Final Exam Flashcards

1
Q

What is Communication?

A

Transfer of information about the signaler or its environment using signals

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2
Q

Why does communication evolve?

A

Allows individuals to reveal their qualities or motivations to receivers

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3
Q

What is a signal?

A

A perceptible behavior or trait (physical form) that encodes information
Adaptive trait that increases survival and reproductive success

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4
Q

What is Batesian Mimicry?

A

Harmless prey resemble dangerous prey to avoid predation

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5
Q

What is a cue?

A

Structures or behaviors that affect behaviors of other organisms (no evolution)

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6
Q

What enforces honesty in animal signals? (If female house finches prefer redder males, why aren’t all males equally bright red?)

A

Costs of signals (different individuals pay different effective costs)

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7
Q

What is the Handicap Principle?

A

Honesty and reliability can be maintained due to the different costs that individuals pay for being manipulative and deceptive

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8
Q

What is the active space of a communication signal?

A

The volume of medium in which a receiver can detect and recognize a signal

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9
Q

What factors affect a signals active space?

A

Attenuation (spreading over distance)
Masking (covering up the signal; noise)
Degradation (barriers blocking signal)

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10
Q

What is Stimulus Generalization?

A

Animals behave similarly to similar patterns, usually color (kiskadees avoided snakes with coloration patterns similar to the poisonous coral snakes)

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11
Q

Sexual selection

A

Acts on traits that contribute to an individual’s mating success

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12
Q

Sexual Dimorphism

A

Results from sexual selection acting differently on males and females

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13
Q

Intrasexual Selection

A

Competition within a sex for mates (usually males)

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14
Q

Intersexual Selection

A

Mate choice/being choosy (mainly females)

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15
Q

What is Bateman’s Principle?

A

The sex with a steeper sexual selection gradient will compete to mate, while the other exercises choice

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16
Q

What is Triver’s Parental Investment Hypothesis?

A

Competition is determined by parental investment. (Most investment is choosy, least investment will compete to mate)

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17
Q

Anisogamy

A

Differences in parental investment begin with fundamental differences between male and female gametes (sperm is cheap)

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18
Q

Direct Benefits

A

Female obtains something that increases her own fitness (survival, fecundity)

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19
Q

Indirect Benefits

A

Increase fitness of female’s offspring

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20
Q

What is Fisherian Runaway Selection and what does it entail?

A

Females prefer a sexually attractive trait, resulting in “sexy sons”

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21
Q

What is the Sensory Bias Hypothesis to explain the evolution of exaggerated male sexual traits? What does it entail?

A

Result of selection for a different function of female’s sensory system
Males evolve signals to match sensory system characteristics
Female gets NO BENEFITS

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22
Q

What are the assumptions of the Emlen and Oring model of how mating systems are shaped?

A

Resource availability
Environmental potential for polygamy (EPP)
Operational sex ratio (OSR)
Monopolizability of mates

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23
Q

Polygamy

A

Multiple mates

24
Q

Monogamy

A

One partner

25
Q

Polygyny

A

Multiple females

26
Q

Polyandry

A

Multiple males

27
Q

What factors influence whether territoriality should evolve?

A

Resources are limited, and defendable.

Fitness benefits must outweigh the costs

28
Q

Lek Polygyny

A

Males defend a display area that has no other purpose in feeding, nesting, reproduction, parental care, etc.

29
Q

Hotspot Hypothesis

A

Males cluster in places where receptive females likely occur

30
Q

Hotshot Hypothesis

A

Subordinate males cluster around attractive males to interact with females

31
Q

Mutualistic Behavior

A

Improves fitness of actor and recipient

32
Q

Selfish Behavior

A

Decreases fitness of recipient

33
Q

Altruistic Behavior

A

Decreases fitness of actor but increases fitness of recipient

34
Q

Direct Fitness

A

Reproductive success based on number of offspring that survive to reproduce

35
Q

Indirect Fitness

A

Genetic success based on number of relatives helped

36
Q

Inclusive Fitness

A

Total measure of an individual’s contribution of genes to the next generation due to direct and indirect selection

37
Q

What is Hamilton’s Rule?

A

Giving aid to non-descendant kin will evolve if rB > C
R is genetic relatedness
B is reproductive benefit
C is reproductive cost

38
Q

Male turkeys court females in coalitions of 2-4 males. Subordinate males have 0 reproductive success, while dominant males have higher success than solo males. If subordinate turkeys have an r value of 0.42, B value of 6.1, and C value of 0.9, does Hamilton’s Rule explain why they join the coalition?

A

2.6 > 0.9

Yes, since rB is greater than C

39
Q

What is Kin Selection?

A

Acting in favor of individuals that share some of your genes, at a cost to yourself

40
Q

Social Behavior

A

Interactions of individuals living in close proximity

41
Q

What is a society?

A

Cooperating, communicating group of conspecific organisms

42
Q

What defines a Eusocial mammal?

A

Cooperative brood care, inbreeding (overlapping generations), and division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups

43
Q

What are the costs of sociality?

A

Competition, Parasitism, Disease, and Interference (negative interactions among conspecifics)

44
Q

What is the Predator Dilution Effect?

A

As prey group size increases, each individual has a lower chance of being predated

45
Q

What are the benefits of sociality?

A

Increased vigilance, predator dilution, group defense, and cooperative foraging/hunting

46
Q

What is the Ideal Free Distribution, versus the Ideal Despotic Distribution?

A

IFD is when animals freely distribute themselves to maximize individual reproductive success.
IDD is when habitat selection is constrained by territorial behavior of others.

47
Q

What hypotheses explains why territory owners tend to have an advantage over newcomers?

A

Payoff Asymmetry Hypothesis: if territory resident removed and replaced by newcomer, ability to win territory back will be function of replacement tenure

48
Q

Where do language centers exist in our brain?

A

Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area (cerebral cortex)

49
Q

Broca’s Area

A

Ability to speak a language

50
Q

Wernicke’s Area

A

Ability to comprehend spoken language

51
Q

What is the Foxp2 gene?

A

Promotes language (Conductor of language)

52
Q

What defines language?

A

Ability to take a finite set of elements (words) and use a set of rules (grammar) to create infinite comprehensible combinations. Describe past, future, and imagined events.

53
Q

What is the affiliation function hypothesis to explain the maintenance of human language dialects?

A

Humans use the way they speak to signal group membership which aids in cooperation

54
Q

What is the McGurk Effect, and what does it show us?

A

Our brains have circuits that integrate the visual and auditory stimuli associated with speech

55
Q

Miller et al paper Hypothesis and Findings

A

Women during estrus will appear more attractive and feel sexier, thus they will earn more tips as lap-dancers.
Hidden estrus hypothesis is false because regular cycling dancers made more when they were fertile compared to those using the pill

56
Q

Main Takeaway from DuVal Paper

A

Cooperation increased beta’s immediate reproductive success, the success of close relatives and increases their chance of future reproduction