51 - Animal Behavior

Question 1

An individual behavior is …

Answer 1

An individual behavior is an action carried out by muscles under the control of the nervous system in response to a stimulus.

Question 2

What evolutionary process is animal behavior (in general) subject to?

Answer 2

Natural selection

Question 3

Why does the natural selection of behavior affect anatomy?

Answer 3

Because the recognition and communication that underlie many behaviors depends on body and appearance.

Question 4

What scientist suggested that understanding any behavior requires answering four questions?

Question 5

What is the first, out of the four questions that must be answered to understand an animal behavior?

Answer 5

What stimulus causes the behavior, and physiological mechanisms mediate the response?

Question 6

What is the second, out of the four questions that must be answered to understand an animal behavior?

Answer 6

How does the animals experiences during growth and development influrence the response?

Question 7

What is the third, out of the four questions that must be answered to understand an animal behavior?

Answer 7

How does the behavior aid survival and reproduction?

Question 8

What is the fourth, out of the four questions that must be answered to understand an animal behavior?

Answer 8

What is the behavior’s evolutionary history?

Question 9

What is proximate caution ?

Answer 9

“How” a behavior occurs or is modified.

Question 10

What is *ultimate causation *?

Answer 10

“Why” a behavior occurs in the context of natural selection

Question 11

Which of Niko Tinbergen’s questions ask about *proximate causation *and which ask about *u**ltimate causation *?

Answer 11

Question 1 and 2 ask about proximate causation and question 3 and 4 ask about ultimate causation.

Question 12

Behavioral ecology is defined as the study of …?

Answer 12

Behavioral ecology is defined as the study ofthe ecological and evolutionary basis for animal behavior.

Question 13

What is a fixed action pattern?

Answer 13

A fixed action pattern is a sequence of unlearned acts directly related to a simple stimulus. Fixed action patterns are essentially unchangeable and, once initiated, usually carried out to completion.

Question 14

What is the trigger of a fixed action pattern?

Answer 14

An external cue, called a sign stimulus, is the trigger of a fixed action pattern. An example of this could be a red object prompting the male stickleback’s aggressive behavior.

Question 15

What is migration?

Answer 15

Migration is a regular, long-distance change in location.

Question 16

What is a circadian clock?

Answer 16

A circadian clock is an internal mechanism that maintains a 24-hour activity rhythm or cycle.

Question 17

What are behavioral rhythms linked to the yearly cycle of seasons called?

Answer 17

Behavioral rhythms linked to the yearly cycle of seasons are called circannual rhythms.

Question 18

How is a signal defined?

Answer 18

A signal is a stimulus transmitted from one animal to another.

Question 19

Animal communication is defined as …

Answer 19

…the transmission and reception of signals.

Question 20

What are the four common modes of animal communication?

Answer 20

Visual

Chemical

Auditory

Tactile

Question 21

What is a stimulus-response chain?

Answer 21

In a strimulus-response chain each stimulus is itself the stimulus for the next behavior.

Question 22

What is tactile communication?

Answer 22

Touch signals

Question 23

What is a pheromone?

Answer 23

A pheromone is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species.

Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting outside the body of the secreting individual to impact the behavior of the receiving individual.

There are alarmpheromones, food trail pheromones, sex pheromones, and many others that affect behavior or physiology.

Question 24

What does it mean that an animal is diurnal?

Answer 24

It is active mainly in the daytime.

Question 25

If an animal is primarily or entirely nocturnal which forms of communication is it most likely to use?

Answer 25

Auditory and chemical.

Question 26

Innate behavior is defined as …?

Answer 26

Innate behavior is defined as behavior that is developmentally fixed, meaning that nearly all individuals in a population will exhibit virtually the same behavior, despite internal and environmental differences during development and throughout life.

Question 27

What is a cross-fostering study?

Answer 27

An approach to discovering whatever a behavior is learned through experience. This is done by placing the young of one species in the care of adults from another species (and studying the behavior of the young).

Question 28

Name one of the most important findings of cross-fostering experiments with California mice and white-footed mice.

Answer 28

The influrence of experience on behavior can be passed on to progeny, meaning that the mice themselves exhibited (mainly) the parenting behaviors charactaristic for their foster parents.

Question 29

What is a twin study?

Answer 29

In a twin study researchers compare the behavior of identical twins raised apart with the behavior of those raised in the same household.

Question 30

How is learning defined?

Answer 30

Learning is the modification of behavior based on specific experiences.

Question 31

How is imprinting defined?

Answer 31

Imprinting is a type of behavior that includes both learned and innate components. It is the formation at specific stage in life of a long-lasting behavioral response to a particular individual or problem. Imprinting is distinguished from other types of learning by having a sensitive period.

Question 32

What is the sensitive/critical period?

Answer 32

A limited developmental phase where the type of learning known as imprinting can occur. During this period the young imprint on their parents and learn the basic behaviors of their species, while the parent learns to recognize its offspring.

Question 33

What is an imprinting stimulus?

Answer 33

An imprinting stimulus is a form of learning wherein a very young animal fixes its attention on the first object with which it has visual, auditory, or tactile experience and thereafter follows that object. In nature, the object is almost always a parent; in experiments, other animals, humans and inanimate objects have been used. Imprinting has been studied extensively only in birds, but a comparable form of learning apparently takes place among many mammals and some fishes and insects. Ducklings and chicks, which can imprint in a few hours, lose receptivity to imprinting stimuli within 30 hours of hatching.

Question 34

What is spatial learning?

Answer 34

Spatial learning is the establishment of a memory that reflects the environment’s spatial structure.

Question 35

What is a cognitive map?

Answer 35

A cognitive map is a representation, in the nervous system, of the spatial relationships between objects in an animals surroundings. Some animals use a cognitive map to guide their activity.

Question 36

What is associative learning?

Answer 36

The ability to associate one environmental feature (such as colour) with another (such as foul taste).

Question 37

What is the difference between classical and operant conditioning?

Answer 37

In classical conditioning, an arbitrary stimulus (such as the ringing of a bell) becomes associated with a particular outcome (such as food).

In operant conditioning, also known as trial-and-error learning, an animal first learns to associate one of its behaviors with a reward or a punishment and then tends to repeat or avoid that behavior.

Question 38

The associations that an animal can readily form typically reflect …

Answer 38

… relationships likely to occur in nature. Conversely, associations that can’t be formed are those unlikely to be of selective advantage in the animal’s natitive environment (in the case of a rat’s diet in the wild, for example, a harmful food is far more likely to a certain odor than to be associated with a particular sound).

Question 39

What is cognition?

Answer 39

Cognition is the process of knowing that involves awareness, reasoning, recollection and judgement.

It is noteworthy that animals as small as honeybees have been shown to be capable of distinguishing “same” from “different”, meaning that cognition is no longer a term reserved for ‘large’ mammals.

Question 40

What is problem-solving?

Answer 40

The cognitive ability of devising a method to proceed from one stage to another in the face of real or apparent obstacles.

Question 41

What is social learning?

Answer 41

Learning something by observing another doing it. The other(s) may give feedback in the form of social confirmation if the behavior is performed correctly.

Question 42

What is culture?

Answer 42

A system of information transfer through social learning or teaching that influrences the behavior of individuals in a population.

Question 43

Which can change the fastest;

a) behaviors that result from natural selection
b) behaviors that are learned

Answer 43

b) behaviors that are learned.

(This is the case because the individual does not have to die in order for a process like natural selection to modify their behavior).

Question 44

What is foraging?

Answer 44

Foraging is defined as food-obtaining behaviors. This includes not only eating, but also any activities an animal uses to search for, recognize and capture food items.

Question 45

What is the optimal foraging model?

Answer 45

The idea is that foraging is a compromise between *benefits of nutrition *and the cost of obtaining food. These costes might include the *energy expenditure *of foraging as well as *the risk of being eaten *while foraging. According to this model, natural selection should favor a foraging behavior that minimizes the cost of foraging and maximizes the benefits.

Question 46

The extent to which males and females differ in appearance is a charactaristic known as …

Answer 46

… sexual dimorphism.

Question 47

What is the certainty of paternity?

Answer 47

The degree to which the father can ‘be sure’ the offspring carries his genes. Certainty of paternity is low in species with internal fertilization and high in species with external fertilization. The higher the degree of certainty, the more likely the father is to spend time and energy caring for his offspring.

Question 48

What is intersexual selection?

Answer 48

When members of one sex choose mates on the basis of charactaristics of the other sex, such as courtship songs or claw orange coloration.

Question 49

What is intrasexual selection?

Answer 49

Intrasexual selection involves competition competition, between members of one sex, for mates.

Question 50

What is agnostic behavior?

Answer 50

An often ritualized contest that determines which competitor gains acess to a resource, such as foodor mates.

Question 51

How do scientists analyze situations where more than one mating behavior can result in succesful reproduction?

Answer 51

By applying game theory.

Question 52

What is game theory?

Answer 52

Game theory is used to evaluate alternative strategies in situations where the outcome depends on strategies of all the individuals involved.

Question 53

What is mate-choice-copying?

Answer 53

A behavior, shaped by social learning, in which individuals in a population copy the mate choice of others. Mate-choice-copying can mask genetically controlled female preferences below a certain threshold of difference.

Question 54

Can significant differences in behavior be found *within *a species?

Answer 54

Yes, but they are often less obvious than differences found* between *species.

When behavioral variation between populations of a species corresponds to variation in the environment, it may be evidence of past evolution.

Question 55

How is a selfish behavior defined?

Answer 55

A behavior that benefits the individual at the expense of others, especially competitors.

Question 56

What is the definition of altruism?

Answer 56

A behavior that reduces an animals individual fitness but increases the fitness of other individuals in the population.

Question 57

How can altruitic behavior be maintained by evolution if it does not enhance the survival and reproductive succes of the self-sacrificing individuals?

Answer 57

When parents sacrifice their own well-being to produce and aid offspring, this actually increases the fitness of the parents because the high frequency at which their offspring will survive increases the parents genetic representation in the population.

Like parents and offspring, full siblings have half their genes in common. Therefore selection might also favor helping siblings or helping parents produce more siblings.

Question 58

What are the three key variables in an act of altruism?

Answer 58

1. The benefit to the recipient.
2. The cost to the altruist.
3. The coefficient of relatedness.

Question 59

How is the benefit to the recipient, of an act of altruism, defined?

Answer 59

The benefit, B, is the average number of *extra *offspring that the beneficiary of the altruistic act produces.

Question 60

How is the cost to the altruist defined?

Answer 60

The cost, C, is how many fewer offspring the altruist produces.

Question 61

How is the coefficient of relatedness defined?

Answer 61

The coefficinet of relatedness, r, equals the fraction of genes that, on average, are shared.

Question 62

What is Hamilton’s rule?

Answer 62

Hamilton’s rule states that natural selection favors altruism when the benefit to the recipient multiplied by the coefficient of relatedness exceeds the cost to the altruist- in other words, when rB > C.

Question 63

What is the form of natural selection that favors altruistic behavior by enhancing the reproductive succes of relatives called?

Answer 63

Kin selection

Question 64

Define reciprocal altruism.

Answer 64

The exchange of aid between unrelated individuals (the initial aid is motivated by the expectation of a ‘returned favor’ in the future).

Question 65

What is sociobiology?

Answer 65

Sociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted fromevolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context.

Question 66

What is tit-for-tat strategy/behavior?

Answer 66

When one individual treats another the same way the other treated it during their last encounter (you do something for me, I do something for you. If you won’t do something for me I won’t do something for you either):