Lecture 1 & 2

Question 1

What is kin selection?

Answer 1

Favoring increased reproductive success of not just of offspring but also of close genetic kin.

Question 2

What is direct fitness?

Answer 2

Number of offspring plus effect on reproductive success.

Question 3

What is indirect fitness?

Answer 3

Effect of reproductive fitness of genetic kin.

Question 4

What are the three foundations (not approaches) of ethology?

Answer 4

Natural selection, Individual learning, Cultural transmission.

Question 5

Which two types of questions are proximate?

Answer 5

Mechanistic and Developmental.

Question 6

Which two types of questions are ultimate?

Answer 6

Survival value and Evolutionary/Phylogenetic.

Question 7

What are the four types of questions?

Answer 7

1. Mechanistic. 2. Developmental. 3. Survival Value. 4. Evolutionary/Phylogenetic.

Question 8

What kind of questions are mechanistic?

Answer 8

“What stimuli elicit behavior?” “What sort of neurobiological and hormonal changes occur in response to, or in anticipation of, such stimuli?”

Question 9

What kind of questions are developmental?

Answer 9

“How does behavior change as an animal matures?” “How does developmental variation affect behavior later in life?”

Question 10

What kind of questions are about survival value?

Answer 10

“How does behavior affect survival and reproduction?”

Question 11

What kind of questions are evolutionary/phylogenetic?

Answer 11

“How does behavior vary as a function of the evolutionary history, or phylogeny, of the animal being studied?” “When did a behavior first appear in the evolutionary history of the species under study?”

Question 12

Which type of analysis focuses on immediate causes?

Answer 12

Proximate analysis.

Question 13

Which type of analysis focuses on the evolutionary forces that have shaped a trait over time?

Answer 13

Ultimate analysis.

Question 14

What is animal behavior?

Answer 14

Coordinated responses of whole living organisms to internal and external stimuli.

Question 15

What are two examples of natural selection?

Answer 15

Crickets and their loss of a mating call when predators came and xenophobia (more xenophobic when food sources are low).

Question 16

What is an example of individual learning?

Answer 16

Grasshoppers and the importance of predictability.

Question 17

What is an example of cultural transmission?

Answer 17

Foraging behaviors in rats (learn new food source by smelling breath and observing effects on the one that ate it).

Question 18

What is cultural transmission?

Answer 18

Transfer of info from one individual to another through teaching or social learning.

Question 19

What are the three approaches to ethology?

Answer 19

Empirical, Theoretical, Conceptual.

Question 20

What is the empirical approach?

Answer 20

Involves gathering data and drawing conclusions generating new, testable predictions, from that data.

Question 21

What is an example of the conceptual approach?

Answer 21

Kin selection.

Question 22

What is an example of the conceptual approach?

Answer 22

Kin selection.

Question 23

What is the theoretical approach?

Answer 23

Uses math to describe behaviors(?)

Question 24

What was Niko Tinbergen’s contribution to the field of ethology?

Answer 24

4 Areas of inquiry, and expressing more use of the scientific method.

Question 25

What was Konrad Lorenz’s contribution to the field of ethology?

Answer 25

Birth of ethology; pioneered studies of instincts. Studied imprinting using ducks.

Question 26

What was Karl Von Frisch’s contribution to the field of ethology?

Answer 26

Studied how bees dance to show where food sources are.

Question 27

What is pedomorphosis (neotmy)?

Answer 27

Retention of the juvenile body into maturity.