1. Animal Behaviour

Question 1

What is animal behaviour the product of?

Answer 1

Natural selection on phenotypes and indirectly on the genotypes that code for those phenotypes

Set of adaptations that equip it for survival in a particular environment

Question 2

What does adaptive value depend on?

Answer 2

Relative costs and benefits of the behaviour to the individual in its environment

Capacity for behaviour is inherited

Question 3

What is animal behaviour?

Answer 3

What it does and how it does it, usually a response to stimuli in its environment which can be biotic and abiotic

Question 4

Is animal behaviour completely the same within a species?

Answer 4

You can get behaviour that is characteristic of a species but you can also get individual behaviour e.g. due to learning and culture

Question 5

What are some of the reasons for studying animal behaviour?

Answer 5

1) Can give insight into our own behaviours
2) Helps with conservation of species: Can study behaviour during captivity and wild and see how they differ as well as for resource management
3) Can tell us how to interact with them in a way that will not harm them
4) Animal welfare= If they are healthy, more likely to produce eggs and other useful products for humans
5) Animal husbandry: Visitors tend to engage more with animals that look like they are in their natural habitat

Question 6

What are Tinbergen’s 4 WHYS for animal behaviour? (AB=CDEF)

Animal Behaviour= CDEF

Answer 6

1) Causation= Proximate factors initiating the behaviour
2) Development= The relative roles of genetics and learning in expression of the behaviour. How the behaviour changes in the animal’s lifestyle as most are open to change due to experience
3) Evolution= How did the behaviour evolve from ancestral phenotypes
4) Function= How does the behaviour contribute to the survival of the organism, what are the ultimate factors involved. This can be used to quantify the behaviour.

Question 7

How can you study animal behaviour?

Answer 7

1) Comparative psychology: Studies of proximate causation e.g. the mechanisms underlying a behaviour which can be caused by internal or environmental stimuli + often lab based and can see development of behaviour

2) Ethology and Behavioural ecology: Studies of ultimate causation- How does the natural environment affect animal behaviour and how aids it. Mainly field and lab studies, selective advantage is that you can see how behaviour is carried out in natural environment
Behavioural ecology: Uses cost-benefit analysis to understand behaviours
Benefits> Costs= Behaviour is adaptive