Behavior and Ecology Flashcards
Behavior
How organisms cope with their environments
Instinct
An inborn, unlearned behavior
Fixed Action Pattern (FAP)
Not simple reflexes and are not conscious decisions but must be completed in response to a certain stimulus
Learning
A change in behavior brought by an experience
Imprinting
Learning of social behavior through senses
Critical Period
A window of time when the animal is sensitive to certain aspects of the environment
Classical Conditioning
Association of a positive/negative result with a neutral stimulus
Associative Learning
Using a neutral stimulus to get a result from an organism
Operant Conditioning
Trial and error learning
Habitutation
Learning to not respond to a certain stimulus
Insight
The ability to figure out a behavior that generates a desired outcome
Circadian Rhythm
The internal sleep cycle of an organism
Pheromones
Chemical signals between members of the same species that stimulate olfactory receptors and ultimately affect behavior
Agnostic Behavior
Aggressive behavior that occurs as a result of competition for foods or resources
Dominance Hierarchies
Occur when members in a group have established which members are the most dominant
Territoriality
A common behavior when food and nesting sites are short in supply
Altruistic Behavior
Unselfish behavior that benefits another organism in the group at the individual’s expense because it advances the genes of the group
Photoperiodism
Plants bloom in response to changes in the amount of daylight and darkness
Tropism
A turning in response to a stimulus
Phototropism
How plants respond to sunlight
Gravitropism
How plants respond to gravity
Thigmotropism
How plants respond to touch
Ecology
The study of the interactions between living things and their environments
Biosphere
The entire part of the Earth where living things exist
Ecosystem
The interaction of living and nonliving things
Community
A group of populations interacting in the same area
Population
A group of individuals that belong to the same species that are interbreeding