Week 0-5 Flashcards
Midterm 1
What is animal behaviour?
Internally coordinated, externally visible patterns of activity/responses to conditions.
Internally coordinated: Information processing.
Externally visible activity: Observational and measurable patterns (e.g., husky shaking off snow).
Why study animal behaviour?
Human-animal interactions
Ecological balance
Survival and adaptation
Evolutionary insights
What is an ethogram?
Explain the elephant ethology study
A formal description/inventory of behaviour and first step of behavioural characterization.
Must be measurable: Frequency, duration, rate, intensity.
elephant study:
Observed elephants every 5 min/for several days, recording 14 behaviors.
Found a negative correlation between feeding and stereotypical behaviors like dusting.
Hypothetical solution: Space out feeders and randomize feeding times to reduce the time spent feeding and increase stereotypical behaviors.
What is the scientific method?
Observation (Pattern or event that needs explanation)
Research question
Hypotheses (null and alternate)
Predictions (null: no difference, alternate: difference)
Methodology (logical, repeatable testing)
Results (statistical analysis, p-value)
Q: What is natural selection? what does it require, give an example of one
A: The process where traits that increase reproductive success become more common.
Requires: Variation, differential reproductive success, heredity.
Example: Peacocks with better appearance attract more mates.
what are the fitness measures
Direct fitness: Offspring survival rate, number of mates.
Indirect fitness: Proxies like food quantity, breeding territory.
Q: What is inclusive fitness Theory?
A: The sum of direct and indirect fitness.
Direct fitness: Reproductive success via offspring.
Indirect fitness: Genetic success of relatives benefiting from altruistic behavior.
Q: What is Hamilton’s Rule?
Kin selection: Favours helping relatives reproduce even at a personal cost.
(and if their reproductive success is greater than individuals, altruistic behaviour evolves) 𝑟𝐵 >𝐶
Inclusive fitness: Direct + indirect fitness.
Q: What is reproductive conflict and its social consequences?
Reproductive conflict: Disputes over breeding rights and resources.
Social consequences: Competition, larger female weapons in eusocial species, larger genomes due to transposable elements.
Q: What is eusociality? also explain the r value for sibling haplodiploidy
A: Social structure with overlapping generations, cooperative care, and reproductive division of labor (many are sterile).
Haplodiploidy: Sisters share 75% genes, brothers share 25%.
Q: What is the cost-benefit approach? example?
A: Fitness cost: Negative effects of a trait on offspring number.
Fitness benefits: Positive effects of a trait on reproductive success.
Example: Bird tails are large enough to attract mates without hindering predator escape.
Q: What is behavioural plasticity?
A: The ability to respond to environmental cues by adjusting genotypic expression.
Example: Tiger salamanders’ cannibal and non-cannibal phenotypes depend on social environment.
Q: What is phenotypic plasticity?
A: The ability of a genotype to produce different phenotypes depending on environmental conditions.
Example: Cichlid fish males can shift between territorial and non-territorial phenotypes based on social status.
Q: What is altruism in animal behaviour?
A: Cooperative behaviour that reduces the donor’s reproductive success but increases the recipient’s reproductive success.
Q: What is kin selection theory?
A: Animals behave in ways that promote the reproductive success of their kin.
Functions include altruism, parent-offspring relations, and mate choice for optimal outbreeding.
Q: What is brood parasitism? what is two types of it, what is virulence? why does it happen? and give an example w/highlights in why, mafia hypothesis, and solutions
A reproductive strategy where one species exploits the parental care of another.
Forms include obligate (fully dependent on other species) and facultative (optional, supplementing their own care).
Virulence (brood parasitism):
The severity of harmfulness of a disease/poison/parasite that arises from behaviour of offsprings (kills foster siblings or some coexist)
happens cause:
- Some parents might abandon/destroy of their own eggs by mistake
- it is adaptive to accept a parasite egg to avoid risking their own
Reed warblers ex.
- Without visual cue of parasite near the nest, they are more likely to accept eggs in their nest
- Hosts may be too small to remove the larger parasite egg
- mafia hypothesis:
Parasitic birds, like cowbirds, retaliate by destroying host eggs if their parasitic egg is removed
Smaller hosts have 2 options
Abandon clutch (costly and has to rebuild)
Accept the egg
How is selection of parasitic nests decided, what’re the two types of strategies and their risks
Cowbirds assessed size of hosts eggs and rate of birth to pick which one to use
Parasites adopted specialist/generalist strategy depending on the environment they live
1. Specialist: lay eggs in a single host nest
2. Generalist: lay eggs in nests of many hosts
Risks of being a generalist parasite
Cant produce good mimic eggs cause too much variety and has a greater risk of being identified
Some of these distinct lineages interbreed and also inherit their hosts preference, and colouration of their mimics from their mother
what is adaptation
- Adaptation is a trait that increases survival and reproductive success.
- The connection between an allele and a genotype associated with survival success will become more prevalent over time.
- Organisms evolve traits that optimize fitness, allowing them to survive and reproduce in changing environments.
Q: What is the gene’s eye view of evolution?
- Genes are the fundamental unit of selection, not organisms.
- Genes replicate themselves, and evolution occurs through changes in gene frequencies in a population.
- Natural selection operates on genes, favoring those that enhance reproductive success.
Q: What are the two perspectives for understanding behaviour?
Ultimate cause: Why a behaviour evolved (e.g., male birds sing to attract mates).
Proximate cause: How a behaviour works (e.g., testosterone triggers bird songs in spring).
Q: What are Tinbergen’s four levels of analysis?
Mechanism: The physiological or biological cause of behaviour.
Development: How a behaviour develops over an individual’s life.
Function: The adaptive or survival purpose of the behaviour.
Phylogeny: The evolutionary history of the behaviour across species.
Q: What is the White-Crowned Sparrow example for understanding song behaviour?
give proximate and ultimate causes
Proximate causes:
- Isolated birds sang but produced no clear song. Birds exposed to recordings mimicked what they heard.
- Birds learnt the song of the species they saw.
- Neurons (HVC, RA, nXIIts) in sparrow brains generate action potentials, driving song production.
- genetic differences do not affecting song.
Ultimate causes:
- Song learning likely evolved multiple times.
- Songs enhance reproductive success through male competition and female choice, and adapt to environmental conditions.
Q: What is anthropomorphism?
- Attributing human emotions or characteristics to animals.
- Often leads to inaccurate interpretations of animal behaviour, as it’s difficult to measure animals’ emotional states.
