Animal Behavior 1st Midterm

Question 1

Define “Life History Trait.”

Answer 1

A trait that determines how individuals allocate time and energy throughout their lives to various fundamental activities such as reproduction.

Question 2

List the four constraints that affect optimal foraging behavior.

Answer 2

Physiological Constraints

Motivational Constraints

Ecological Constraints

Life History Constraints

Question 3

Describe Physiological Constraints as they apply to optimal foraging behavior.

Answer 3

Things can’t evolve sometimes because it would be physically impossible (birds can’t get too big without being unable to fly) or because certain evolutions would compromise other requirements (getting too big would require too much energy).

Question 4

Describe Motivational Constraints as they apply to optimal foraging.

Answer 4

The same animal that is under the same physiological constraints will have different levels of motivation during the day; birds starved for more time are more likely to take bigger risks to get more food.

Question 5

Describe Ecological Constraints as they apply to optimal foraging.

Answer 5

Depending on an animal’s environment, certain evolutions would not be viable while that same evolution could be viable in a different environment.

Question 6

Describe Life History Constraints as they apply to optimal foraging.

Answer 6

Throughout life, behavior will be adjusted, meaning that an animal will not behave the same way as an adult as it would have when it was young. Some things an animal does are based upon what they have already done, for example if they want offspring, they will have less offspring based on how many they have already had earlier in their lives. An inherent trade-off exists: investment in one activity limits an animal’s ability to invest in others. As applied to reproduction, a parent’s dilemma: investment in any one offspring limits an animal’s ability to invest in others.

Question 7

What are the three components of Darwin’s theory of natural selection?

Answer 7

• Variation
• Heritability of variations
• Differential reproductive success based upon variation

Question 8

Jays showed the ability to discriminate between fresher caches and older caches by memory when they placed them. What does this demonstrate?

Answer 8

Jays likely have episodic memory, meaning they not only remember an event, but they also remember when and where the event occurred.

Question 9

What is the comparative approach to studying animal behavior?

Answer 9

Comparing different species to understand shared or different behaviors.

Question 10

When are comparative studies most useful?

Answer 10

Comparing broad trends in evolution and for testing hypotheses that cannot be tested experimentally.

Question 11

What is an optimality model and what does it do?

Answer 11

An optimality model seeks to predict which particular trade-off between costs and benefits will give the maximum net benefit to an individual. Net benefit is measured in terms of gene contribution to future generations.

Question 12

Economic cost benefit analysis involves what?

Answer 12

Comparing alternative currencies and trying to understand why a particular currency is appropriate in each case.

Question 13

What are some examples of trade-offs that occur in life histories?

Answer 13

• Growth and Development
• Reproduce early or delay
• Clutch size vs. clutch number
• Offspring size and offspring number

Question 14

What are three types of currency for foraging animals?

Answer 14

1. Rate of food intake
2. Efficiency (bees limit the amount of time they spend flying to gather pollen because the longer they fly the earlier they die, so even though they will gather slightly more pollen in a trip, they will have to eat more of it to get back and the opportunity cost goes up as they continue to gather)
3. Risk of starvation (higher risk of starvation means riskier behavior for possible higher rewards, while lower risks of starvation result in behavior that is associated with low risk and low reward).

Question 15

Define Social Cognition.

Answer 15

Social cognition is the concept that an individual can perceive the knowledge of another individual and act based upon that perceived knowledge.

Question 16

What are the 3 criteria an individual must meet to be regarded as a teacher?

Answer 16

1. An individual must change their behavior in the presence of a näive observer.
2. There must be an initial cost to the teacher
3. The näive observer acquires skills or knowledge more rapidly as a result.

Question 17

What are three advantages of optimality models?

Answer 17

1. Predictions are testable and quantitative
2. Assumptions underlying hypotheses are made explicit
3. Emphasize generality (results are often applicable to many different species)

Question 18

Optimality models are concerned with:

Answer 18

1. The currency for maximum benefit (e.g. maximize rate of energy delivery to the nest or maximize rate of fertilization)
2. The constraints on the animal’s performance (e.g. search and handling time, risk of predation, energy costs).

Question 19

Apostatic Selection

Answer 19

Rarer prey types have an advantage.

Question 20

Masquerade

Answer 20

Resembling inedible objects.

Question 21

Crypsis

Answer 21

Avoiding observation or detection.

Question 22

Aposematism

Answer 22

Warning coloration (animals brightly colored to war off prey).

Question 23

Mülleran Mimicry

Answer 23

When multiple distateful species look like each other.

Question 24

Batesian Mimicry

Answer 24

When a palatable species looks like a distateful species.

Question 25

List the two trade-offs in prey defenses.

Answer 25

1. Allocation costs due to limited resources (fewer resources for growth and development).
2. Opportunity costs (the animal could be doing something else rather than defending.

Question 26

What are ESSs?

Answer 26

Evolutionary stable strategies are strategies that, if all members of a population adopt them, cannot be bettered by alternative strategies.

The basic concept of ESS is that a single strategy should prevail unless morphs have exactly equal fitness or have a fitness advantage when rare.

Question 27

What are the “types” of ESS and what are they?

Answer 27

• A “Pure” ESS involves always doing the same thing.
• A “Mixed” ESS involves sometimes doing one thing and sometimes doing another. This concept also includes when it is stable for some individuals only to do one thing while others only do another thing.

Question 28

Territoriality manifests inself in two ways:

Answer 28

• Exploitation: When one individual uses up the resources of another.
• Resource Defense: When individuals keep others away from resources through dominance or territoriality.

Question 29

Frequency Dependent Selection

Answer 29

When the fitness of a phenotype is dependent on its frequency relative to toher phenotypes in a given population.

In positive (or purifying) frequency-dependent selection, the fitness of a phenotype increases as it becomes more common.

In negative (or diversifying) frequency-dependent selection, the fitness of a phenotype increases as it becomes rarer.

Question 30

Define Strategy and Tactic.

Answer 30

Strategy: Genetically based decision rule.

Tactics: Behavior pattern as part of a strategy.

Question 31

Define Personality.

Answer 31

Consistent differences in individual behavior, both over time and acorss different contexts.

Question 32

What does the term “dilution advantage” refer to?

Answer 32

It refers to the concept that individuals join groups as a way to make themselves less likely to be attacked (that another member of the group will be attacked instead).

Question 33

List the reasons an individual may benefit from being part of a group.

Answer 33

1. Dilution advantage
2. Reduction of an individual’s domain of danger (selfish herd effect)
3. Confusion of predator attacks
4. Communal defense
5. Improved vigilance for predators
6. Improve foraging through better food finding/better prey capture

Question 34

Define “cognitive (euclidean) map.”

Answer 34

The ability to construct a map of large-scale space in which landmarks are represented within a common coordinate system and positions of landmarks are geometrically represented as true angles and distance relationships. Higher level of thinking than route integration/dead reckoning.

Question 35

Define “dead reckoning/route (path) integration.”

Answer 35

Dead reckoning is the ability to determine one’s loation by integrating direction and distance travelled. Use of it indicates animals hae an egocentric map of their surrounding (meaning their understanding of the locations of surroundings is based on their own location relative to other objects).

Question 36

List the two requirements for dead reckoning/path integration.

Answer 36

An animal must have the following to be able to use dead reckoning:

1. A sense of distance
2. A means for keeping track of angle displacement (e.g. sun)

Question 37

List and define two types of asymmetries that have the greatest effect upon the outcome of a contest.

Answer 37

• Resource Holding Power (RHP) asymmetries: differences in fighting ability
• Payoff Asymmetries: differences in the consequences of wining or losing the cotest for the two constestants.

Question 38

Explain the reasoning behind the Prior Residence Effect.

Answer 38

1. Ownership may be used as a convention for contest settlement
2. Prior owners are stronger or better fighters, therefore prior ownerships correspond to an RHP asymmetry
3. The resource may be more valuable to the owner than the intruder, and therefore prior ownership corresponds to a payoff asymmetry. This increased value to the prior owner may cause them to fight harder for the resource.

Question 39

What is the Allee Effect?

Answer 39

The Allee Effect is the positive corelation between size or density and the mean individual fitness of a population or species.

Question 40

What are some navigation cues used over relatively short distances?

Answer 40

• Olfactory trails
• Beacons (like the sun or other large scale landmarks)
• Local Landmarks
• Global Landmarks (stars, earth’s magnetic field)