Behavioral Ecology Flashcards

Question

piloting

Answer 1

use of familiar landmarks

Answer 2

movement that is oriented in a specific direction

Answer 3

ability to locate a specific place on Earth's surface

Answer 4

birds have well developed navigation migrating birds can travel hundreds or thousands of miles and return to the same place to breed homing pecans moved hundreds of miles from their loft can return in a single day proximate causes: visual landmarks, sun compass, star compass, geomagnetism

Answer 5

birds routinely follow highways, railways, and waterways many species follow coastlines -results in high concentrations of birds where restricted corridors act as funnels but birds that are blindfolded are still able to navigate

Answer 6

first experimental studies in 1950s starlings kept in round pavilions with and without windows - during spring migration - expected activity tour northwest individuals must also have circadian clock to use a sun compass internal clocks can be altered by manipulating light/dark cycles birds with clocks shifted by 6 hounds shifted their orientation 90 degrees

Answer 7

many migrating birds fly at night and use stars to navigate birds kept in cages in planetarium direct their activity in expected direction -north in spring, south in fall will also shift activity as predicted if stars in planetarium are manipulated birds use more than just the North Star systemic removal of different stars reveal that birds use multiple constellations -redundancy useful during overcast nights

Answer 8

experiments in 1970s showed that birds use geomagnetic field to navigate on cloudy days -ring on head proximate mechanism- leading hypothesis is vision-based system of detection

Answer 9

process in which a signal from one individual modifies the behavior of a recipient individual signal: info-containing behavior or characteristic selection for signals with efficient transmission given the environment and physiology of receiver - tactile signals for fossorial animals - sound signals for aquatic animals

Answer 10

information-containing behavior or characteristic

Answer 11

Karl von Frisch hypothesized that bees communicate with dances waggle dance encodes information on the direction and distance of a food source - position of sun is also important - still works on cloudy days because bees have UV vision

Answer 12

hypothesized that bees communicate with dances

Answer 13

signaler is attempting to exploit the receiver e.g. hognose snake playing dead; fireflies flash the courtship signal of another species and then eat males that respond success of deceitful signals is often frequency dependent when honest signalers are most common -natural selection favors individuals that are rewarded by behaving with normal response when deceitful signalers are most common -natural selection favors individuals that are able to detect and avoid/punish cheaters

Answer 14

behaviors that have a fitness cost to the individuals exhibiting the behavior and a fitness benefit to the receiver includes: cooperative breeding, food sharing, grooming, protection

Answer 15

3 ingredients of natural selection: variation, heritability, more offspring produced than can survive outcome: traits of individuals with higher relative fitness increase in frequency over generations thus, decrease of altruism alleles

Answer 16

variation heritability more offspring produced than can survive

Answer 17

some individuals in population behave altruistically, other don't

Answer 18

altruism behavior has genetic component; is heritable

Answer 19

struggle for existence

Answer 20

selection that acts through benefits to relatives at the expense of the individual Hamilton's rules (1964- William Hamilton) model for the spread of altruistic allele Br > C B = benefit to recipient r = coefficient of relatedness C = cost of altruism direct fitness: derived from generation offspring since kin share alleles, the altruistic individual is receiving a benefit through indirect fitness: -derived from helping relatives produce more offspring than they would on their own inclusive fitness = direct + indirect fitness

Answer 21

measure of genetic relatedness of two individuals what proportion of genes are inherited from a common ancestor (0-1.0) Probability of inheriting same paternal allele: ½ * ½ = ¼ Probability of inheriting same maternal allele: ½ * ½ = ¼ Total probability of inheriting same allele: ¼ + ¼ = ½ ``` Parent-offspring: 0.5 Identical twins: 1.0 Fraternal twins: 0.5 Siblings: 0.5 Half-siblings: 0.25 Grandparent-grandchild: 0.25 Cousins: 0.125 ```

Answer 22

“Would I lay down my life to save my brother? | No, but I would to save two brothers or eight cousins.”

Answer 23

derived from generating offspring

Answer 24

derived from helping relatives produce more offspring than they would on their own since kin share alleles, the altruistic individual is receiving a benefit through indirect fitness

Answer 25

= direct + indirect fitness

Answer 26

delayed direct benefits reciprocal altruism e.g. long-tailed manakins

Answer 27

long-tailed makings males cooperate elaborate courtship behaviors -males are not closely related alpha male gets about 99% of matings why do beta males help? solitary males do not attract females -0 fitness when alpha male disappears, a beta male inherits the display court delayed direct benefit

Answer 28

individuals act altruistically towards those that have helped them in the past or are likely to do so in the future requirements: - recognize each other - repeated interactions - memory of past interactions e. g. vampire bats - experiments show that food received (by donor in past) was best predictor of food donated - more than relatedness

Answer 29

game theory: study of mathematical models of cooperation and conflict - developed in early to mid 1900s by economists - many advancements by John Nash (Beautiful Mind) applied to evolutionary biology in 1970s and later

Answer 30

made many advancements to game theory

Answer 31

two members of a gang are imprisoned, kept apart prosecutors lack evidence to convict a pair on principle charge criminals given a choice: - stay quiet (cooperate with accomplice) - rat (defect) ``` if both cooperate: each serve 1 year if both defect: each serves 2 years if one cooperates and the other defects: defector set free cooperator serves 3 years (sucker’s payout) ``` golden balls game show

Answer 32

some players play multiple times formally developed in 1980s competition to develop computer model for best strategy tit-for-tat model won (only 4 lines of code) - cooperate on first interaction, then match opponents previous move - allows for forgiveness and retaliation - type of reciprocal altruism

Answer 33

action in response to a stimulus

Answer 34

an enduring changing behavior that results from a specific experience in an individual's life

Answer 35

is inherited--meaning that is is passed genetically from parents to offspring

Answer 36

inescapable compromises between two traits that cannot be optimized simultaneously

Answer 37

a framework from economics borrowed by behavioral ecologists to understand and quantity the behavioral choices that animals make

Answer 38

when animals seek food

Answer 39

sexual selection when female choose males

Answer 40

sexual selection when males compete with one another for mates

Answer 41

an internal clock that maintains a 24-hour rhythm of chemical activity

Answer 42

any process in which a signal from one individual modifies the behavior of a recipient individual a crucial component of animal behavior

Answer 43

workers sacrifice most or all of their direct reproduction to help rear the queen's offspring as in bees