Reference no: EM133271443

Question 1.

Imagine there were three clam species, A, B and C occurring in a sheltered sandy shore. Species A and B occurred at high abundance whereas Species C was rare. A hypothesis was proposed that the dominance of Species A and B was caused by a crab D which preferentially consumed clam C which gave the highest energy return to the crab as compared with the clams A and B. Describe how you would design an experiment to test if the above hypothesis is correct.

Question 2.

A prerequisite for prey to show adaptive behavioural responses to predators is that the prey has the ability to recognize predators as threats and learning is often essential in predator recognition. It is found that larvae of the mosquito Culex restuans will reduce the number of wriggle movement under predation risk. Describe in detail how you would design an experiment to demonstrate that the larval mosquitoes can recognize salamanders (predators which are new to the larval mosquitoes) as a threat.

(Note: A wriggle movement is defined as a series of body undulations ending by a brief resting period during which the larvae is motionless upside down in the water column.)