Table Of ContentEVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY
BIOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT
General Editor: Bernard Stonehouse
THE BIOLOGY OF PENGUINS
Edited by BERNARD STONEHOUSE
THE BIOLOGY OF MARSUPIALS
Edited by BERNARD STONEHOUSE
and DESMOND GILMORE
EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY
Edited by BERNARD STONEHOUSE
and CHRISTOPHER PERRINS
EVOLUTIONARY
ECOLOGY
Edited by
BERNARD STONEHOUSE
School of Environmental Science
University of Bradford
and
CHRISTOPHER PERRINS
Edward Grey Institute of
Field Ornithology
University of Oxford
M
© the contributors 1977
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1977 978-0-333-19676-2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, without permission
First published 1977 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD.
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Associated Companies in New York
Melbourne Dublin Johannesburg and Madras
ISBN 978-1-349-02964-8 ISBN 978-1-349-02962-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-02962-4
Typeset by Reproduction Drawings Ltd. Sutton, Surrey
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Contributors
VAN BALEN, DR J. H-Institut voor Ecologisch Onderzoek, Kemperbergerweg 11,
Arnhem, The Netherlands
CA vt, DR A. J. - lnstitut voor Ecologisch Onderzoek, Kemperbergerweg 11,
Arnhem, The Netherlands
CHITTY, PRoFESSOR D. H. -Department of Zoology, University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
FRY, DR C. H. -Department of Zoology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen
GIBB, DR J.-DSIR Ecology Division, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
HARRIS, DR M. P.-Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Banchory Research Station,
Glassel, Banchory, Kincardineshire
KLUYVER, PROFESSOR H. N.-lnstitut voor Ecologisch Onderzoek,
Kemperbergerweg 11, Arnhem, The Netherlands
KREBS, DR J. R.-Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, Department of
Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford
LEVIN, PROFESSOR D. A.-Department of Botany, University of Texas at Austin,
Austin, Texas 78712
MEDWAY, LoRD-Great Glernham House, Great Glernham, Saxmundham,
Suffolk 1P l7 1 LP
NELSON, DR J. B. -Department of Zoology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen
NEWTON, DR I.-The Nature Conservancy Council, 12 Hope Terrace, Edinburgh 9
NISBET, DR I. C. T. - Massachusetts Audubon Society, lincoln, Massachusetts
01773
0RIANS, PROFESSOR G. H.-Department of Zoology, University of Washington,
Seattle 5, Washington
0RIANS, C. E.-Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine
0RIANS, K. J.-Overlake School, Redmond, Washington
OwEN, DR D. F.-66 Scraptoft Lane, Leicester
PERRINS, DR C. M.-Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, Department
of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford
PYE, PROFESSOR J.D.-Department of Zoology and Comparative Physiology,
Queen Mary College, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS
RicKLEFS, DR R. E. -Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19174
RoSENZWEIG, DR M. L-Department of Ecology, University of Arizona,
Tucson, Arizona 85712
ScHAFFER, DR W. M.-Department of Biological Sciences, College of liberal
Arts, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721
SCHAFFER, M. V.-Department of Biological Sciences, College of liberal Arts,
University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721
vi Contributors
SNow, DR D. W. -Bird Room, British Museum (Natural History), Tring,
Hertfordshire
TURNER, PROFESSOR B. L. -Department of Botany, University of Texas at
Austin, Austin, Texas 78712
WATSON, DR A.-Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Banchory Research Station,
Glassel, Banchory, Kincardineshire
WYNNE. EDWARDS, PROFESSOR V. C.-c/o Department of Zoology, University
of Aberdeen, Aberdeen
ZAHAVI, DR A.-University of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel
Contents
2 Introduction 2
Dr B. Stonehouse and Dr C M Perrins
SECTION 1 POPULATION REGULATION AND THE FUNCTIONS OF 3
TERRITORY
2 Society versus the individual in animal evolution 5
Professor V. C Wynne-Edwards
19
3 Population limitation and the adaptive value of territorial behaviour in
Scottish Red grouse Lagopus I. scoticus
Dr A. Watson
4 Natural selection and the regulation of density in cyclic and non-cyclic 27
populations
Professor D. Chitty
5 Factors affecting population density in the wild rabbit Oryctolagus 33
cuniculus (L), and their relevance to small mammals
DrJ. A. Gibb
47
6 Song and territory in the Great tit Parus major
Dr J. R. Krebs
SECTION 2 FEEDING ADAPTATIONS AND ECOLOGICAL SEGREGATION 63
7 Comparative ecology of seabirds in the Galapagos Archipelago 65
DrM P. Ha"is
8 Some relationships between food and breeding in the marine 77
Pelecaniformes
Dr J. B. Nelson
89
9 Coexistence and diversity in heteromyid rodents
Dr M L. Rosenzweig
10 Courtship-feeding and clutch size in Common terns Sterna hinmdo 101
Dr 1 C T. Nisbet
SECTION 3 BREEDING ADAPTATIONS AND REPRODUCTIVE RATES 111
11 Timing and success of breeding in tundra-nesting geese 113
1 Newton
12 The evolutionary significance of co-operative breeding in birds 127
DrC H. Fry
viii Contents
13 Helpers at the nest in some Argentine blackbirds 137
Professor G. H Orians, C E. Orians and K. J. Orians
14 The occurrence of time-saving mechanisms in the breeding biology of 153
the Great tit Parus major
Dr H N. Kluyver, DrJ. H van Balen and Dr A. J. Cave
15 Latitudinal gradients in clutch size: an extension of David Lack's theory 171
Dr D. F. Owen
16 The role of predation in the evolution of clutch size 181
Dr C M Perrins
17 A note on the evolution of clutch size in altricial birds 193
Dr R. E. Ricklefs
18 Clutch size in the Compositae 215
Professor D. A. Levin and Professor B. L. Turner
SECTION 4 BEHAVIOUR, ADAPTATION AND TAXONOMIC 223
RELATIONSHIPS
19 Echolocation and the systematics of swiftlets 225
Lord Medway and Professor J. D. Pye
20 Duetting and other synchronised displays of the blue-backed manakins, 239
Chiroxiphia spp.
Dr D. W. Snow
21 Reliability in communication systems and the evolution of altruism 253
Dr A. Zahavi
22 The adaptive significance of variations in reproductive habit in the 261
Agavaceae
Dr W. M Schaffer and M. V. Schaffer
277
Publications by David Lack
285
Author index
291
Subject index
1 Introduction
Dr B. Stonehouse and Dr C. M. Perrins
The twenty-one papers in this volume, centred on the theme of Evolutionary
Ecology, are presented by biologists from a range of research fields. The factor
common to all contributors is that their work has, in some important way, been
influenced by David Lack. David Lambert Lack ( 1910 -73 ), whose life and works
are summarised in a group of obituary notes in Ibis Volume 115 part 3 (1973),
was primarily an ornithologist. He was also an evolutionist of distinction whose
main field of study was the ecology and evolution of birds, and whose writings
appealed strongly to a very wide range of biologists in many fields of research.
Among the contributors to this volume are several former students and colleagues,
who knew Lack personally and benefited directly both from his teaching and
from his warm personality. Other contributors represent the majority-biologists
all over the world who knew him only from his writings, but gained a better
understanding of their own research from his concepts and approach.
Son of a London surgeon, David Lack developed an early interest in ecology
and the mechanisms of evolution through spare-time studies of birds, firstly as a
schoolboy under the guidance of his father and later as an undergraduate escaping
the aridity of a classical zoology course at Cambridge University. Influenced mainly
by the semi-popular writings ofW. P. Pyecraft, and later by Julian Huxley and
J. B.S. Haldane, his earliest studies resolved themselves into a search for evolu
tionary answers to the ecological problems which his fieldwork disclosed. Though
not uncommon today, this approach was novel in the early 1930s when his
research career began. It was rare even among the few field biologists of the time
who shared his interest in living animals and their responses to environmental
pressures, and it offered only meagre opportunities for a professional career in
science. So David Lack's first appointment on graduation was as a schoolmaster;
it was as an amateur that he did the research on nightjars, robins and Galapagos
fmches which established him firmly as a scientist and writer. In 1945 he obtained
his first and only professional appointment as a biologist - directorship of the
Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at Oxford University, which he held
until his death.
The freshness of his approach is apparent in his early papers and books, and
one of the reasons why they are still read with enthusiasm by successive genera
tions of students. The Life of the Robin (1943), possibly his best-known book,
can still be cited as an all-too-rare example of a readable biological monograph.
The numerical data which he presented, from his pioneering banding study of
robins, were among the first to be interpreted in life-table terms, and as such
were regarded with suspicion and alarm by the scientific community. As he
