Animal Behavior - Section 1 Reading Notes

Front 1

What type of acorns did squirrels consume and which type did they hide?

Back 1

Squirrels consistently consumed acorns of high perishability and cached acorns of low perishability, without regard to handling time.

Front 2

What species of acorns do the squirrels preferentially cache?

Back 2

The red oak group, which over winter before germinating in the spring

Front 3

What species of acorns do the squirrels preferentially consume?

Back 3

Highly perishable acorns of the white oak group

Front 4

What did Jacobs argue?

Back 4

An animal foraging and caching under time constraints should store items with the highest consumption, (handling), times, provided that it takes less time to cache the items than to eat them, even when items with higher handling times were more perishable.

Front 5

What were the 2 hypothesis?

Back 5

The handling time and perishability hypotheses

Front 6

Where was the experiment executed?

Back 6

An urban park in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Front 7

Why was this site in Pennsylvania selected?

Back 7

Grey squirresl regularly consumed and cached acrorns ther and were easily observed as a result of their habituation to human activity.

Front 8

How many experiments were performed?

Back 8

Six

Front 9

Which experiments controlled for handling time?

Back 9

Experiments 2, 3, and 5.

Front 10

Which experiments varied perishability?

Back 10

Experiments 1, 2, and 3

Front 11

How is the energetic value of an acorn determined?

Back 11

Determined largely by its size and percentage of crude fat, so squirrels might cache large acorns high in fat to minimize the time required to store the energy needed to sustain them through winter.

Front 12

Was it predicted the squirrels cache acorns higher or lower in fat content?

Back 12

Higher in fat content

Front 13

What were the four variables?

Back 13

Perishability, Handling Time, Fat Content, Tannin Content

Front 14

Do squirrels cache acorns high or low in tannins?

Back 14

Cache acorns high in tannins; eat those low in tannins

Front 15

What were the two conditions necessary for testing the handling time hypothesis?

Back 15

1. Acorns differed significantly in handling times
2. Caching times were smaller than eating times

Front 16

Which variables showed no significant effect on caching frequency?

Back 16

Handling time and fat content

Front 17

Which two variables accounted for 75% and 42% of caching events respectively.

Back 17

Perishability and handling time

Front 18

What happened in acorns using white-oak acorns, (like in experiments 5 and 6)?

Back 18

Nearly all acorns were consumed

Front 19

Why do squirrels notch seeds?

Back 19

Kill embryos to prevent seeds from germinating; ensuring the longevity of caches

Front 20

From which end do acorns consume white-oak acorns and what does this mean for tannins?

Back 20

From the apical end, where the embryo is located; since tannins have highest concentration in apical end, shoes that tanning concentration alone does not significantly affect foraging and caching decisions

Front 21

Which hypothesis is strongly supported?

Back 21

Perishability hypothesis

Front 22

Which do squirrels select for caching and which do they select for consumption: red-oak acorns or white-oak acorns?

Back 22

Red-oak for caching and white-oak for consumption

Front 23

What are the 7 deadly sins in the study of behavior?

Back 23

1. Unjustified conclutions made from observational data
2. Data are not independent
3. Treatments are confounded by time and sequence effects.
4. No effort are made to avoid observer bias.
5. Potential artifacts arise when animals are not accustomed to experimental procedures
6. Unsuitable controls are used.
7. An attempt is made to "prove" the null hypothesis with small samples

Front 24

Can cause-effect relationships be drawn from observational correlations?

Back 24

No

Front 25

How do people make errors with "p-value?"

Back 25

Many of today's computer programs round off p at the third decimal place, tempting users to uncorrectly report a p equal to zero

Front 26

Can correlational evidence ever prove a cause-effect relationship?

Back 26

Never

Front 27

What may be the reason that a mobbing bird is almost never attacked by the predator that is being mobbed?

Back 27

It may well be that the birds take their own fleeing ability into account when they decide on their mobbing distance.

Front 28

When does pseudoreplication occur?

Back 28

When replicates are not statistically independent.

Front 29

Give two examples of pseudoreplication suing fish in separate tanks.

Back 29

1. Someone might have accidentally hit the table with the tank that contained certain groups of fish, making them more wary

2. Have 24 different types of prey fish, but only one type of predator fish

Front 30

What is the example of pseudoreplication in Loss Nessies?

Back 30

There might be different characteristics about the lakes that would make them more skiddish - rather than the nature of the fish themselves or the presence of a Loch Ness.