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What are the 4 questions in studying animal behavior?
Causation, Development, Function, and Evolution
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What does the causation ask?
WHAT is the immediate stimulus for behavior?
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What does development ask?
HOW does behavior change with age and elarning?
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What does function ask?
How does the behavior affect chances for survival and reproduction?
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What does evolution ask?
HOW does the behavior compare with similar behaviors in RELATED SPECIES, and how might it have evolved?
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Which cause do causation and development refer to?
Proximate
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Which causes do function and evolution refer to?
Ultimate causes
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What are the two classical schools of behavior that focus on proximate causes?
Behaviorism and Ethology
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What is behaviorism?
It is derived from pavlov's work on conditioning; where neural reflexes could be modified by experience to respond to an unnatural stimulus
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What is ethology
The study of instinctive behaviors. Genetically determined fixed action patterns
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What is a releaser and how does it relate to ethology?
A simple sign stimulus that initiates an innate behavior a TRIGGER.
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What are the two schools that argue nature and nurture?
Ethology and behavioral
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What do behavioral ecologists study?
They study WHY and HOW certain behaviors evolved
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How can behaviors evolve?
Environmental conditions can put selective pressure to maintain homeostasis, choice of mate, territory, nest location, or food source
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How to some behaviors result?
They result from both inheritance and learning
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How can hormones control behavior?
They change brain structure and function
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If two rhythms are in complete match, what are they call?
In phase
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What is a circadian rhythm
Daily cycles of activities
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What type of rhythms coordinate behavior with environmental cycles?
Biological rhythms
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What is the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN)
In mammals, the master circadian clock consists of two clusters of neurons known as the SCN
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What happens when the SCN is destroyed in animals?
It becomes arrhythmic. This can be transplanted and the recipient will have rhythms of the donor tissue
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What is piloting?
It involves knowing and remembering the structure of the environment. It means that animals must be able to find their way in their environment.
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What is homing?
The ability to return to a specific location from a long distance
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What two systems of navigation do humans use?
Distance-direction navigation and Bicoordinate navigation (true navigation)
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What is distance-direction coordination? It requires knowing in what direction and what distance the destination is
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What kind of senses do animals seem to have that help them navigate?
They have a compass sense and a map sense that help them use environmental cues to determine their direction and position.
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How do pigeons orient themselves?
Time compensated solar compass
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What is bicoordinate navigation (true navigation)?
Requires knowing longitude and latitude of the current position and destination.
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What are three kinds of experiments that prove there is a genetic component to behavior?
Breeding experiments, mutation experiments, and gene knockout experiments.
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What is learning?
The modification of behavior based on experience
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What is a learned behavior
Those that evolve throgh experience in the environment.
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What are some categories of learned behavior?
Imprinting, Habituation
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What is imprinting?
When an animal learns a set of stimuli during a critical period; a time-dependent learning process
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What is a critical period in imprinting?
A window of time when imprinting can occur;
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What is habituation?
A simple type of learning that involves a loss of responsiveness to stimuli that convey little or no benefit or information.
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What is a period in regards to an individual's circadian rhythm?
The length of the cycle, usually 24 hourss
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What is a phase in terms of circadian rhythm?
Any designated point in the cycle.
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What is a true bicoordinate navigation system?
It requires knowing the exact latitude and longitude of both the current position and the destination.
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How do animals feel about defending resources?
they will not defend a resource that cannot be economically defended.
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What is an anusual form of male territorial behavior?
A Lek. They compete for prime sites in the center of the group where females come to mate.
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What is a lek?
a communal area to display prowess and empress females.
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What are mating systems useful for?
Maximizing fitness of both partners.
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What goes on in polygynous mating systems?
A male has more than one mate. Fitness is increased by having more females
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What is polyandry?
A mating system where one female mates with many males, it is seen where increased paternal care improves fitness
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What do phermones signal?
Alarm signals, mating, mark a trail, or mark a territory
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What is are altruistic acts? Kin selection.
Behaviors that reduce the performer's fitness but increase that of the one being helped. Behaviors that benefit another individual at one's own expense.
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What contributes to an individual's fitness?
An animal's offspring
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What is inclusive fitness? What does it entail?
Individual reproductive success plus that derived from relative's success. Personal fitness + Kin fitness
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What is hamilton's rule? What is the formula?
A formula to determine whether or not an alturistic behavior is adaptive. Benefit to recipient X degree of relatedness has to be greater than the cost to the performer. B x r > C
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What is a eusocial society?
One where the individuals give up mating to support reproduction of the group. 'queen bee'
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What is a haplodiploidy?
One in which diploid individuals are female and haploids are males. Only the queen is fertile and she produces all the offspring in a colony.
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What are the coefficients of relatedness for haploid systems?
Female/female- 75%; female-male- 25%; Queen/offspring - 50%
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Why may eusociality be favored?
If it is difficult or dangerous to start a new colony
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Which are the most eusocial mammals?
The naked mole rats.
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What are some benefits of group living?
Foraging efficiency, reduce risk of becoming prey, alarm calling to reduce predation risk.
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What are some negative results of group living?
It may interfere with one another's ability to get food or reproduce. Increase risk from diseases and parasites.
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