Lecture 11

Question 1

What is behavior?

Answer 1

• What an animal does and how it does it

- Includes physiological mechanisms underlying behavior, evolutionary reasons for why the behavior exists

Question 2

Behavioral Ecology

Answer 2

• Scientific study of how animals use behavior to interact with their environment

Question 3

Why do animals need to interact with their environment?

Answer 3

• Defend territories
• Find and attract mates
• find food
• parental care
• avoid predators

Question 4

Cooperative Behavior

Answer 4

Cooperation between individuals of the same species

Question 5

Altruism

Answer 5

Behavior that benefits recipient at a cost to the performer

Question 6

Examples of species that display cooperative behaviors?

Answer 6

• Social insects (Bees, wasps, termites, ants)
• Many species of birds
• Schools of fish
• Black-Tailed Praire Dogs

Question 7

What are the two types of altruistic behavior that can explain the evolution of altruism?

Answer 7

1) Kin Selection

2) Reciprocal Altruism

Question 8

Inclusive Fitness

Answer 8

The relative number of an individual’s alleles that are passed onto future generations directly or indirectly

Question 9

Coefficient of relatedness

Answer 9

Measures the fraction of alleles in two individuals that are identical by descent (inherited from the same ancestor)