Breeding aggregations of Bufo cognatus were observed in southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico during June, July and August, 1980-82. Most breeding aggregations lasted only two or three nights following summer rainstorms. Males substantially outnumbered females at choruses, and females actively selected mates from among displaying males. Some small males adopted satellite positions near calling males, and the percentage of time a male was observed calling was significantly correlated with snoutvent length. Male mating success was positively correlated with the percentage of time a male was observed calling, but male size and mating success were not correlated. There was no indication of positive assortative mating with respect to body size. It is concluded that Bufo cognatus has a lek mating system.
Behaviour publishes original research pursuing Tinbergen's four questions and questions resulting from the interrelationship among the four. In addition, the editorial board encourages reviews of behavioural biology that illuminate emergent trends and new directions in behavioural research. Niko Tinbergen (1907-1988) defined 4 questions for research in behavioral biology: Proximate causation of behaviour: 1. How does an animal use its sensory and motor abilities to activate and modify its behaviour patterns? (physiological mechanisms) 2. How does an animal's behaviour change during its growth, especially in response to the experiences that it has while maturing? (ontogeny of development) Ultimate causation of behaviour: 3. How does the behaviour promote an animal's ability to survive and reproduce? (adaptation) 4. How does an animal's behaviour compare with that of other closely related species, and what does this tell us about the origins of its behavior and the changes that have occurred during the history of the species? (phylogeny) Niko Tinbergen shared, with Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch, the 1973 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology for contributions to the study of behavioural biology. Tinbergen was at heart an experimentalist who, more than Lorenz and von Frisch, applied the scientific method to the field of animal and human behaviour. It is his experimental approach to the study of behaviour that lasts to this day. That is why Tinbergen listed questions and not answers (theorems or laws). The answers (or at least some of them) are published monthly in Behaviour, the journal Tinbergen co-founded with W. H. Thorpe in 1948.
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Behaviour
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