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S'està carregant… The Secret Perfume of Birds (edició 2022)de Danielle Whittaker
Informació de l'obraThe Secret Perfume of Birds: Uncovering the Science of Avian Scent de Danielle J. Whittaker
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Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar. No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. This is the memoir of an ordinary scientist, not one of the superstars rolling in prizes and grant money. As such, I really wanted to like it, and hoped to get a more honest and typical perspective on a scientific life. However, the book was a letdown. In my opinion, the science is not typical. Too much of it is low quality research. There are multiple instances of what seems to be "p-hacking." While it is nice to learn about research in progress, and not only the settled results, I do not have much faith in results that are essentially statistical noise (without significance) or that result from parsing and re-parsing a small dataset to find spurious correlations. > in birds, only the left ovary develops, which reduces overall body weight > brown-headed cowbirds smelled like freshly baked sugar cookies! I ran around the lab shoving the poor cowbird in everyone’s faces, demanding that they smell it. (Fun fact: People don’t like it when you thrust a largish songbird in their face, particularly one with a rather strong and pointy beak.) > I expected that females would prefer the scent of males with more attractive plumage compared to less attractive males. But I was wrong again. Females seemed to prefer the scent of males with less tail white, although the differences between the two choices were not statistically significant. > In animal behavior, when your predictions are all so spectacularly wrong, it’s time to take a long, hard look at your study and ask yourself what you are really testing. I designed the study with questions about mate choice in mind, but a bird in a plexiglass maze with some scented cotton balls is not choosing a mate. The bird is probably a bit stressed and confused and not interested in sex at all. Perhaps the birds’ choices were related to a different instinct, such as territoriality or fear. I went back and analyzed the characteristics of the males whose scents the females preferred, and I compared them to the rejected scents. Specifically, I compiled data on the males’ tail white (attractiveness), wing length (often used as a proxy for body size), and ratio of body mass to tarsus length (a measure of body condition—basically, how heavy the bird is relative to its body frame). A pattern emerged: whether choosing from within their own population or between their own and a different population, females preferred to be near the scent of smaller males, with shorter wings and lower mass to tarsus ratios. (There was no relationship at all with tail white.) > Heterozygosity—meaning that the two paired chromosomes, one from each parent, each carry a different variant of a gene—is associated with better overall health. Many detrimental genes are only bad for you when you have two copies of them. Having one functional copy of the gene is sufficient for the body’s needs, and that second, inferior copy will then only be a problem if it is passed on to offspring who don’t get a functional copy from the other parent. Being heterozygous also indicates that there is less inbreeding in your background > The researchers genotyped the males in their study at several neutral genetic markers called microsatellites (the same markers used in DNA paternity tests). These small, repeating stretches of DNA are commonly used as a proxy for measuring an individual’s overall genetic diversity. Because they are nonfunctional and do not produce any proteins or regulate any other genes, they are free to mutate more often than functional genes, resulting in high variation across individuals > we found a significant relationship between heterozygosity and preen oil volatile compounds. Specifically, we found that genetic diversity was negatively correlated with the concentration of several volatile compounds, including 1-hexadecanol and 1-heptadecanol. Males with low heterozygosity had more of these compounds in their scent, while males with high heterozygosity had less. > These results don’t tell us if females used the information present in odor to choose their mates, or if odor influenced whether they mated with an extra-pair male. But they do show that preen-oil-based odor predicts an individual’s potential quality and ability to produce and raise offspring. Testing whether odor alone influences such behavior would require conducting highly controlled experiments, with birds whose odors have been manipulated, and allowing the birds to mate and produce offspring. I haven’t done this work, nor do I currently plan to, mostly because I lack the necessary facilities and resources. > the evolution of sociality itself could have been spurred by the fact that it increases access to beneficial microbes > In species with complex social systems, including primates and carnivores, it has been suggested that certain social behaviors like grooming, food sharing, and kissing could have evolved because they transmit microbes. Other researchers have suggested that altruistic behavior—in which one individual helps another, incurring a cost to themselves with no apparent benefit—may have evolved as a way to transmit symbiotic bacteria. > Unfortunately, my preliminary analysis on the relationship between MHC similarity and extrapair fertilizations in the UCSD and Laguna Mountain juncos is based on some shaky data and would not hold up to peer review at this point. > Interestingly, the women showed the same preference, although it was not statistically significant. > after decades of pioneering contributions, Bernice Wenzel sometimes shook her head and remarked how she had felt like a “lone voice in the wilderness” within the ornithological community, which was strongly influenced by the “old boys’ club” of leading ornithologists who were certain they already knew how birds perceived the world. Without diversity in the people who do science, monolithic perspectives can blind us. The fact that women’s discoveries have taken the lead in overturning the long-standing myth of avian anosmia—a myth perpetuated primarily by white men—clearly illustrates this principle Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
Science.
Nonfiction.
HTML: The untold story of a stunning discovery: not only can birds smell, but their scents may be the secret to understanding their world. The puzzling lack of evidence for the peculiar but widespread belief that birds have no sense of smell irked evolutionary biologist Danielle Whittaker. Exploring the science behind the myth led her on an unexpected quest investigating mysteries from how juncos win a fight to why cowbirds smell like cookies. In The Secret Perfume of Birds??part science, part intellectual history, and part memoir??Whittaker blends humor, clear writing, and a compelling narrative to describe how scent is important not just for birds but for all animals, including humans. Whittaker engagingly describes how emerging research has uncovered birds' ability to produce complex chemical signals that influence their behavior, including where they build nests, when they pick a fight, and why they fly away. Mate choice, or sexual selection??a still enigmatic aspect of many animals' lives??appears to be particularly influenced by smell. Whittaker's pioneering studies suggest that birds' sexy (and scary) signals are produced by symbiotic bacteria that manufacture scents in the oil that birds stroke on their feathers when preening. From tangerine-scented auklets to her beloved juncos, redolent of moss, birds from across the world feature in Whittaker's stories, but she also examines the smelly chemicals of all kinds of creatures, from iguanas and bees to monkeys and humans. Readers will enjoy a rare opportunity to witness the twisting roads scientific research can take, especially the challenging, hilarious, and occasionally dangerous realities of ornithology in the wild. The Secret Perfume of Birds will interest anyone looking to learn more about birds, about how animals and humans use our senses, and about why it can sometimes take a rebel scientist to change what we think we know for sure about the world??and No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)598.15Natural sciences and mathematics Zoology Birds Specific topics [Reptiles now at 597.9] Habits and behavior [Ichthyosauria now at 567.93]LCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
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Sometimes a bit... not dry exactly because the tone remained conversational throughout, but certainly dense - doesn't underestimate the reader! But for me a good mix of informative and entertaining. ( )