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Animal Behaviour > Week 6-end > Flashcards

Week 6-end Flashcards

1
Q

What is sexual selection and what are the mechanisms

A

A form of natural selection acting on traits to compete for mates, even if they’re costly as long as they get to do the deed

Mechanisms
1. intrasexual selection (same sex competition to get a mate)
2. Intersexual selection (sexual interactions affecting mate choice)

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2
Q

What is the reproductive skew, the asymmetry in the selection, and anisogamy

A

reproductive skew:
- Unequal partitioning of reproductive success with population (leads to reproductive variance)

  • Sexual selection favors traits for one sex = associated reproductive behaviors

asymmetry in sexual selection
- Girls make 1 big egg, guys make a lot of mini sperm(cheap to produce)

anisogamy
- Fusion of two gametes to differ greatly in size

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3
Q

What is the bateman gradient and principle

A

Gradient:
- Male’s reproductive success increases w/his number of mates (positive correlation)
Females must secure resource to create then raise offspring so her’s is dependent on quality not quantity of mates

Principle:
- Because males achieve greater reproductive success, they tend to have more mates than females = they have higher reproductive variance

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4
Q

What is the sex different perspectives on parental investment

A
  • Costly parental activities that increase survival of offspring decreases their likelihood of producing more offspring
  • Females are likelier to gain benefits from raising kids
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4
Q
A
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5
Q

What is the operational sex ratio

A
  • both genders have the same reproductive success average BUT differ in variance (Females don’t gain much from mating AGAIN, so usually less sexually active than males
    ** ratio of sexually active males to sexually receptive females
  • Key differences evolve from type of gametes produced amplified with variation in degree of parental care
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6
Q

What is the theory of sex differences and role reversal

A

Postulates as a result of 1-3 operates more strongly in the sex where competition for mates is greatest
1. sex differences in mating behaviour

  1. Reproductive variance and skewed operational sex ratio
  2. Sexual selection

sex role reversal
- Change in typical behaviour patterns between the sexes

  • In species where males contribute more parental investment, we can predict competition for mates and mate choices by males
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6
Q

What do we know about pregnant males

A
  • Some offer brood pouches for females to place eggs (seahorse) and free ones actively choose among mates
  • Pregnant pipefish guys provide nutrients to clutch of eggs for weeks
  • Females compete for opportunity to donate their eggs
  • Experiment showed guys would rather feed then mate
  • Offspring survival is partly influenced by female body size (motto motto likes em big) and striping patterns
  • Female competition exerts strong pressure on the ornament suggesting indicator of their size
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7
Q

What’re the intersex phenotypes

A

Sexual traits and sex determination aren’t fixed

Some female have intersex phenotype characterized by sexual organs called ovotestes (has both)

Because of increased androgen synthesis female intersex moles developed masculinized genitalia and become highly aggressive (duplication of CYP17A1 and inversion of FGF9)

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8
Q

what is the female-limited polymorphism and their dynamic sex roles

A

Females either have mal-like colouration or a distinct less flashy alternative

Eg. white-necked jacobin where both genders at young have ornament plumage and when grown females don’t have it are attacked less by other species

roles:
1. They shift throughout the breeding season

Eg. two-spotted goby male abundance declines by 10x while females are stable, decrease in male courting and increase in female courting

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9
Q

what is Competitional access to mates

A
  • Adaptations help males actively compete with other males for mates (Fighting is most common)
  • Sexual selection for fighting ability often leads evolution of large body sizes and armaments
  • Conflicts are not always immediate but rather dominance hierarchy (costly to become dominant but if successful is considered adaptation)
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10
Q

what is the Alternative reproductive tactics (ART), when are they more likely to evolve, and what are the different types?

A

Different reproductive strategies within single sex of species
- dominant/territorial males (bourgeois)

  • sneaker/satellite mimic males (parasitic) - never compete just opportunistically intercept mating opportunities or pretends to be females

evolve when:
a) Strong selection for body size
High growth costs (so they reproduce small instead)

b)Fair sperm competition

c)Leads to disruptive selection where intermediate phenotypes are less fit

types:
1. Genetic Arts: tactics ar fixed for life by genetic polymorphisms (spike size)

  1. Conditional ARTs: tactics that change based on environmental cues
    a)Seen more when Growth costs are low

b)Relaxed competition for size (if size isn’t sole determinant for reproductive success)

c)Flexible switch

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11
Q

how are multiple ARTS displayed in populations

A
  • Simultaneous evolution of multiple tactics
  • Genetic fixed-for-life ARTS and conditionally flexible ARTS can coexist
  • Occurs in restricted conditions:
    a)Both genetic and conditional texts provide advantages under different scenarios
    b)Often seen in species with complex mating system
  • Eg. Cuckolder males will evolve from all tactics (sneaker to satellite to mimic)
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12
Q

What is paternity assurance

A

Mate guarding which prevents them from mating with anyone else (costly)

Males of many species do this for days to avoid sperm competitio

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12
Q

What is sperm competition

A
  • Males that adopt different mating tactics differ in securing mates but competition can continue afterwards
  • Females can mate with more than one male in a short period
  • If sperm has advantages in race to fertilize then number of spawning is not an accurate measure of fitness
  • Males must compete and in some case their sperm must as well
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13
Q

what is the Runaway sexual selection model vs the Chase-away sexual selection model

A

runway
- If female choice create a genetic link between mate choice and trait, correlation leads to evolution of preferences for more extreme traits over time

  • This generates runaway process where more extreme preferences end up too costly (they like long tails but eventually it becomes TOO long)

chase-way
- If male traits that attract female becomes disadvantage to females, they lead to females build resistance to it

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13
Q

What factors influence ART evolution

A
  • Body size and size-dependent competition
  • Territory availability
  • Mortality risk
  • Growth costs
  • Sperm competition
  • Frequency- dependent selection: type of natural selection where the fitness of particular phenotype depends on frequency of it is compared to other phenotypes
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13
Q

What are female mate choice benefits
and what is cryptic female choice

A
  • Potential direct benefits (parental care, resources, safety)
  • Potential indirect benefits (good looking son hypothesis)

cryptic:
- The ability of a female that receives multiple different sperms to choose which one gets to fertilize her eggs

  • Post-copulatory sexual selection (even after egg/sperm fuse by just choosing to invest more resource or testosterone competition to preferred baby daddy’s egg)
  • Can preferentially release or dilute sperm to skew male’s reproductive success
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14
Q

what is lekking behaviour

A
  • Males gather at a specific location (Lek) and perform courtship displays, doesn’t provide resource/parental care and just have genetics to offer up
  • Alphas usually take centre area with betas and such surrounding them
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15
Q

What are the evolutions of mating systems, what are things that drive it

A

Monogamy vs polygamy

  1. Ecological drivers
    - Resource distribution
    - Territory availability
    - Parental investment
    - Offspring survival
  2. Reflects balance between ecological conditions, reproductive success, and the needs of offsprings for parental investment
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16
Q

what’re the different types of mating systems

A

Monogamy
- Only mates with 1 person

Polygny
- Male breeds w/multiple females

Polyandry
- Female has multiples baby daddies in one BREEDING SEASON

Polygynandry
- Both males and females have multiple partners with pair-bonds

Promiscuity
- Both have multiple partners with no bonds (all 1 nighters)

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17
Q

How is the type of mating systems determined

A
  • Both sexes must weigh costs and benefits of mating decisions
  • Males and females often have different motivations for attempting to mate multiple times
  • Most are plastic and can vary among populations of the same species
  • Populatings mating system is the result of one sex monopolizing access to other sex (the better their ability to gain access to mates, the more likely their evolution for multiple partners)
  • The form of system evolved depends on which sex is limiting, and the degree to which the other sex controls resource access or monopolize mates
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18
Q

what’re the different types of monogamy (both are rare but do not equal each other)

A

Social monogamy
- 100% of offsprings produced by social parents (superb fairy wren)
- Literally an open relationship (mate, lives together, raise kids together but has flings with others)
- Usually leave territory before sunrise and mate with other birds before returning home
- 95% of nests have extra pair young (reduces infanticide

Genetic monogamy
- ACTUAL definition of monogamy, no affairs ever
- Florida scrub jays

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19
Q

Why be monogamous

A
  1. Costs of mating multiply is high for both male and female
    - Costs for searching/mating multiple times
    • Risks of being killed by predator
    • Chance of acquiring an std from some mates
  2. Mate limitation hypothesis:
    • monogamy evolves when mates don’t roam/group making them hard to get (costly)
  3. Mate guarding hypothesis:
    • monogamy evolves when individuals have the ability to inhibit their partner’s inner hoe
  4. Mate assistance hypothesis:
    • Monogamy evolves when resources are critical to reproductive success that both parents have to be all in (takes 2 to tango)
  5. Infanticide hypothesis:
    - forming bonds to provide paternal protection for offspring (buff baby daddy)
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20
Q

What is biparental care in monogamous species

A
  • Male’s contribute in offspring welfare is major
    a) European starling’s kids develop faster, higher catch rate too
  • Type of male care is limited compared to females (females can produce milk etc) so based on sexual selection theory, guys technically should focus on mating w/more girls
  • If mate assistance hypothesis is correct
    a) Mammals w/paternal instincts should be monogamous

b)Tested by California mouses showing that more pups are made together then when females are solitary

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21
Q

What is the evolution of monogamy and polyandry mammals

A

monogomy
- Breeding females are intolerant of each other and spread out

  • This makes it hard for guys to keep track/protect all his hoes resulting in spending time with just one

polyandry
- Intense competition for females and territories, dudes are capable of forming teams to defends sites

  • If females give all the dudes equal chances, mean fitness for each mate is higher than if one decided not to join the team (in a team ur fitness increases but u gotta share, no team=lower fitness than everyone)
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22
Q

What are the indirect benefits of polyandry

A
  1. Good genes hypothesis
    - to produce good offsprings (reduced stillbirth, their clutches survive more than those produced by single mate males)
  2. Genetic compatibility hypothesis:
    - Increases odds of receiving genetically complimentary sperm (terms of fertilization, growth, survival)
  3. Genetic diversity hypothesis:
    - To increase the heterozygosity of either individual offspring or the group of offspring produced in a single bout (different group or different generations)
  • Less chances of carrying recessive alleles that cause defects
  • These mixed groups will survive bouts of disease/environments (stronger immune systems, different types of resistance)
  1. Inbreeding avoidance hypothesis:
    Avoids inbreeding with their social partner
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23
Q

What are the direct benefits of polyandry

A

Additional resources hypothesis:
- Access to additional resources
- Gain multiple caregivers for kids (they cant tell which kid is theirs so they have to take care of all)

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24
Q

What is paternity dilution

A

Females mate with multiple males to confuse them over who the actual baby daddy is

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25
Q

what’re the different ways competition/resource determine male payoff in polygyny

A

Female defence polygyny hypothesis :
- evenly distributed resources = female groups with male guard (males fight for this position) to access resources/dilute predation
- social monogomy never occur
- dominat małe can control up to 80% of mating by driving away subordinates

harem defence polygyny:
- a form of female defence polygyny, females are socially bonded, male can monopolize a whole group (zebra’s)

Resource defence polygyny hypothesis:
- clumped resources = females attracted to it and males easily guard resources + female by ext.

lek polygyny hypothesis:
- resources distributed heterogeneously and no female groups formed = males wait for women to come to them
- their lek circle is for display at intersections where females must pass
- unequal mating success, older males are in centre and females compete to mate w/that one

scramble competition polygyny hypothesis:
- resources distributed heterogeneously and no female group formed = males seek them out

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26
Q

What is the female distribution theory

A
  • Measured male territories and female foraging ranges
  • Females hunting range is so large it overlaps with multiple males’ territories, creating a polygynandrous system
  • When resources are supplemented, female range decreases, also decreasing amt of social mates they have
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27
Q

what is the polygyny threshold

A
  • The point where females gain higher fitness by mating w/taken male than a bachelor right after (prefer bachelors ass they have more offspring/don’t share territory)
  • Manipulated pairs of red-winged blackbirds found females chose best nesting location even if it meant joining a harem (had 2x amt of kids)
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28
Q

what is the evolution of lek polygyny

A

Hotspot hypothesis:
- Males make their clusters in areas traveled by females

Hotshot hypothesis:
- Subordinates cluster around the hotshot to have a chance at female interaction

Female preference hypothesis:
- Males cluster cause females like the male accessibility of male leks

29
Q

How is lek polygyny tested what are the results

A

Artificial leks populated by painted decoys are placed with varying amts of sex combos to see how many live birds are attracted to each

Rejects hotspot but not hotshot or female preference
- Female decoys failed to attract male clusters
- Male decoys especially large clusters did attract females

30
Q

what is the scramble competition polygyny

A

When receptive females and their resources are dispersed, males will look for them before others can (scrambling to find them), persistence beats aggression

31
Q

what is the prerequisite for monogamous mating systems, what are the two preconditions needed for the evolution of polygamy?

A

prerequisite for monogamous mating system
- economic defendability of a mate

preconditions for evolution of polygamy
1. environmental potential for polygamy (EPP)
- species/resources that can attract multiple mates needs to be energetically defendable

  1. ability to capitalize on EPP
    - dictated by parental care
32
Q

What’re the types of interactions between individuals

A

collective behaviour
- synchronized movement of individuals following basic interaction rules

interaction:
- non-independence between individuals’ movements

33
Q

what’re the types of social behaviours

A

Mutual benefit
- Both receive benefits
- Hard to identify benefits to both parties and can be mistaken for kin-selected benefit
- Clownfish wait for a vacant breeding position (being dominant isn’t beneficial but chasing away others is also not costly)

Altruism
- recipient gets fitness benefits while donor gets a cost

Selfishness
- Donor benefits, recipient doesn’t (kleptoparasitism, stealing from someone else who did the collecting)

Spite
- Neither the donor nor recipient benefits (rare)
- not favoured by natural selection but could be adaptive

34
Q

What is the social Network Analysis for animal behaviour

A
  • individuals form relationships that are not always equal and changes over time
  • individuals represented as odes while their connections are Called edges, more connections = more edges, the stronger the connection, the thicker the node
35
Q

what is altruism and reciprocity, what is indirect reciprocity

A

Direct
- helpful actions that is repaid later (costs of helping is modest but delayed benefit is great)
- only happens in species who’ll know each other long enough for the payout
- not common (vulnerable to those forgetting to repay, this defectors reduce evolution of reciprocity)

indirect:
- helpful action repaid later by someone else (witnesses will wanna help you out later)

36
Q

what is the prisoner’s dilemma, How are the payoff for responses ranked in prisoner’s dilemma

A

prisoner’s dilemma
- game theory construct where fitness payoff are set to be mutual cooperation generating lower return instead of defection

payoff ranking:
1. defect while other cooperates
2. both cooperate
3. both defect
4. cooperate while others defect

optimal response is to always defect
- but if individuals can use “tit-for-tat_ and go back and forth, rewards will accumulate and exceed reward for a single defection

37
Q

what is cooperative breeding

A

multiple individuals care for young together
- on 5% of mammals and 10% of birds/fish

  • characterized by presence of non-breeding helpers that aid in parental care (alloparental care)
  • these helpers are male in birds but females in mammals (capable of breeding but don’t, usually the older child)
38
Q

what are the evolution hypothesis of cooperative breeding

A

kin selection hypothesis:
- indirect fitness benefits delay independent breeding and instead helping

group augmentation hypothesis:
- survival/reproduction is better by living in a larger group (delayed reciprocity, hard to test, likelihood of territory inheritance)

ecological constraints hypothesis:
- when breeding resources are limited, individuals delay dispersal and remain in the territory to help raise relatives (limited resources means it’ll be even tougher alone)

life history hypothesis:
- historical traits like juvenile/adult survival impacts cooperative breeding evolution (create’s surplus of individuals in a habitat)

benefits-of-philopatry hypothesis:
- benefits of delayed dispersal outweighs costs associated with independence

temporal variability hypothesis:
- environmental uncertainty promotes cooperative breeding because having helpers at the best allows birds to breed successfully under both good/bad conditions (reproductive insurance)
- occurs in arid environments where rainfall is low, variable, and unpredictable

39
Q

what are the costs and benefits of cooperative breeding

A
  • primary helpers work the hardest which translates to lower probability of surviving to return to breeding grounds
  • primary helpers raise fitness indirectly while secondary raise theirs directly
  • only 67& of surviving primary helpers find mates in their 2nd yr
    91% of secondary helpers go on to breed (bonds with the women they’re helping = increases their access to mates)
40
Q

what is load-lightening in terms of cooperative breeding

A

helpers reduce the workload of parents in offspring care
- direct benefits to the breeders can also explain why cooperative breeding systems can evolve

  • presence of helpers allow parents to reduce their workload

pay to stay

41
Q

what’re the individual differences in cooperative behaviours

A

can be heritable and repeatable but behaviours are more plastic than heritable
1. animal personality:
- individual behaviours that are repeatable through time, consistency within individuals across contexts

  1. behavioural syndrome:
    - behavioural consistency within individuals across contexts. individual behaviours that are repeatable through time

species that exhibit cooperative breeding are ideal for studying fitness effects of personality because they can adopt different roles that vary in success
- studies wanted to ee if specific personalities are more likely to become a breeder vs helper, proof for this is limited

42
Q

what is the difference between obligate and facultative altruism

A

obligate:
- helpers cannot reproduce and only gain fitness benefits indirectly

facultative:
- helpers retain potential for reproduction, maximizing their lifetime inclusive fitness as a combination of both direct/indirect fitness

  • high potential for reproductive conflict and structure of society influences the potential its potential
43
Q

what are social organizations in terms of cooperative breeding

A
  • cooperative breeding species vary in social organizations and reproductive skew

singular breeding: social groups contain only a single breeding female and reproductive skew is high

plural breeding:
- social groups contain multiple breeding females and reproductive skew is lower
- multiple females breed w/multiple males
- offsprings tend to be less related to each other
- groups consists of a mixture of related and unregulated individuals
- reproductive conflict can be high for breeding positions because there are more breeding opportunities

44
Q

explain kin structure and relatedness

A
  • Avian mating systems are fluid and promiscuous
  • in species where nest contain s kids from multiple baby daddies, offsprings are less likely to engage in cooperative breeding with helpers, instead preferring monogamous species
  • in social species that form kin groups, mating and social systems go hand in hand
45
Q

what is the difference between communication, signal, and cue

A

Communication:
- transfer of info between
sender/receiver that affects current/ future behaviour and fitness of one or both

Signal:
- coevolved message between sender/ receiver containing info (evolution of comms requires signal perception)

Cue: unintentional and unselected transfer of information

46
Q

what is info, why is it needed

A
  • Stable information includes things like species identify, sex, or toxicity
  • Physiological condition or dominance rank can change
  • critical for survival/reproduction
  • communicate abt what’s around them and themselves
  • interpretation is critical as it influences fitness of both parties
  • used ass warning sounds (what, where, when)
47
Q

what is the evolution of signals

A

Preexisting trait hypothesis:
- Signals evolve through senders preexisting traits( behavioural, physiological, or morphological) that already provide informative cues to receivers and can be modified into a signal via ritualization)

Preexisting bias hypothesis:
- Signals evolve through receivers preexisting biases(biases in their sensory systems that detect some features of the world better than others)
- sensory exploited by senders

48
Q

what is the panda principle

A

Evolutionary transitions occur by changing
structures piece by piece as selection does not start from scratch but acts on what already exists

*panda thumbs is a highly modified wrist bone (their ancestors used it for running but when they evolved into herbivores, it changed)

49
Q

what’s an example of preexisting bias

A

Trinidadian guppies:

  • males can’t see orange and gets it through plants but can synthesize red pigmentation (drosopterin)
  • females prefer orange dudes as a product of evolved visual sensitivity to the colour
50
Q

what’re the communication frameworks

A

Honest signaling:
- both sender and receiver obtain a fitness benefit
- large males have an easier time making threat displays
- there is a cheap production cost but maintenance cost due to social enforcement is higher

Deceitful signaling:
- sender receives a benefit and receiver pays a cost
- senders receive benefits by manipulation
- carnivorous female fireflies lights up to attract males then eat them

Eavesdropping:
- sender pays a fitness cost and receiver gains a benefit
- when predators/parasites eavesdrop, costs are imposed on legitimate sender
g. some lyre birds will eavesdrop and create illusions of predators to keep females from leaving display area
- this has shaped sender behaviours (songbirds starting producing calls at higher frequencies)

51
Q

what is multimodal signalling, give an example of a species that does this

A
  • many species use a different sensory modalities to signal (tactile, visual, acoustic, chemical etc.)

Multiple message hypothesis:
- Different signaling modalities convey
different info

Redundant signal hypothesis:
- Diff modalities independently convey
the same info, providing insurance for errors or environmental noise

example:
- peacock spiders exhibit visual and vibrational signals and ALSO haas oramental tails
- both used to court females

52
Q

why does deceitful signalling occur

A

Novel Environment hypothesis:
- the environment is sufficiently
different from the one where the behaviour originated so that there’s enough time for adaption to happen

Net Benefit hypothesis:
- a sensory mechanism that result in fitness losses for some under certain circumstances but doesn’t erase the fitness gain by
receivers for reacting to a sender

aka evolves when costs for producing false response are lowering than that of failing to respond

53
Q

What is learning in animal species

A
  • individuals rapidly learn to forage in more efficient manners as they gain experience
  • only occurs if it is adaptive because its costly to learn
54
Q

what has an effect on the evolution of learning

A
  1. environmental stability
    a) in dynamic world
    (habit A= 50% probability of high fitness
    Habitat B = 50% high fitness)

b) fixed world
(habitat A = 100% while habitat B=0%)
- if environment is regulated, learning decreases and evolution is fixed)

  1. usefulness of past experience
    - if reliability increases, learning will be favoured
55
Q

what is habituation

A
  • reduction and lack of response to stimulus over time
  • habituation to useless stuff is good cause then they can focus on important stimuli
56
Q

How does learning occur (neuropathology)

A
  1. changes in neurotransmitters
  2. number of synapses between neurons
57
Q

what is imprinting

A
  • rapid learning during a short amount of time but has long lasting effects
  • vulnerable offsprings benefit from this so they can recognize parents and remain close
  • the IMHV in the brain has important role in memory related to imprinting (lesions/blockers will prevent imprinting

eg. baby geese imprinted on Konrad’s boots

58
Q

what is neural plasticity? what are dendritic spines in relation to learning?

A
  • neural plasticity: structural changes in number of synapses and they’re chemical strength between neurons
  • these changes are dynamic due to formation/elimination of dendritic spines (small protuberance that receive synaptic inputs)
  • more knowledge = more dendritic spines formed
59
Q

what is classical conditioning vs operant conditioning

A

Classical
- a type of learning where Novel stimulus is paired with an existing stimulus and elicits a irate response (dogs salivate when they see food and owner who feeds them)

operant:
- process of associating behaviour w/a consequence
any of these types can occur:
1. positive reinforcement: behaviour is more likely due to presentation of a stimulus

  1. negative reinforcement: behaviour more likely due to removal of stimulus
  2. positive punishment: behaviour less likely cause of presentation of stimulus
  3. negative punishment: behaviour less likely cause of removal of stimulus
60
Q

what is learning predators and what is learning curves

A
  • certain species like the damsel fish make association between chemical alarm cues and odours of hetero-specific fish o learn their predators

learning curves:
graphical rep of change

61
Q

what is social learning, and how do some learn about food patches

A
  • others r info sources for learning
  • may be favoured if energetically efficient
  • black tailed prairie dogs learn anti predator behaviours from adults
  • local enhancement: strategy where they look for presence of others to indicate focus areas
  • public info: obtained by activity of others showing quality of environment
62
Q

what is behavioural teaching, evidence?

A

experienced individual facilitates learning of newbies

  1. teacher will modify his behaviour only while pupil is present
  2. the behaviour is costly for the teacher
  3. pupil acquires knowledge rapidly through actions of teacher compared to otherwise

eg. ptarmigan birds learn what to eat quickly (hens drop small food and bop their heads when chicks are nearby)

63
Q

what are behavioural traditions, who uses them

A

difference in behaviour among populations that are transmitted between generations through social learning

  • dolphins use marine sponge to locate submerged prey
  • these sponge tools are only found in dolphins near shark-bay
64
Q

what is animal culture and what are the potential explanations

A

differences in multiple traditions among pops

explanation:
- genetic basis
- ecological differences
- social learning

65
Q

what is cognition, and how its it tested

A
  • ability to acquire, retain, process, and use info (can evolve more applications)
  1. early work used tools and observed its manipulation to achieve a goal (problem-solving behaviour)
  2. mirror self-recognition test: mark placed on face of individual who its placed in front of a mirror.
    - if individual directs any behaviour towards it, demonstrates self-awareness (most species don’t pass)
  3. numerical competency: ability to recognize numerical info
    - ability to estimate amt of objects/events
    - they can only count “more” of somm but not “less”
66
Q

what is numerical discrimination/competency? what is used to assess numerical discrimination

A

Magnitude effect:
- many spices can distinguish between small quantities (1-3 rather than 6-8)

disparity effect:
- easier for them to select larger quantity when the difference between options its large (easy to distinguish 2-5 not 4-5)

  • numerical discrimination tests used
  • tested if species exhibits numerical discrimination and whether training was required for it
67
Q

what Is memory in terms of cognition, how do you characterize memory capabilities?

A
  • cognition involves retention of info, thus memory its the most important characteristic of it
  • memory benefits locations recognition, behaviours
  • examines food caches created by animals (stored for later)
68
Q

what is long term memory? what is behavioural flexibility, how is it measured?

A
  • ability to recall past events and provide quantitive measures for cognition (length of time between events is recorded)
  • eg. memory of old food patches etc.

behavioural flexibility:
- approach of cognition assessment based on graded manner
- it measured ability to alter behaviour in response to environmental stimuli

  • measured by ability to innovate
  • ability to quickly inhibit a previous behaviour when conditions changed
  • reversal learning:
  • after learning to associate 1 stimuli/reward, the conditions are reversed and individuals needs to associate reward/alternate stimuli
69
Q

what is the relationship between cognitive ability and reproduction, what is the relationship with cognitive ability and mate preference

A
  • used reversal learning test and spatial memory tasks to asses cognitive function of an individual
  • studied those individuals to see how many offspring’s they had (positive correlation between the two )
  • female initially liked the unpreffered male base on just visuals and stuff
  • but once the preferred was trained to open boxes, the female preferred intellect
70
Q

what is the relationship between cognition and the brain?

what part of the brain is spacial memory associated with?

A
  • brain size its positively correlated to body size
  • increased brain size allows for greater behavioural flexibility
  • spacial memory is associate with the hippocampus(hippocampal formation in birds)
  • harsher conditions show higher caching ability/higher memory/larger brains (heritable)

eg. bird Brians have reported new foraging innovations, also good caching memory

71
Q

What are the key aspects of Foraging behaviour, what is it influenced by?

A
  • goal oriented
  • dynamic,
  • involves decision making

by:
- energy optimization
- food availability and nutritional needs
- predation risks and competition
- social status
- level of cognition
- habitat features and human influence

72
Q

what is the optimal theory and what is the optimal foraging theory and it models, what are the factors that affect it

A

optimal
- organismal attributes are optimal and generates possible adaptive values for fitness of those that have it

optimal foraging
- predicts how animals maximize fitness while foraging (cost benefits)

models assume energy maximization is all that matters but they do not always select food as efficiently as possible

factors:
- biology affect foraging behaviour (oystercatchers don’t always get the biggest one cause its covered in barnacles)

  • predation risk will result in preferred temporary small gain instead (life-dinner principle)
73
Q

how do organisms search for food

A
  • chooses among places rather than among types of food

marginal value theory:
- animals should stay in patch until its marginal benefit of feeding declines to equal the average intake rate of the enviornment

74
Q

explain what net caloric intake is, what did the whale study show

A

caloric costs of gathering food is less than caloric benefits gained by eating

whales:
- whales dive for 15min when foraging (cost = 60K KJ cost) but will gather 30mil KJ in benefits

75
Q

what is the landscape of fear

A

In terms of predation risk in changing foraging behaviour,

foraging behaviour changes when introduced to predators, individuals will lower energy intake to avoid risk of getting killed (move to different areas or somm)

76
Q
A

Animal Behaviour (2 decks)

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