was used to calculate relatedness by genotype by sequencing. This allowed them to calculate population genetics and estimate relatedness. They predicted that individuals would modify their behavior depending how related they were to the colony. Punishment was analyzed also.
Additionally, the population of Caucasian Americans in Texas have the highest birth rates in the state and American Indians have the lowest birth rate. “Allan Johnson (2000) reports in addition to these birth rates, demographers use three hypothetical rates to get some idea of the future consequences of current patterns of reproductive behavior in a population. The gross reproduction rate (GRR) is the average number of daughters that would be born to a hypothetical cohort of women if current birth rates for women of various ages were to remain the same throughout their lifetime. In other words, it is the number of daughters they would have if they went through their twenties having babies at the current rate for women in their twenties, through
In the article the researchers were trying to challenge the sexual strategies theory. It seems as though sexual strategies theory is different genders having different preferences when choosing a mate, in the case of long and short term relationships. The hypothesis at first was that both boys and girls felt that attractiveness was important. Girls would be more inclined to date someone because of social status and that boys would be the complete opposite. They also expected that social status would only become important when the person is attractive and social status would be important no matter if the person is attractive on no for girls. The last thing that was tested was according to Ha (2009) “the potential moderator effects of
The evolution of infanticide has been researched by many scientists. It has been found that infanticide evolved as a mating strategy fore males. (Boyko & Marshal, 2009). Boyko and Marshall (2009), explain that males will use infanticide when taking over a new group or for bonding with a new female. It is an adaptive strategy that males use to reduce the time they have to wait fore females to be able to have his offspring (Boyko & Marshall, 2009). Broom, Borris & Koenig (2004) explain a similar hypothesis in their research. They outline that infanticide has a reproductive advantage for the males, and it will only occur when 1) the infant is not their own, 2) the loss of an infant enables the female to conceive sooner and 3) the male has a high chance of being kept for breeding (Borris, et al.,2004)
Sexual strategies are important for any animal who reproduces sexually. Animal compete for their mates in several ways, human included. Human mating strategies have evolved over time along with the rest of our needs and rituals. Males and females need and want different things from mating and these needs and wants have also evolved over time. With the introduction of female independence and technology, such as the internet, sexual strategies and finding a mate have become more complicated that ever before. Researchers are trying to keep up with the changes, including social psychologists who are able to bring a different perspective to the scientific table.
Mating selection is a complex system influenced by many factors. There have been several studies that try to understand the complexity of this system. Many of these studies show that multiple signals provide females with information for mate quality and enough information to differ between males (Candolin 2005). These factors range from physical signals to genetic preferences. The experiments that have been done assumes that the cost of choice increases with the number of signals used. This cost would limit the expectation of multiple signals used (Ccandolin 2005). Selection for health or immunity is still understudied. Those factors represent the genotype and the phenotype of an individual. Health is a conditional phase for an