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Biology > Behavioural Ecology > Flashcards

Behavioural Ecology Flashcards

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AP® Biology flashcards Biology 101 flashcards
1
Q

What is behavioural ecology?

A

Focuses on adaptation to understand how behaviours interacts with an environment

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2
Q

What is “Fitness”

A

“The success of an organism to contribute offspring to future generations” often measured as number of grandkids

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3
Q

Phenotypic gambit

A

The assumption that genetic architecture is not constraining or inhibiting evolutionary trajectories

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4
Q

Ultimate questions

A

Ask about the behaviours significance evolutionarily. e.g. does this behaviour enhance reproductive success

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5
Q

Proximate questions

A

asks about the immediate cause of a behaviour, could be hormonal, neurological, cognitive or cultural…

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6
Q

Tinbergen’s four questions

A

Function (adaptation)
Evolution (phylogeny)
Causation (mechanism)
Development (ontogeny)

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7
Q

What are the four ways to test if behaviour is inherited

A
  1. correlation between parents and offspring
  2. cross breeding experiments
  3. artificial selection experiments
  4. molecular underpinnings
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8
Q

Benefits of living in groups

A
  • Not as many predators- scare them off
  • Foraging
  • information/learning
  • cooperation
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9
Q

Costs of living in a group

A

Disease spreads faster

Parasites

Competition if there is not much food

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10
Q

Antipredator benefits

A
  • If you are small you are likely to have a large predator
  • one on one there is not a good change
  • In a group though, there is lesser risk

*CALLED THE DILUTION OF RISK

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11
Q

Confusion effect

A

everyone looking the same to confuse the predator on the prey they wanted

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12
Q

Oddity effect

A

e.g. A zebra with a herd of bison (the zebra would be eaten since they are the ‘oddity’)

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13
Q

Shared vigilance benefits

A

More eyes on predator, therefore faster detection

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14
Q

Foraging benefits

A

Looking out for predators on your own if you are not in a group means that you cannot eat. Therefore if you are in a larger group you can share it around and therefore increase foraging time as someone else would stay on lookout

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15
Q

Information and learning

A

If you cant find food than it can kill you

need to be smart and think about where to get food when living in a group

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16
Q

Local enhancement: “Restaurant effect”

A

if there is a restaurant with heaps of people we would tend to chose that over one with no one in it, same with animals

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17
Q

Mutually beneficial cooperation

A

Same as mutualistic symbiotic relationship, it mutually benefits both parties.

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18
Q

Hamilton’s rule for helping

A

Altruism is favoured if
rB >C

r = coefficient of relatedness to recipient

B- benefit to the recipient

C = cost to the donor

*therefore the closer the genetic relatedness the closer the altruism is more likely and the greater the benefit to the cost

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19
Q

Altruism

A

Selfless concern for the wellbeing of others

20
Q

Hamilton rule - alarm call example

A

alarm calls grow attention to yourself so at what point would you call an alarm to save others, but risk your own life?

E.g. red kangaroos would save sister over half sister

21
Q

Ways that animals can cooperate or behave altruistically

A
  • Hunting
  • Alarm calling
  • Mobbing
  • Reproduction
  • Territory defense
  • Nest building
  • Task division
22
Q

Alarm calling

A
  • an animal can chose to stay silent or to sound the alarm
  • Pay a cost for sounding the alarm as the predator will be attracted
23
Q

Cooperative breeding

A
  • Non- breeding helpers raise young by dominant breeders
24
Q

Two types of breeding

A

Obligate and Facultative

25
Q
A
26
Q

Obligate cooperative breeding

A
  • Group consists of dominant male
  • Helpers suckle young, babysit, defend
  • Most common in meerkats
27
Q

Facultative cooperative breeding

A
  • When dispersal is limited, if you cant breed you can help
  • there is a choice to help
28
Q

Eusociality

A
  • Make the sacrifice to help the queen raise more offspring
  • common in bees and wasps
29
Q

Cognitive ecology

A

Seeks to link behaviour with the underlying neural and psychological processes

30
Q

Measuring cognition “cognitive domains”

A
  • Spatial cognition
  • Memory
  • Physical cognition
  • Innovation
  • Social cognition
  • Culture
31
Q

Can cognition be inherited? (ways we can measure)

A

Correlation between parents and offspring

Cross breeding experiments

Artificial selection experiments

Molecular underpinnings

32
Q

Chickadees example

A

Alaskan had higher neuron count than colarado chickadees

research performed mental experiments (i.e. hiding food)

Results suggested that it is not developmental learning but there is actually cognitive ability that the alaskan genetically were smarter

33
Q

Cognitive buffer hypothesis

A

Large brains allow animals to adaptively mount quick, flexible behavioural responses to frequent or unexpected environmental change

34
Q

Can cognitive traits be inherited?

A

YES

35
Q

What is animal communication (and the process)

A

SENDER -> SIGNAL -> RECIEVER

36
Q

Sender- what do they do?

A

Uses signals to modify the behaviour of another in a way that benefits the sender

37
Q

Receiver- what does it do?

A

acts or responds because it gains useful information from the signal

38
Q

Signal- what does it do?

A

signals can target any of the sense (hearing sight…)

Different to cues- these are an aspect of phenotype to which receivers response and did not evolve to influence receiver behaviour

39
Q

Why communicate? What information does it give?

A
  • information about sender and environment

Who is sending, where they are, if they ‘own’ the territory, mating calls, reaffirming bonds

40
Q

Why make alarm calls?

A

inform group members about danger

inform a predator that it is discovered

signal to a predator that it shouldn’t it it

41
Q

Are signals always honest?

A

No

e.g. batesian mimicry where animals that are not toxic mimic the call of a toxic animal to fool predators

however the ‘crying wold’ concept can happen and backfire on the animal

42
Q

Are signals important in sexual selection?

A

yes, for mate choice especially and getting the male/females attention

the more successful a mating call is in getting the attention the more successful it would be in the animals reproductive fitness

43
Q

Types of sexual selection

A

Male male competition
Female choice
Sperm competition
Cryptic-female choice

44
Q

Why so male biased?

A

Females invest more time into producing offspring , for females reproductive success is influenced by mate quality, whilst in males it is increased by the number of mating

females are more “choosy” and therefore it is more men biased

45
Q

Good genes hypothesis

A

A female will choose a male with the best genes and overall reproductive and life fitness to ensure that the offspring of the kids would be the best choice and outcome

46
Q

Fishers hypothesis

A

Female chooses a showy male

females sons are showy

sons are successful

female has a lot of grandkids

Biology (3 decks)

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