Animal Behaviour Flashcards
What are the proximate and ultimate causes of behaviour?
Proximate causation- Immediate mechanical influences on a trait, or what caused the action to occur
Ultimate causation- Historical explanation of behaviour in evolutionary terms, or why the action occurs (often linked to evolutionary causes)
How does the behaviour occur vs why does the behaviour occur?
What is anima behaviour? How does it vary?
What it does and how it does it- in response to its environment (biotic and abiotic)
Variation characteristic of species (just like anatomy and physiology is etc). It can also vary on an individual basis (learning and culture)
Why do we study animal behaviour?
- Understand human behaviour
- Animal welfare
- Conservation biology (captive and wild, environment and resource management)
- Biomedicine- to cure human and fro behavioural tests for drugs and other treatments
Why is animal behaviour is one of the most important properties of animal life?
It promotes higher levels of organisation and sociality
Helps us understand the natural world and evolution/ biological adaptations
Give an example in which behavioural repertoire links to life history.
Dogs- are more social which reflects ancestral behaviour (hunting and working in packs) whereas cats are solitary (hunting alone)
Why should we study animal behaviour?
- Conservation (how animals interact with their environment)
- Maximise food production (livestock production)
- How migration and dispersal of animals is affected by urbanisation (e.g. diseases may be spread by foxes moving into urban environments)
- Animal welfare (e.g. in zoos)
- Understanding human behaviour
- Public interest (nature documentaries)
- Biomedicine- using animal testing to see if drugs would be safe for humans
How do we study animal behaviour?
-To question the proximate and ultimate causes of behaviour
What are Tinbergen’s 4 whys?
- Causation (proximate factors)
- Development (genetics and learning in expression of behaviour)
- Evolution- evolution of behaviour from ancestral phenotypes
- Function- how does behaviour of organism contribute to survival
What are the channels of communication? What are their benefits and costs?
Odour -Benefits Transmission in dark Long or short lasting Long fade out time
-Costs
Slow acting
Sound/ auditory
-Benefits
-Receiver does not have to be visible
-Costs
Attenuation and degradation (inverse square law, high frequency sounds scattered easily)
-Degraded signals ignored or confused with other signals
Vision -Benefits Rapid -Costs -Needs direct line of sight and ambient light
Touch -Benefits ? -Costs Physically demanding/energy consuming
Electric field -Benefits Useful at night/ in murky waters -Costs Cannot be transmitted effectively through air so is limited to aquatic environments
How can the problem of sound signal attenuation and degradation be minimised?
- Signal close to a reflecting boundary e.g. water, rock
- Signal from elevated position
What factors affect sound transmission?
- Sound attenuates faster in air than in water
- Obstacles
- Echoes
- Biological noise interference
- Temperature affects sound transmission
What is behaviour a product of?
Product of natural selection on phenotypes and therefore indirectly on genotypes which produce those phenotypes
What is an animal’s behavioural repertoire?
A set of adaptations that equip it for survival in a particular environment.
Why do animals communicate?
- Social interactions such as choosing a mate and defending territories
- Aggregation in better habitats causes them to come into contact more often
- Interactions with conspecifics (same species) and heterospecifics (not same species)
- Very few live in total isolation their whole lives
Define biological communication
An action on the part of one organism (or cell) that alters the probability pattern of behaviour in another organism (or cell) in a fashion adaptive to either one or both of the participants.
The sender must intend to alter the receiver’s behaviour.
What is meant by the following types of communication:
- True communication
- Deceit
- Eavesdropping/ exploitation
- Ignoring/ spite
-True communication
Where both sender and receiver benefit
-Deceit
Where the sender benefits but receiver does not
-Eavesdropping/ exploitation
Where reliever benefits but sender does not
-Ignoring/ spite
Neither sender nor receiver benefits
Why have displays evolved?
To increase their persuasive power, not not maximise the information transfer i.e. purpose of response is not to inform but to persuade
What are discreet and graded signals?
Discreet- all or none, on or off
Graded- intensity varies in proportion to stimulus strength
What are referential and afferential signals?
Afferential-
Communicates information about the sender
Referential-
Communicates information about an entity that is external to the communicating individual.
What are composite and syntax signals?
Composite- Two or more signals combines with a new meaning
Syntax- changing the temporal sequencing of displays to denote different meanings (different orders of signals gives different meanings)
How can the context of a signal change its meaning?
Depending on what other stimuli are received, the meaning of a signal can change
What is metacommunication?
Communication about communication. One display changes the meaning of the following
e.g. behaviours that could be interpreted as aggressive in dogs are preceded by a bow to initiate play
Give an example where message vs meaning of a signal can be interpreted differently by different receivers.
Birds signalling to ward off other birds to their territories but can also signal to a predatory bird that the bird is there andean be eaten (this is a cost)
Describe the economy of effort of signalling.
- May reduce effort to physically compete for something
- eg male cricket- sings to find a mate, therefore female suffers risk and cost of travelling through environment to find it, rather than the male
However this can sometimes lead to exhaustion due to the high physical costs e.g. red deer stag roaring contests often lead to exhaustion.
How can signallers reduce the risk of eavesdroppers doing something at the signallers cost?
- Use frequencies of sound which are difficult to locate and detect
- Use signals that are selectively unavailable to predators e.g. some fish have red spots and their predators are red-blind
- Using direct signals to specific individuals e.g. squid changing colour and pattern
What is the audience effect? Give an example.
Presence of particular onlookers can make behaviours more or less likely.
eg in domestic roosters, they are more likely to do a predator alarm call if surrounded by more hens
What does the evolution of a signal depend on?
- Evolutionary history of species
- Environment where signal is occurring
- “Machinery” available to individuals
What makes a good signal?
- Suited to be detected in receiver’s environment
- Minimum sound degradation (higher frequencies have higher sound degradations)
What are strategies to reduce sound degradation? In forests and open terrain.
Forests: use low frequencies and avoid trills
Open terrain: trills favoured as repeated elements can be detected during brief periods of good transmission
What is a communication channel and why are multiple channels used in communication?
A communication channel is a method of communication e.g. sound, electrical field etc..
Multiple channel are used so that it is more likely that the signal will be interpreted correctly
What are the key requirements for signal reception?
- Must be detectable
- Must be memorable and discriminable
- Must be specific
What is ritualisation and how does it reduce the ambiguity of signals?
Ritualisation is a behaviour which originated as a physiological response which has changed meaning as a behavioural response.Can be used before certain behaviours to clarify their meanings.
Eg. protective reflexes such as narrowing eyes and flattening ears protect sense organs of animals in danger however they can now indicate fear or anger
Ritualisation behaviour is linked to physiological change e.g. threat displays dish involve gill raising - comes from the need to get more oxygen for a fight for metabolic energy production
What is antithesis in terms of signals?
When signals conveying opposite messages often have opposite forms.
List some predator deterrence signals (interspecific communication)
- Flash behaviour (camouflaged animals reveal a brightly coloured part of their morphology)
- Warning colours(show they are toxic)
- Distracting patterns (sudden appearance of these patterns can distract the predator and cause them to hesitate)
- Attention grabbing actions (e.g. bird falling from nest and faking broken wing to lead fox away from nest)
- Play dead(put off predator- potential diseases from eating dead animals
- Alarm signals to let predator know its been spotted/ element of surprise/ attack would be wasted as its already been seen
How do flowers attract specific pollinators?
Co-evolution of flower morphology and colour attract specific pollinators. Also have patterns that can be seen under UV light to attract pollinators
What are the 4 types of spacing signals in primates? Give examples
1 Distance increasing
Branch shaking to deter other groups from their teritory
2 Distance maintaining
Howler monkey’s dawn chorus to maintain their boundaries
3 Distance reducing
Cebu monkey’s lost call to get members of group to come closer
4 Proximity maintaining
During social grooming within groups
What do species recognition signals avoid?
Mating between members of the wrong species
What is deme recognition? Give an example of this in real life.
Recognising individuals from your own local habitat. Eg birds recognise other birds with similar dialects to them (recognise from a similar region) to mate with them
What is neighbour recognition behaviour?
Less intense responses to neighbours as they come in contact with these individuals more often so would be a waste of time and energy to intensely respond to neighbours each time.
How is kin recognition helpful in reproduction?
Helps in finding ate which is not closely related. Chooses a mate with a very different MHC complex- less likely to be related and increases genetic diversity
Increases reproductive success as parents recognise their children and can choose not to invest energy into offspring of other parents.
How do vervet monkeys alert others about; leopards, eagles and snakes?
Leopard- climb trees
Eagles- look up
Snake- look down
What are semantic signals?
Different signals for different dangers
What is an advantage to group living in terms of food?
An advantage of group living = increased foraging efficiency,
• Signals to aid in exploitation / acquisition of food,
• But typically ‘selfish’ motivation
Why are physical fights rare?
- High physical cost
- May lead to death
- Injury
- Selection favours evolution of conflict resolution mechanisms
How does persistence and perception change the likelihood of a fight?
As well as individuals being individually matched increasing the probability of a fight, if an animal hasn’t had food in a long time and they will die if they don’t eat food soon, they are more likely to fight = persistence
Perception- * if individuals know the value of that resource e.g. how good a burrow is, they will be more or less likely to fight for it
What factors may affect how likely a fight is to ensue?
- Whether or not they are equally matched
- Persistance/perception of resource
- Observing fights between others to gauge how likely it is they THEY could win a fight against one of them
- Resident vs intruder- resident almost always wins
- Audience effects
- Social policing )e.g. badges of status)
According to Darwin, in which two ways can an organism increase its chances of reproducing?
1) compete successfully to survive & acquire resources allowing reproduction - NATURAL SELECTION
2) by competing successfully for mating opportunities –SEXUAL SELECTION
How does sexual selection increase an organism’s chances of reproducing?
Intrasexual selection- characteristics which aid competition within one sex (usually male) for access to the other
Intersexual selection– characters that enhance attractiveness of one sex (usually males) to members of the there
Why is sexual selection mainly due to parental investment?
Because females tend to invest more in any one offspring so they must choose their male carefully to get a “good quality” male
Also, males tend to invest less in offspring as females mate with many males so they don’t know which one they are the father of
What are the functions of courtship?
- Mate attraction
- Selection of ‘fittest’ mate
- Maintain long term bonds and coordinate provisioning for offspring
- Coordinate reproductive behaviours and physiology between sexes
What attractive male characteristics does a female bird look for in a male and why?
- Good bird song (long and complex)- shows they have more stamina, are healthier, have better territories and ‘good genes’
- Displays evolved from nest building and ‘nuptial’ gifts.
How do fireflies use deceitful courtship behaviours to their advantage?
Females- do a flash pattern of a different species to attract males which they can then eat
Males- pretend to be another species and when they get close enough, switch to a normal flash pattern which confuses the female long enough for them to mate.
What information does a bee’s waggle dance convey and how?
A figure of 8 dance to tell the others where to find the flowers.
Angle of the dance= angle of the flowers relative to the sun
Amount of waggling/duration of straight run-more waggling/ longer duration of straight part of figure of 8= flowers are further away
Pollen on the bee provides a scent cue to help others find the flowers
What is true language?
Use of symbols for abstract ideas, syntax
