Animal Behavior Flashcards
What is behavior?
An action carried out by muscles under control of the nervous system.
What is the purpose of behavior?
Acquiring nutrients, finding a mate, communicating, maintaining homeostasis, and more.
What are the origins of behavior?
Evolutionary selection over time, which can affect anatomy.
What is innate behavior?
A fixed action pattern; a sequence of unlearned acts that is directly linked to a simple stimulus, called a sign stimulus. They are unlearned and genetically fixed.
What is migration?
A regular, long-distance change in location. During migration, many animals pass through environments they have never encountered before.
What is the time-compensated sun compass?
The ability of animals to track their position relative to the sun or the North Star, adjusted by their circadian clock.
How do circadian clocks oscillate?
They continuously oscillate in constant conditions with a period of about 24 hours.
How does the speed of a circadian clock change?
It doesn’t; these clocks run at about the same speed regardless of temperature, even in cold-blooded animals and plants.
What are circadian clocks usually synchronized to?
They are synchronized to the daily light/dark cycle of exactly 24 hours.
In monarch butterflies and some birds, what dictates migratory patterns?
The position of the sun relative to the time of day.
How does the time compensated sun compass guide migration direction?
It uses the relative time of day (maintained by the circadian clock) and the position of the sun to guide migration direction.
What direction do monarchs migrate for the winter?
They go southwest for the winter.
What happens to monarchs if their circadian clock is shifted by 6 hours?
If the circadian clock of a monarch is shifted 6 hours by maintaining it in an artificially lit chamber, when released outside the monarch’s migration is off by 90 degrees.
How did the migration of warblers in Britain compare to that of Germany?
Warblers from Britain migrated west while warblers from Germany migrated southwest.
What happened to warblers taken from Britain and bred with birds in Germany?
The birds that were the progeny of the British birds migrated west, while the offspring of the German birds migrated southwest.
What does the example of warblers in Europe illustrate about behavior?
Genetics influences behavior. Within a species, there is significant genetic diversity, which can impact innate behavior.
What is a signal?
A stimulus transmitted from one organism to another.
What is communication?
The transmission and reception of signals between animals, which often causes a behavior.
What are the modes of communication?
Visual, chemical, tactile, auditory, and electric.
What is the stimulus response chain?
When the response to each stimulus is the stimulus for the next behavior, this is called the stimulus response chain.
What is the purpose of bee dancing?
Dancing communicates to other bees in the hive the location of food.
When does a bee perform a round dance, and how do other bees respond?
If food is 50 meters away or closer, the bee performs the round dance. Via odor cues, bees figure out the source and location of nearby food.
When does a bee perform a waggle dance, and how does this communicate a message?
If food is farther, the bee performs the “waggle dance.” It goes a half circle in one direction, a straight run with a waggle, and a half circle in the other direction. The angle of the straight run relative to the hive’s vertical surface communicates the horizontal angle of the food relative to the sun. The longer the straight run the farther the food.
What are pheromones?
Odorant or tastant chemical communication between members of a species.
