Animal Behavior

Front 1

Ethology

Back 1

the study of behavior – involves examining behaviors that help animals survive or reproduce in the wild (adaptions subject to natural selection)

Front 2

Proximate causation

Back 2

explains how behavioral actions occur – examines the physiology behind the response

Front 3

Ultimate causation

Back 3

concerned with why actions occur – what the evolutionary implications behind the response are

Front 4

Innate behavior

Back 4

animal behavior that is developmentally fixed and under strong genetic control – exhibited in virtually the same form by all individuals in a population despite internal and external environmental differences during development and throughout their lifetimes (behaviors that cannot be learned)

Front 5

Learned behavior

Back 5

require experience – a change in behavior that results from a particular experience in the life of that individual

Front 6

Fixed action pattern

Back 6

a description of an innate behavior – inborn stereotyped behaviors – a sequence of unlearned acts that is essentially unchangeable and, once initiated, usually carried to completion

Front 7

Modal action pattern

Back 7

when there is some variation in the performance of the behavior

Front 8

Sign stimuli

Back 8

factors that trigger innate responses – an external sensory cue that triggers a fixed action pattern by an animal

Front 9

Releaser

Back 9

a specific type of sign stimulus that communicates information

Front 10

Supernormal releaser

Back 10

elicit a stronger FAP response than the natural stimulus

Front 11

Reaction chain

Back 11

certain releasers linked together to create a series of behavioral events

Front 12

Prepared learning

Back 12

behaviors that are learned easily and by almost all (if not all) members of a population

Front 13

Habituation

Back 13

the simplest learned behavior

Front 14

Classical conditioning

Back 14

a process where animals can learn to respond to a new stimulus in a certain way – carried out by introducing a previously unfamiliar stimulus just prior to a familiar one that evokes a particular response

Front 15

Conditioned stimulus

Back 15

the new stimulus in classical conditioning

Front 16

Unconditioned stimulus

Back 16

the original, familiar stimulus in classical conditioning

Front 17

Extinction

Back 17

if the conditioned stimulus is lost

Front 18

Operant conditioning

Back 18

– a type of trial-and-error response

Front 19

Associative learning

Back 19

the acquired ability to associate one environmental feature (such as a color) with another (such as danger)

Front 20

Imprinting

Back 20

the formation at a specific stage in life of a long-lasting behavioral response to a specific individual or object

Front 21

Critical (sensitive) period

Back 21

a certain limited time frame during which imprinting can occur

Front 22

Insight

Back 22

the ability to apply prior learning to a new situation without trial-and-error

Front 23

Latent learning

Back 23

– the development of a behavior without an apparent reward or punishment

Front 24

Cognition

Back 24

the recognition and manipulation of facts about the world, combined with the ability to form concepts and gain insights – problem-solving skills

Front 25

Orientation

Back 25

the ability to change position and move in a specific direction – like using a type of compass to provide direction

Front 26

Navigation

Back 26

the ability to follow a specific course

Front 27

Migration

Back 27

– a seasonal, long-distance movement of a population

Front 28

Taxis

Back 28

a simple type of innate orientation that involves a positive or negative movement in response to a given stimuli

Front 29

Piloting

Back 29

involves using familiar landmarks to follow a course – may be a mix of innate and learned behaviors

Front 30

Aggression

Back 30

often a form of competition for resources between species members, or even across species – but can take several different forms

Front 31

Territoriality

Back 31

the defense of a particular habitat against invaders

Front 32

Dominance hierarchy

Back 32

members of the same group establish a social order

Front 33

Optimal foraging

Back 33

animals forage in a way that maximizes energy consumption compared to the costs of finding and obtaining the food

Front 34

Mating system

Back 34

– the number of partners

Front 35

Promiscuous mating

Back 35

some animals don’t form any real pair bonds

Front 36

Monogamy

Back 36

– a pair associates with each other exclusively for mating

Front 37

Parental investment

Back 37

– mammals tend to protect and care for young intensely

Front 38

Polygamy

Back 38

multiple partners are involved in mating

Front 39

Polygyny

Back 39

one male mates with several females – most common form of polygamy

Front 40

Polyandry

Back 40

a single female mates with several males – less common form of polygamy

Front 41

Sexual dimorphism

Back 41

the degree of difference in (the secondary sex characteristics) appearance between males and females of a species – often related to the type of mating system they employ – results from sexual selection

Front 42

Sexual monomorphism

Back 42

little or no difference in appearance between males and females – usually monogamous pairings with equal investment

Front 43

Nuptial gift

Back 43

food items or inedible tokens that are transferred to females by males during courtship or copulation

Front 44

Altruism

Back 44

(selflessness) an apparent self-sacrificing behavior – decreasing one’s own fitness level to increase the fitness level of another

Front 45

Kin selection

Back 45

the most obvious form of altruistic benefit – natural selection that favors altruistic behavior by enhancing the reproductive success of relatives

Front 46

Coefficient of relatedness

Back 46

a measure of how closely related the sacrifice is to the beneficiary – influences the likelihood of related alleles being passed down as a result of the altruism – the fraction of genes that, on average, are shared by two individuals

Front 47

Inclusive fitness

Back 47

the total effect an individual has on proliferating its genes by producing its own offspring and by providing aid that enables other close relatives to increase production of their offspring

Front 48

Hamilton’s rule

Back 48

altruism can be selected for if rB>C – the principle that for natural selection to favor an altruistic act, the benefit to the recipient, devalued by the coefficient of relatedness, must exceed the cost to the altruist

Front 49

Reciprocal altruism

Back 49

altruistic behavior separated by time – between unrelated individuals, whereby the altruistic individual benefits in the future when the beneficiary reciprocates

Front 50

Eusocial

Back 50

animals are members of an organized group if they display: cooperative care of the young, overlapping generations, and division of labor

Front 51

Communication

Back 51

when a signal from one individual modifies the behavior of another – a process involving transmission of, reception of, and response to signals

Front 52

Signal

Back 52

some sort of information-containing behavior – can come in many forms – transmission of a stimulus from one animal to another

Front 53

Temporal caste

Back 53

the role an individual plays in the colony changes as they mature

Front 54

Confusion effect

Back 54

– a large group can overwhelm a predator’s senses

Front 55

Fountain effect

Back 55

– large groups can split into smaller groups to rejoin later, in an attempt to confuse the predator

Front 56

Dilution effect

Back 56

predator attacks may claim the surrogate young rather than the young of the top hierarchy members

Front 57

Social learning

Back 57

successful new behaviors may be mimicked and transmitted as tradition – modification of behavior through the observation of other individuals

Front 58

Pheromones

Back 58

chemical signals to members of a species – a small molecule released into the environment that functions in communication between members of the same species – acts much like a hormone in influencing physiology and behavior