Biology - Chapter 15: Animal Behavior Flashcards
Instincts
-Innate behaviors occuring without thought
Reflex Arcs
- Simple reflexes: most rapid
- Complex reflexes: slower because of interneurons
Fixed Action Patterns
- hardwired actions initiated by a specific stimulus
- leads to predictable and appropriate behaviors that do not need to be learned
Imprinting
- innate way that animals learn behaviors that will never be forgotten
- occurs during critical period/critical imprinting stage
Learned behaviors
-increase an animal’s fitness, allowing it to adapt to unexpected events
Classical conditioning
- pairing a neutral stimulus to an unconditioned stimulus
- conditions the unconditioned response to be mentally paired with a neutral stimulus, resulting in a conditioned response
Operant conditioning
- learning to associate a behavior with a reward (increase behavior)
- learning to associate a behavior with punishment (decreased behavior)
Punishment
- Positive punishment: add something bad to decrease behavior
- Negative punishment: take away something good to decrease behavior
Reinforcement
- Positive reinforcement: add something good to increase the behavior
- Negative reinforcement: take away something bad to increase a behavior
Kinesis
- animal movement
- changing speed in random directions, no target
Taxis
- animal movement
- movement within a specific direction
- e.g. Chemotaxis or phototaxis
Migration
- animal movement
- long-distance movement from one area to another due to instinct, often seasonal
Inclusive fitness
- sum of animal’s direct (genes animal passed on) and indirect fitness (genes passed on by relatives)
- increased by indirect fitness (kin selection)
Hamilton’s Rule of Altruism
r x B > C
r = genetic relatedness between altruist and relative B = # of genes passed on by relative after being saved by altruist C = direct fitness
For altruistic behavior to occur…
Indirect fitness > direct fitness
Reciprocal altruism
-sacrifices made for other organisms in anticipation of a future reward
Polygyny
-One male multiple females
Polyandry
-One female multiple males
Semelparity
-Mate once in lifetime
Iteroparity
-Mate many times in lifetime
