B3.2 Behaviour

Question 1

What is the definition of behaviour?

Answer 1

The ways in which an animal responds to external or internal stimuli.

Question 2

Why is choosing a good mate important for animals that reproduce sexually?

Answer 2

If the mate is healthy and well adapted to its environment, then the offspring will be healthy

Question 3

Why is courtship behaviour important?

Answer 3

It attracts a mate, and the better the courtship behaviour, the better a mate can be found.

Question 4

What are some mating strategies that some named animals use?

Answer 4

1 mate for life - Swans
1 mate every breeding seasons - Robins
All females mate with 1 dominant male every breeding season - Deer
All females mate with 1 dominant male until he is replaced - Lions

Question 5

Why do parents often defend their young even at great risk to themselves?

Answer 5

So that the young has a greater chance of survival, as it can pass on the parent’s genes to its own offspring.

Question 6

What is a baby’s startle reflex?

Answer 6

If you are holding a baby and stop supporting its head, it throws out its arms and curls its fingers

Question 7

What is innate behaviour?

Answer 7

A behaviour that does not have to be learned. It is hardwired into our brains.

Question 8

Why is innate behaviour a good thing?

Answer 8

It makes the animal more likely to survive

Question 9

What experiment did Tinbergen conduct on herring gulls?

Answer 9

He noticed that chicks peck on a red spot on their parents beaks to make them regurgitate food. He used cardboard models with different coloured spots and saw which one got the most pecks from chicks. The order from most to least popular was black, red, blue, white, yellow.

Question 10

What is imprinting?

Answer 10

The process in which young animals bond with or become attached to animals (including humans) or moving objects they see immediately after hatching or birth.

Question 11

Which ethologist carried out an imprinting experiment, and what animals did he / she use?

Answer 11

Konrad Lorenz found that goslings (young geese) became attached to whatever they first saw.

Question 12

What is habituation?

Answer 12

Habituation is learning the result of a repeated action and learning that if it does no harm, to stop responding to it.

Question 13

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 13

When an animal learns to respond to a new stimulus in the same way as an innate reflex action?

Question 14

What did Ivan Pavlov do?

Answer 14

He noticed that dogs produce saliva when they smell food. He rang a bell just before bringing food to a dog. The dog pricked up its ears, but didn’t produce saliva until it was given the food. After repeating this several times, the dog produced saliva on hearing the bell. It had learned to associate the bell with food.

Question 15

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 15

Operant conditioning is when an animal discovers that a certain kind of behaviour triggers a reward or makes something bad happen.

Question 16

How are sniffer dogs trained?

Answer 16

Through Operant conditioning. It is given an object to sniff and is then presented with various objects with different smells. If it indicates which one has the original smell, it is given a reward.

Question 17

How are police horses trained?

Answer 17

Through Habituation. It is exposed to smoke several times, and after learning that nothing bad happens to it, it stops reacting to the smoke.

Question 18

How are visual signals used to communicate?

Answer 18

Female glow worms use their lights to tell males where to find her.
Mammals often use gestures, facial expressions and body language to communicate their mood.

Question 19

How do animals use sound to communicate?

Answer 19

Many birds keep others out of their territory by singing

Male grasshoppers use sounds to attract females.

Question 20

How do animals use chemicals to communicate?

Answer 20

Many animals use pheromones which diffuse into the air and influence the behaviour of others.

Question 21

What is social behaviour?

Answer 21

Behaviour between groups of the same species

Question 22

How have plants evolved to attract insects?

Answer 22

Many flowers have brightly coloured chemicals in petals
They produce chemical scents to attract insects
Some produce brightly coloured fruit

Question 23

What evidence do we have for human evolution?

Answer 23

Fossils and stone tools, both of which can be dated

Question 24

What ancestors did homo sapiens have?

Answer 24

Ardi (4.4)
Lucy (3.2)
Homo habilis (2.4-1.4)
Homo erectus 
Homo sapiens

Question 25

How do stone tools provide evidence for evolution?

Answer 25

The rocks can be dated to when they came from, and over time tools have become more complex

Question 26

Where and when did homo sapiens evolve?

Answer 26

200,000 years ago in Africa

Question 27

What is mitochondrial DNA?

Answer 27

DNA found in the mitochondria

Question 28

What is the african eve theory?

Answer 28

She is a woman that lived 130,000 - 200,000 years ago who has had a female line from her generation to ours, as you inherit all your mitochondrial DNA from your mother.

Question 29

Why is extracting mtDNA easier than nuclear DNA?

Answer 29

It decays less quickly and there is much more of it