Talk:Island tameness

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[edit] Theories

This article contains only theories and is unreferenced. As such it does not comply with the guidelines. --WikiCats 03:50, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

No, it simply required references, now provided. Sabine's Sunbird talk 07:00, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Let me ask this question. Is animals’ ability to ovoid predators learned or instinctual? --WikiCats 11:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

So I think it's pretty safe to assume that an prey species skill to ovoid predators is learned. If not killed, a prey learns very quickly to ovoid that situation again. This is why this theory is just a theory believed by some. This raises a NPOV issue with the article because an opposing point of view has not been included. --WikiCats 04:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

• Anti predator behaviours run the gamut from both instictual to learnt, with a lot of reinforcement mixing things up (as I said on your talk page). Essentially, the science of ethology is teasing apart the interactions between learnt behaviours and instinctual, and the ways they are linked. How did you make the leap from my saying that on your talk page to your statement it's pretty safe to assume that an prey species skill to ovoid predators is learned. It is not safe to assume that. It is incorrect to assume that. No one assume that who works in ethology. Please show me a single scientific paper or for that matter reference work that makes that assertion. Please show me a single link to anything, anything at all, that contests the assertion that isolated island faunas exibit execptional tameness, lack behavioural defences to predators that they did not evolve with, and are at risk because they lack these instinctive behaviours. Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Let me explain something. The issue is not whether these animals are tame or not. The issue is this proposal that these animals will never learn to adapt to threats, which is absurd. --WikiCats 08:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

• Okay, fine, now I see what you're driving at. And yes, some of these animals learn to adapt to these threats, and begin to evolve. And no, some animals never learn to adapt to these threats, and go extinct. Like the dodo, which famously was so "dumb" you could catch one and all the others would come running to see what was wrong. It didn't adapt fast enough, and became a byword for stupidity. But it wasn't stupid, just naive. Like most island populations, remember, it was a very small population, and once it starts getting reduced by hunting the amount of genes for evolution to work with is pretty small. Throw in a bit of habitat loss and it is not remotely absurd that a species could not adapt to new threats fast enough - it is estimated that 2000 species of birds went extinct in the islands of the Pacific following the arrival of man. Not everything went extinct, and what survived is a great deal warier than species that remain isolated, so yes, some things do adapt and learn to avoid predators. A more complete article wopuld discuss this, but I just rattled off this article to get rid of a redlink from Procellariidae, and meant to come back and work on it later, and I'll be happy to discuss that some species can lose their tameness. Good? Sabine's Sunbird talk 17:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I explained in my email what my concerns are. As far as this article goes, I would like to see an opposing point of view for the sake of NPOV. Are you ok with that? --WikiCats 10:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to provide one, if you can find any references. Though there is strong selective pressure, the odds of a mutation that specifically endows a prey species with some behavioral tendency to save them from the predator, in terms of instinct or learning potential, is very low. Prey species that haven't been involved in an evolutionary arms race with their predator for generations are at a huge disadvantage and though they would eventually evolve to become better adapted, they will almost certainly be driven to extinction in most cases. Richard001 10:22, 22 March 2007 (UTC)