Behavioural Ecology Flashcards
What is social behaviour?
When two or more animals of the same species interact together ehen performing a behaviour
What is ethology?
The study of animal behaviour
What are the 4 main types of social behaviour?
Competitive
Co-operative
Selfish
Altruistic
What are the three main types of competitive behaviour?
Agnostic
Dominance hierachies
Territorality
What is agnostic behaviour?
Comparative tests of strength which can result in injury or death or threat displays which involve complex rituals during which one party submits.
Give an example of a dominance hierarchy
The hen pecking order - a linear dominance hierarchy established by contests and maintained by threat displays
Female mating hierarchy in wolf packs - the alpha female prevents others from mating when resources are poor
What is a territory?
Any defended area
Give examples of territorial animals
Song sparrows have a 3000m2 territory for feeding, breeding and rearing young
Gannets have a few square metres of cliff used for a nest site
Bull sea lions defend a small are a of beach for mating
Red squirrels have a large territory used for breeding
Who won the nobel prize in 1973?
Karl von Frisch
Konrad Lorenz
Nikolaas Tinbergen
What were the three main stances in animal behaviour at the beginning of the 20th century?
Vitalists - instincts were mystical and inherent
Reflexologists - one dimensionally mechanical
Behaviourists - learning was key to behavioural variations
What did Karl von Frisch do?
He worked on the language of bees, he discovered that the waggle dance occurs when the food source is greater than 50m away and the round dance occurs less than 50m away. This is genetically programmed not learnt.
What did Konrad lorenz do?
He discovered that birds have a fixed action pattern to key stimuli without any learning. He also discovered imprinting
What did Nikolaas Tinbergen do?
He found a way to test hypothesis using dummies enabling an elicitation or an exaggerated response to a supranormal stimuli
What are Tinbergen’s 4 whys?
What effect does a behaviour have on an animal’s survival or well being?
What internal and external factors make an animal behave in a particular way?
Why and how did the animal develop such a behaviour?
Why and how was the behaviour evolved in the species?
What are the two main types of causes to a behaviour?
Proximate causes - how does it work?
Ultimate causes - why did it evolve?
How does a Fischer’s lovebird make it’s nest?
With long strips and no tucking behaviour
How foes a peach-faced lovebird make it’s nest?
With short strips and tucking behaviour
How do hybrid lovebirds make their nests?
With intermediate length strips, with unsuccessful tucking behaviour in first season and in later seasons with only head-turning behaviour
What is innate behaviour?
A behaviour which does not have to be learned, which often occurs in response to a stimulus
Give an example of an innate behaviour
Frogs tongues shoot out at the movement of small objects
Male aggression in the threespine stickleback is triggered by the red belly of other males
Why do male sledge warblers have such a large repertoire of songs?
Males with higher song repertoires will find a mate more quickly therefore have a higher reproductive success and have a longer time to feed their chicks
What is learning?
Modification of behaviour in response to previous experience
Give an example of a learning behaviour
Many songbird species exhibit a regional dialect as they learn to call by copying
Ververt monkeys learn to associate alarm calls with specific predators
What is habituation?
The form of learning in which animals learn to stop responding to a stimulus that is not associated with any benefit
What is imprinting?
Learning limited to a critical period which is usually irreversible
Briefly outline Konrad Lorenz’ experiment on greylag goose chicks
He removed some chicks from the nest and returned them a few hours after they had hatched. The removed ones followed him
What is filial imprinting?
Imprinting confined to the first two days of life
What is special about prairie voles?
They exhibit sexual imprinting based on the vasopressin receptor in males
What are the two types of associative learning?
Pavlovian conditioning
Operant conditioning
What is associative learning?
When animals learn to associate one stimulus with another
What is pavlovian conditioning?
Where a conditional stimulus becomes associated with an unconditional stimulus
E.g. Pavlov’s Dogs
What is operant conditioning?
Learning by trial and error where good behaviour is reinforced and bad behaviour is weakened
E.g. Skinner’s box
What is cognitive learning?
Using awareness, reasoning, recollection and judgement
Outline the experiment at Oxford university involving Betty
Researcher’s were testing New Caledonian crows ability to reach food. There was a food bucket located in a well and they were provided with a bent wire and a straight wire. Betty chose the straight wire and bent it without any period of trail and error
Outline the experiment at Oxford University about cognitive learning based on meta-tools
New Caledonian crows were presented with four horizontal tubes. One tube contained out of reach food, in order to get it they had to get the short hook, to get the medium hook to get the long hook to get the food.
Outline an experiment based on cognitive learning at the university of Auckland
New Caledonian crows had to use tools in succession whilst innovating new behaviours to reach the food. First they got s short hook off the string, then used this to get the medium hook which was behind bars then got the food.
What is optimal foraging?
Maximising energy intake whilst minimising costs of finding food
Outline an experiment into optimal foraging using shore crabs
They prefer to eat blue mussels with a high energy intake/handling time
Small mussels have a low E
Large mussels have a high h
They always chose the intermediate mussel which has an optimum e/h ratio
Outline an experiment into optimal foraging with the Northwestern crow
They feed on littleneck clams and whelks. The crows were oresented with three size combinations:
Small clams and large whelks
Small clams and medium whelks
Large clams and large whelks
Despite the clams always being energetically more favourable the crows consistently chose the larger prey species indicating a general decision rule
What are the three main types of mating behaviour?
Promiscous
Monogamous
Polygamous
What is an evolutionary stable strategy?
The strategy that most members of the population adopt and there is no mutant strategy which could give a higher rate of reproductive success
What is the mating strategy dependent upon?
Physiological constraints : Fertilisation, Gestation, Lactation
Ecological factors : Food availibility, Shelter and protection and Predators and Disease
Outline the general breeding strategy of mammals
Mostly polygynous due to:
Internal fertilisation
Gestation
Lactation
Outline the breeding strategy of birdsq
Their reproductive success is limited by rate of food delivery. So they normally have biparental care. If the food constraints are removed such as many fruit and seed eaters they are polygynous
Outline the breeding strategy of bony fish
Mostly no parental care however if there is it is polygamous dependent on if fertilisation is external(polyandry) or internal(polygyny)
What are the two main traits associated with sexual selection?
Male weaponry
Ornaments
What is intrasexual selection?
Selection between the members of the same sex (usually male-male) which has resulted in large body size and weaponry
What is intersexual selection?
Between members of opposing sexes, usually where the male chooses the female which has led to the evolution of male exaggerated traits
What is the Bateman gradient?
The sexual selection gradient which shows that female reproductive success is not based upon the number of mates
What happens to the bateman gradient in a sex role reversed species?
It reverses
Give an example of a sex role reverses species
The deep snouted pipefish
In intersexual selection what traits do females look for?
Direct benefits such as access to resources
Indirect benefits such as a strong immune system
What do female threespine sticklebacks look for in a mate?
Good nest sites - Direct benefit
Bright red necks indicating higher parasite resistance - Indirect benefit
What is inclusive fitness?
The total effect of an organism proliferating it’s genes, including throug siblings etc.
What is an important factor in inclusive fitness?
The coefficient of relatedness between individuals
Give an example of inclusive fitness behaviour
Female Belding ground squirrels produce a high pitched alarm call upon sight of predators, which warns their neo-natal group however attracts the predator to them
Social insects in which workers entirely forego reproduction
What is reciprocal altruism?
When one favour is given and expected to be returned. This can occur between unrelated individuals however only in stable social groups
Give an example of reciprocal altruistic behaviour
Vampire bats
Animals that don’t feed that night rub the belly of ones that did. The donor then regurgitates some of it’s food dramatically increasing the recipients time till starvation point however only slightly decreasing their time till starvation
