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Further Additional Biology > Topic 2 - Behaviour and Evolution > Flashcards

Topic 2 - Behaviour and Evolution Flashcards

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AP® Biology flashcards Biology 101 flashcards
1
Q

What is behaviour?

A

How an organism responds to things going on in its environment, helping it to survive

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2
Q

Where does an organism get its behaviour from?

A

Inherited or learned, most behaviours are a mix of the two

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3
Q

What is an innate behaviour?

A

Where animals can respond in the right way to a stimulus without ever having done it before

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4
Q

What are the two types of innate behaviour?

A

Simple reflex and complicated reflex

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5
Q

What is a reflex action?

A

Simple inherited behaviors where a stimulus produces a fairly simple response, often protecting us from dangerous simuli. Automatic - do not have to think about them

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6
Q

What are some examples of a reflex action in humans?

A

Sneezing, breathing, salivation

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7
Q

What are some relatively complicated reflex actions in other species?

A

Earthworms - Negative Phototaxis: move away from light

Sea anemones - wave tentacles more when stimulates by chemical emitted by their prey

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8
Q

What does it mean if a behaviour is learned?

A

Lets animals respond to changing conditions. Animals can learn from previous experiences hot to avoid predators/harmful food. how to find food or suitable mate

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9
Q

What is habituation?

A
  • Keep giving animal a stimulus that isn’t harmful or beneficial
  • Learns not to respond to it
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10
Q

Give one example of habituation.

A

Crows learning to ignore scarecrows as don’t harm or reward them

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11
Q

What is the benefit for animals of habituation?

A

Spend their time and energy more efficiently

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12
Q

When is habituation most important and why?

A

Young animals: born with inherited tendency to be scared of loud, bright, sudden stimuli - must learn which stimuli to ignore so they can concentrate on the stimuli that are potentially dangerous

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13
Q

What is imprinting? Is it learned or innate?

A

When and animal learns to recognise its parents, and instinctively follows them. Combination of learned and innate behaviour (animal has no innate instinct of what parent looks like - has to learn this

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14
Q

What kind of species does imprinting occur on and why?

A

Animals that can move as soon as they’re born - newborn animals have instinct to follow 1st moving object they see (usually parent who gives shelter/food to help it survive)

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15
Q

Give one example of a species that uses imprinting to survive.

A

Ducklings imprint on their parents. If reared from birth by a human, imprint on human as first moving object they see

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16
Q

What is classical conditioning?

A

When an animal learns passively to associate a neutral stimulus to an important one. The response is automatic and reinforced by repetition.

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17
Q

Give one example of classical conditioning.

A

Ivan Pavlov with Dogs: noticed dogs salivate when they see/smell food. Rang bell just before each time dogs were given food. Found dogs salivated from bell ringing even without the food.

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18
Q

What are the two types of conditioning?

A

Classical conditioning and operant conditioning

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19
Q

What is operant conditioning?

A

AKA trial and error learning. Where an animal learns actively to associate an action with a reward/punishment.

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20
Q

When is operant conditioning used with humans?

A

When children are rewarded or punished for a specific behaviour

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21
Q

Give one example of operant behaviour.

A

Burrhus Skinner with pigeons and rats: Trained rats + pigeons to get a food reward using small cage (Skinner box). Animal had choice of button to press. When certain lever or button pressed, got food reward. Found they use trial and error system to learn which button to press to get reward.

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22
Q

Which type of conditioning do humans usually use to train animals?

A

Operant conditioning - give rewards when it does something good and punish when does something bad

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23
Q

What are guide dogs trained to do through operant conditioning?

A

Trained to stop at a roadside and wait for a command

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24
Q

What are sniffer dogs trained to do through operant conditioning?

A

Trained to retrieve drugs

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25
Q

What are police horses trained to do through operant conditioning?

A

Trained to only respond to commands from their riders

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26
Q

How is an animal conditioned when the reward can’t be given at the exact time the act is carried out, using dolphins as an example?

A

Classical conditioning used in combination with operant conditioning. Dolphins can’t be rewarded during their jump. Trainer gets dolphin to associate whistle to getting fish + whistles when animal jumps. Whistle is the reward (in a way) as tell dolphin it will get fish.

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27
Q

What are the benefits of animals being able to communicate with one another?

A
  • Can help keep group together
  • Can warn all others if one sees a predator
  • Communicating mood can avoid unneeded fighting
  • Baby animals can let parents know their needs
  • Allows predators hunting in packs to coordinate their attacks
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28
Q

What are the three main ways animals communicate?

A

Sound
Chemicals
Visual Signals

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29
Q

Give two examples of animals that communicate using sound.

A
  • Whales and dolphins: can communicate over long distances using low frequency sound
  • Bird calls: declare their territory, attract a mate, warn others about predators
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30
Q

How are chemicals used in animals to communicate?

A

Chemicals called pheromones can be released by an animal to tell others where it is or where it has been

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31
Q

How do animals use chemicals, using examples?

A
  • Many use chemical scents to mark boundaries of their territory i.e. dogs weeing
  • Other chemicals act as sexual attractants i.e. in some moths the male can detect female’s pheromone from several km away
32
Q

Give some examples of animals who use visual signals.

A
  • Honey bees: move in certain way (waggle dance) when return to hive to say they found food
  • Most mammals: communicate certain intentions through body posture (how they hold themselves) + gestures (small movements) i.e. use behaviours to threaten others (intimidate to avoid actual fight) e.g. chimps stare or raise an arm
  • Can use behaviours to admit defeat (dogs rolling on their back or courtship behaviours)
  • Facial expressions
33
Q

What did Nikolaas Tinbergen study?

A

Innate behaviour in herring gulls

34
Q

How did Tinbergen study innate behaviour in herring gulls?

A
  • Newly hatched gull chicks know to peck at parent’s beaks to ask for food. Adult gulls have red spot on beak. He wanted to know if red spot made them peck on their beak for food
  • Showed newly hatched chicks cardboard gull heads with different colour spots; counted number of times each colour pecked in a given time
  • Pecked at red spot most often; born with instinct to peck at red spot
35
Q

What did Konrad Lorenz study?

A

Imprinting in geese

36
Q

How did Lorenz study imprinting in geese?

A
  • Took 2 groups of geese eggs. Group 1 saw mother; Group 2 hatched in incubator
  • First moving objects: G1=mother; G2=Lorenz
  • G2 treated Lorenz as G1 treated their mother
  • Goose chicks formed attachment with 1st moving thing they saw; imprinting, helps goose chicks recognise mother
37
Q

What species did Dian Fossey study, where and when?

A

Mountain gorillas, Africa, between 1967 and 1985

38
Q

What species did Jane Goodall study, where and when?

A

Chimpanzees, Tanzania, between 1960 and 2005

39
Q

What did Fossey and Goodall do for the duration of their studies?

A
  • Spent time getting close to the apes in their natural habitats to not disturb them. Watched animal’s behaviour + recorded what they saw
  • Gorillas + apes social animals (live in groups)
40
Q

Explain what Fossey and Goodall observed during their time studying the apes.

A
  • Worked together to search for food sources to find more food
  • Protected each other from attacks
  • Males had a social rank, preventing fights as all knew their place
  • Groomed (picked insects out of fur) each other to keep clean. Reinforces social bonds in group to help keep it together. Strengthened bonds by showing affection (i.e. hugs)
41
Q

What is a choice chamber?

A

Container that is divided into two or more chambers

42
Q

How would you use a choice chamber to investigate animal behaviour?

A
  • Set up different environments in each chamber
  • Put animals (usually insects) inside and watch which chamber they move to. Most go to section where environmental conditions are closest to natural habitat
43
Q

In what ways do animals who reproduce sexually find and select a mate?

A
  • Song/call: (birds, whales, frogs); usually males calling females
  • Pheromones: (insects) sexual attractant; usually female producing signal (moths, can be detected several km away)
  • Males fight each other to see who gets a mate (deer); give displays to indicate strength giving weaker chance to back away [reduces lots of males being injured/killed]
  • Courtship displays: male doing display to impress female e.g. posturing, dancing, showing brightly coloured parts of anatomy; they’re species specific so know they’re mating with right species; often link between how good display is+fertility of male
44
Q

Which gender usually decide on a mate, why and how?

A
  • Females
  • Put in most effort in child rearing
  • Mate has to be same species (prevent infertile offspring)
  • Choose strong + fertile (best chance of offspring’s survival)
  • Males show females they’re worthy of selection
45
Q

What is monogamy?

A

Staying with just one mate for life (mostly in birds). Rare in animal kingdom

46
Q

What is a harem?

A

A group of females a male stays with, mating with all of them. In some mammals like sea lions

47
Q

What are the different mating cycles animals have?

A
  • Many mates in one season
  • One mate per season
  • One for life
  • Having a harem
48
Q

Give a few examples of monogamous animals.

A
  • Birds (albatross, bald eagle, swan, mallard, raven, penguins, parrots)
  • Mammals (gibbons, prairie voles)
49
Q

Explain three ways in which an animal looks after their young.

A
  • Protection: i.e. one parent staying to keep young together and fend off predators; building nests (weaver bird)
  • Feeding: if feed+protect, usually both parents involved
  • Teaching skills: teach things not innate (oystercatchers open mussels for food, takes months for young to learn, human babies), learn by imitating parent’s behaviour
50
Q

What is the benefit of looking after young after their born?

A
  • Increases chances of survival
  • Puts mother at risk: shared food, time, predators
  • Increases proportion that survive to adulthood (birds do, 25%, cod no, 1 in million)
  • Less risky than being pregnant (body strain and hard to escape predators); caring for young=birth to less developed young=shorter pregnancy (mammals)
  • Survival of genes to next gen important, not own survival, so may risk death
51
Q

What are the main reasona a plant sends out a chemical signal?

A
  • Attract pollinators
  • Attract insect predators
  • Warn other plants about insects
52
Q

When a plant sends out a chemical signal to attract pollinators, what are they trying to achieve?

A
  • Flowers are scented
  • Insect come to flower looking for nectar
  • Pollen gets stuck to them so carry pollen to other plants when they fly away
53
Q

When a plant sends out a chemical signal to attract insect predators, what are they trying to achieve?

A
  • Release chemicals when insect is eating them
  • Chemicals attract predator insects to feed on pest
  • Predator eats pest but not plant so predator gets food and plant gets rid of pests
54
Q

When a plant sends out a chemical signal to warn other plants, what are they trying to achieve?

A
  • Release chemicals when being eaten by insects
  • When another leaf on plant detects signal, makes chemicals that make leaf harder to digest
  • When other plants nearby detect signal, prepare for attack in same way
55
Q

How have plants co-evolved with their insect pollinators?

A
  • Advantage for insect if it can reach nectar in a flower other insects can’t reach as only insect that can get it
  • Advantage for plants as insect is more likely to visit others of the same type+pollinate them
  • Plants+insects have co-evolved for this. (e.g. orchids evolved deep nectar stores + are pollinated by moth with long mouth part to reach nectar
56
Q

What is co-evolution?

A

Where two types of organisms evolve in response to each other

57
Q

How have plants and the insects that eat them co-evolved?

A
  • Advantage for plant to produce nasty chemicals so most insects can’t eat it
  • Advantage for insect if it can eat these plants other animals can’t as it gets more food
  • Insects evolved to eat poisonous plants
  • e.g. caterpillars + cinnabar moth eat ragwort, poisonous to other animals
58
Q

What are our closest living relative and when do fossils show the common ancestor lived?

A

Chimpanzees

6 million years ago

59
Q

What are human beings and their ancestors known as?

A

Hominids

60
Q

Ardi Fossil Hominid information including common features with us today.

A
  • 4.4 million years ago
  • Species Ardipithecus ramidus
  • Found in Ethiopia
  • Feet suggests she climbed trees; ape like big toe to grip branches
  • Long arms and short legs
  • Brain size around that of a chimpanzee
  • Leg structure: walked upright like human; hand structure: didn’t use hands to walk
61
Q

Lucy Fossil Hominid information including common features with us today.

A
  • 3.2 million years ago
  • Austalopithecus afarensis
  • Found in Ethiopia
  • Arched feet: more adapted to walking than climbing
  • Size of arms + legs as you expect in apes/humans
  • Brain larger than Ardi’s but still similar to chimp’s size
  • Leg/feet structure suggests walked upright, more efficiently than Ardi
62
Q

What was the name of the scientist who discovered the homo erectus fossils and where?

A

Richard Leakey, Kenya

63
Q

Turkana Boy Fossil Hominid information including common features with us today.

A
  • 1.6 million years ago
  • Homo erectus
  • Short arms + long legs (more like humans than apes)
  • Much larger brain than Lucy’s (similar to human)
  • Leg + feet structure: better adapted to walking upright than Lucy
64
Q

How did the tool use evolve as the homo species evolved?

A
  • Homo habilis (2.15-1.5 mill years ago): simple stone tools (pebble tools), hit rocks together to make sharp flakes; scrapped meant from bones/crack bones open
  • Homo erectus (2-0.3 mill years ago): sculpted rocks into shapes to produce more complex tools e.g. hand-axes; used to hunt, dig, chop, scrape meat from bones
  • Homo neanderthalis (300000-25000 years ago): more complex; evidence of flint tools, pointed tools, wooden spears
  • Homo sapiens (200000-present): flint tools widely used; pointed tools incl arrowheads, fish hook, buttons, needles appeared around 50000 years ago
65
Q

How can we date stone tools?

A
  • Stratigraphy (study of rock layers), older rocks usually below, so deeper=older
  • Date by fossils founds with stone tools
  • Carbon-14 dating, date material found with it that is made from carbon
66
Q

In a cell, where is there DNA apart from in the nucleus?

A

Mitochondria - mitochondrial DNA

67
Q

Which parent is the mitochondrial DNA inherited from?

A

Mother - not mixed with father’s DNA

68
Q

How do scientists use mitochondrial DNA to study human evolution?

A

More different the mitochondrial DNA are, the further back they shared a common ancestor - everyone on the planet has similar mitochondrial DNA

69
Q

What is the name given to the person who everyone descended from (discovered through mitochondrial DNA)?

A

Mitochondrial Eve (not only woman at that time though), 200000 years ago, also African Eve

70
Q

What causes the mitochondrial DNA to differ from person to person slightly?

A

Mutations - often occur due to higher mutation rate (as more mitochondrial DNA than nuclear DNA as more mitochondria)

71
Q

What did the discovery of Mitochondrial Eve tell us about the evolution of Homo sapiens?

A

Evolved in Africa, then spread across the world

72
Q

Why can mitochondrial DNA be more useful than nuclear DNA for discovering human evolution and migration?

A
  • Lots of mitochondria in cell, so lots of copies (more mitochondria than nuclei)
  • Less likely to degrade over time
73
Q

How did migrating to the coast of the near east and Asia cause changes in human behaviour?

A
  • Changed their diet: started to eat shellfish + other seafood
  • Had to invent new stone tools to get shellfish out of shells
74
Q

How did migrating to Australia cause changes in human behaviour?

A
  • Began eating fruit from trees

- Had to invent new tools to reach it (i.e. long sticks to knock fruit down)

75
Q

How did migrating to Europe cause changes in human behaviour?

A
  • Changed diet to include new plants + animals they found
  • Many animals were large; needed new hunting methods for hunting in groups; needed new tools to prepare larger animals for eating
  • Colder climate = needing to build more shelters
  • Used animal skins (especially fur) to make themselves warm clothes as colder in Europe
76
Q

What is an ice age?

A

Long periods of very cold climate during which ice sheets and glaciers spread across most of the Earth

77
Q

What methods did humans use to survive the last ice age?

A
  • Began to build more shelters (or shelter in caves)
  • Used fire (to heat shelters)
  • Wore more warm clothing made from skins/fur
  • More hunting for animals
  • Made more use of tools (building, making clothes, hunting more)
  • More cooperation + communication as groups worked together to survive; language developed to help groups communicate + pass knowledge on to others

Further Additional Biology (3 decks)

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