Chapters 36-37 - Behaviour and Population Ecology Flashcards
Define animal behaviour
An animals responses to internal and external stimuli
Is behaviour genetic or environmental?
Both
What is a fixed action pattern?
Behaviours that are under strong genetic control and are performed in basically the same way by all individuals within a species
Ex. A baby bird will raise its head and cheep for food in the presence of an adult bird.
What is habituation?
A type of learning where an animal will stop responding to a repeated stimulus
Ex. A hydra will cool up when touched, if repeatedly touched without harm it will learn to stop coiling
What is imprinting?
A type of learning where young animals will be loyal to whoever they spend their first few hours with (see them as a mother)
Ex. Baby geese hatch and spend their first hours with a human, they will now stick with the human and ignore other geese for the most part
What is associative learning?
A type of learning in which an animal is able to associate one environmental feature with another.
Ex. A dog comes running when it hears the cheese drawer open
What is trial and error associative learning?
Associative learning where an animal will associate positive or negative effects with a behaviour.
(If positive it will repeat behaviour, if negative it will learn to avoid that behaviour)
What is social learning?
A type of learning in which an animal will learn by observing the behaviours of others.
Ex. Learning how to hurt for prey by observing its mom
What is problem solving
Using cognition to apply past experience to overcome obstacles in new situations
Clumped distribution
Where individuals in a population are grouped in clumps. This can cause resources to be unequally distributed.
MOST COMMON distribution type
Ex. Wolves
Uniform distribution
When individual of a population tend to be evenly spaced out most of the time. It tends to depend on territorial behaviours.
(It is less common than clumped distribution)
Ex. Humans
Random distribution
When individuals of a population are unpredictable in their distributions.
Are typically plants since their seeds disperse randomly.
(Most rare distribution)
Ex. Dandelions
What is a type I survivor? A type III survivor?
Type I - have high survivorship of young, often few offspring, and high parental care.
Ex. Humans
Type III - have low survivorship of young, have large number of offspring, little parental care
Ex. Fish
What is the difference between immigration and emigration?
Immigration - refers to the movement of individuals into an area
Emigration - refers to the movement of individuals out of an area
What does K refer to?
K = the maximum population size that a specific environment can sustain
(Seen on a logistic curve)
