Midterm 2 Flashcards
mating systems
social association and the number of sexual partners an individual has during a breeding season
male fitness
male wants largest number of sexual partners he can obtain in a breeding season
serial monogamy
different mate in a different season but 1 mate during season
social monogamy
exclusive living arrangement between 1 male and 1 female but it makes no assumptions about mating exclusivity or parental care
mate-guarding
male prevents other males from gaining access to female before, during, and after copulation
in what situations would polygyny evolve?
male has control over territory/resources, no parental care by males (sole female care), females are aggregated in environment, food availability, predator protection
polygyny threshold hypothesis
polygyny mating will be advantageous for the female when benefits achieved by mating high quality male + given access to his resources more than compensate the high cost of sharing that male with other females
female defense polygyny
occurs when males can monopolize and aggregation of females directly
resource defense policy
males defend territory rich in resources that females are looking for, males do not protect females
lek polygyny
temporary territory specifically for mating; no food, no territory to defend, no nest, no parental care, well-traveled route by females, migratory animals, female mate choice, males display against each other for females to choose
parental care
example of behavior that would benefit a species by promoting survival or well being of the next generation (offspring) at a cost to the resources of the current generation
metazoans
multicellular creatures, eukaryotes - have their genetic material in a nucleus
protozoa
one cell, eukaryotes
bacteria
no nucleus, genome is loose in the cytoplasm
examples of universal behaviors
locomotion, sensory discrimination, orientation responses, coordinated movement, habituation
browse hypothesis
long neck of giraffes under pressure from other herbivores to reach the tops of trees where other species could not reach - but no fossil of the middle stage neck length
neck for sex hypothesis
sexual selection, males engage in combat with their necks, hitting each other with more than 2000 lbs of force, long neck males preferred by females, have more progeny than short neck males
observational approach to studying behavior
most common, least reliable, simply observe, provides only weak (statistical) inferences because sometimes only a few observations are made
experimental approach
hypothesis and controls, direct method and reconstruction
direct method of experiments
exploits the fact that in natural populations, not all individuals are alike; thus if you can identify a particular adaptive trait, then you can directly observe if the possessor of that trait will survive and reproduce better than conspecific competitors who do not have that trait (ex. pepper moths on a white tree)
reconstruction method of experiment
artificially manipulated groups, most experimental animal behavior studies are reconstruction, ex.) barn swallow tail length
comparative approach
comparing traits and environments across taxa in search of correlations that test hypotheses about adaptation, biological and phylogenetic
biological comparative approach
- comparison of the same species living in diff areas and under diff selection pressures, ex.) moose in yellowstone vs everywhere else
- comparison of two diff species living in same place, ex.) kittiwake and gull egg removal behavior
phylogenetic comparative approach
use evolutionary inferences to understand behavior, ex.) stotting in gazelles
von uexkull - 2 components of animal perception
- spatial - how we see space
- temporal - how we see time
biological clock
internal clock, measures time at the same rate under all biological conditions, gives all animals the ability to tell time; nothing affects it - just keeps running at constant speed; reset by light (usually sunlight)
short day responders (fall)
sun rising later everyday, declining photoperiod, clock adjusts, triggers response - extra eating and storing of lipids in prep; for migratory animals - triggers zugunruhe (migratory restlessness)
long day responders (spring)
days getting longer, triggers mating behavior - have babies in spring
natal state
where the animal is born or hatched
short distance movement
chemical gradients, ex.) vultures circling in response to smell of dead animal, signal gets weaker as you move away from it - stimulus intensity gradient, no turbulence for this process to work
2 types of response to gradients
taxis and kinesis
taxis
directed movement (generally larger animals), animal responds to gradient by moving in a straight line
1. tropotaxis - organism needs 2 viably spaced receptors to figure out where stimulus is and move in a straight line
2. klinotaxis - movement is straight up the gradient, but takes a sinusoidal path (wave like movement)
kinesis
undirected movement, not in a straight line, generally smaller animals
1. klinokinesis - turning rate proportional to stimulus intensity
2. orthokinesis - the stimulus intensity determines the organism’s speech of movement
3 levels of migration
piloting, compass orientation, true navigation
piloting
the ability to find a goal by referring to landmarks (not always visual, can be olfactory)
compass orientation
the ability to head in a geographical direction, use the stars
1. compasses - star compasses, sun compasses
2. geomagnetic orientation - earth has stable geomagnetism
true navigation
the ability to establish and maintain a reference to the goal; if you translocate the animal, they adjust and get to their destination (mechanism unknown)
