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Behavioral Ecology > Unit 1 Exam > Flashcards

Unit 1 Exam Flashcards

1
Q

What is behavioral ecology?

A

the study of evolutionary basis of animal behavior in relation to ecological conditions

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2
Q

What are conditions?

A

physical and social environments

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3
Q

What is natural selection?

A

differential survival/ reproduction of individuals based on genetic differences

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4
Q

What were Darwin’s observations?

A
  1. Members of populations vary in traits
  2. Traits are inherited
  3. More offspring are produced than environment can support
  4. Not all offspring survive
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5
Q

What are Darwin’s inferences?

A
  1. Individuals with favorable inherited behavioral traits survive and reproduce more than others
  2. Favorable traits increase in population over time
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6
Q

What is an adaptation?

A

genetic trait that enhances ability to maintain/increase fitness in certain environments

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7
Q

What is fitness?

A

number of offspring and ability to reproduce

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8
Q

How do you “win” in evolution?

A

Survive and produce more offspring (pass on more copies of genes)

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9
Q

If individual and group selection both occur, which one would win?

A

Individual because of offspring reproduction and exceptions are lions, bonbo chimps, people, some bacteria, wolves, elephants and bees

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10
Q

Who are the founders of modern Ethology and what does ethology mean?

A

Nikolaas Tinbergen, Karl von Frisch, and Konrad Lorenz
study of animal behavior

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11
Q

What are Tinbergen’s 4 questions?

A
  1. What is the cause of the behavior (causation)
  2. How did the behavior develop in individual’s lifetime (development or ontogeny)
  3. What is the adaptive significance of the behavior (adaptive advantage or function)
  4. How did the behavior evolve from ancestral forms (evolutionary history or phylogeny)
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12
Q

Which of the questions are proximate (immediate explanations) and which are ultimate (evolutionary explanations)?

A

1 and 2 are proximate explanations and 3 and 4 are ultimate explanations

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13
Q

What is the life history strategy?

A

suite of adaptations that influence size and age of reproduction, survival and number of offspring

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14
Q

What about the optimal clutch size (# of eggs)?

A

maximizes lifetime reproductive success and there is a trade-off between reproductive effort and adult survival (lay fewer eggs to maximize number of surviving chicks)

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15
Q

What is phenotypic plasticity?

A

ability of single genotype to alter its phenotype in response to environmental conditions

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16
Q

What is the reaction norm?

A

continuous phenotypic variation of genotype in response to environmental conditions

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17
Q

What are the three methods for testing hypotheses?

A
  1. Comparison between individuals within a speices
  2. Comparison among species
  3. Experiments
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18
Q

What is the comparative approach of hypothesis testing?

A

correlate species behavior differences with ecological and morphological differences

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19
Q

What is sperm competition?

A

competition from sperm from more than 1 male to fertilize an ovum

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20
Q

What is the hypothesis for sperm competition?

A

sperm competition exists more in species in which females mate with multiple males, and this explains difference in testis size

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21
Q

What is foraging?

A

act of animal looking for food

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22
Q

Animals with generalist strategy have what and search for and eat what?

A

broad diets, prey/food items they find

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23
Q

Animals with a specialist strategy have what and search and eat what?

A

narrow diets, specific types of food

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24
Q

What is the optimality model?

A

tools to analyze costs and benefits of behavior

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25
Q

What are the 3 variables of the optimality model?

A

Decisions, currency (what is measured), and constraint on behavior

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26
Q

What are costs and benefits for foraging?

A

c= search and handling time, energy expended, risks of predation
b= max. rate of energy delivery and rate of fertilized eggs

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27
Q

What is the marginal value theorem?

A

optimality model that predicts foraging behavior in variety of taxa and it predicts animals should leave current patch (food) when energy intake is less than the average energy of harvesting rate in environment

28
Q

What is brood parasitism?

A

reproductive strategy in which 1 individual leaves offspring for another to raise

29
Q

What is coevolution?

A

simultaneous evolution of 2 or more co-acting species

30
Q

What is a predator?

A

organism that kills and consumes prey

31
Q

What is a parasite?

A

organism that consumes host tissue and it weakens or kills the host

32
Q

What is the Red Queen evolution?

A

species must constantly adapt to survive against ever-evolving opposing speices

33
Q

What is apostatic selection?

A

survival of different forms of prey that makes them more likely to be ignored

34
Q

What is the startle effect?

A

Unconscious defense response to sudden threatening stimulus

35
Q

What is disruptive coloration?

A

Bold, contrasting patterns on periphery to break up body outline

36
Q

What is countershading?

A

Darker coloration on surface exposed to light (typically dorsal side)

37
Q

What is masquerade?

A

Resemblance of inedible objects

38
Q

What is aposematism?

A

warning coloration that animal is toxic (often chemically defended)

39
Q

What is mullerian mimicry?

A

distantly related species converge on same color pattern

40
Q

What is batesian mimicry?

A

non-defended species mimic defended species

41
Q

What is the game theory?

A

mathematical analysis of strategies for competitive situations (outcome of participant’s choice of action depends critically on actions of other participants)

42
Q

What is the evolutionary stable strategy?

A

A strategy that if adopted by all members of the population, cannot be bettered by an alternate strategy

43
Q

What is the Hawk-Dove game?

A

mathematical model for competition where there are 2 competitors (NOT predator/prey) that meet randomly to compete for resource

44
Q

In the Hawk-Dove game who is aggressive and who is passive?

A

The hawks are aggressive and can be injured or injure the opponent and the doves are passive and always retreat

45
Q

What are the assumptions of the game?

A

Hawk v Hawk- wins half and suffers injury on half
Hawk always beat Doves (doves always retreat when meeting a hawk)
Dove v Dove (both share the resource)
Hawks can mutate into doves (switch strategies) and doves can mutate into hawks

46
Q

What is frequency-dependent selection

A

fitness of phenotype (or genotype) depends on phenotype population composition

47
Q

What is positive fds?

A

fitness of phenotype increases as it becomes more common

48
Q

What is negative fds?

A

fitness of phenotype decreases as it becomes more common

49
Q

What is economic defendability?

A

resource defense has costs and benefits (territorial behavior favored if B > C)

50
Q

Indirect Competition
Exploitative (scramble) competition

A

1 individual reduces resources available to others without interfering with access

51
Q

Direct Competition
Interference (contest) competition

A

1 individual inhibits another’s access to resource

52
Q

What is territorality?

A

defense of space and resources

53
Q

What is the competitive exclusion principle?

A

2 species cannot coexist on same limiting resource

54
Q

What is the ideal free distribution?

A

2 habitats
rich and poor and animals are free to go where they do best
no interference competition (only exploitative competition)

55
Q

What is the ideal despotic distribution?

A

competition for territories should result in dominant residents occupying high quality areas, forcing weaker competitors into less favorable habitats

56
Q

What are floaters?

A

individuals physiologically capable of breeding but cannot do so because they do not have territory

57
Q

What is the shared resource defense?

A

territory owner shares resources with satellite male and the satellite eats food and shares in defense

58
Q

What is a strategy?

A

genetically based behavioral decision rule (an adaptation)

59
Q

What is a conditional strategy?

A

individuals vary competitive behavior based on current conditions

60
Q

What is a tactic?

A

behavior pattern played as part of a strategy (eg fighting or retreating in the face of competitor conflict)

61
Q

What does a strategy determine?

A

the range of behaviors (tactics) that an organism may employ (ie to fight, flee or hide)

62
Q

What is a lek?

A

aggregation of males to court females

63
Q

What are independets?

A

comprise 80-95% of the population. Only these defend a territory on a lek, and they get most copulations

64
Q

What are satellites?

A

non-territorial and display submissive behavior. Allow independent males to dominate them at leks and comprise 5-20% of males. They are sometimes able to gain some copulations

65
Q

What are feaders?

A

these mimic females in appearance and comprise less than 1% of males. They are able to acquire some copulations

Behavioral Ecology (1 decks)

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