Final answer:
Cicadas' 17-year emergence cycle is a predator avoidance strategy called 'safety in numbers,' ensuring survival through overwhelming predators and timed emergence favorable for mating.
Step-by-step explanation:
Cicadas' Safety in Numbers Strategy:
The cicadas employ a 'safety in numbers' strategy, which involves large groups of cicadas emerging simultaneously every 17 years. This phenomenon, known as periodical cicadas emergence, overwhelms predators since they cannot consume all members of the cicada population, ensuring that enough cicadas survive to reproduce. The 17-year cycle is thought to be a predator avoidance strategy that avoids sync with the life cycles of potential predators.
Furthermore, the long period underground as nymphs allows them to avoid climatic conditions that may not be favorable and emerge in massive numbers when the time is right for mating. The life history strategy of cicadas reflects an iteroparity approach, where organisms reproduce multiple times during their life cycle, but in the case of periodical cicadas, their long developmental phase leads to a unique and prolonged period between reproductive events.