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214 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Define Behaviourism.
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The school of psychology largely founded by Watson that suggests that observable behaviour should be the subject of psychology.
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Define Environmentalism.
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In the science of behaviour, environmentalism is the belief that social and cultural factors are paramount in determining (human) behavior.
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Define Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA).
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A concept highly favoured by evolutionary psychologists. That period in human evolution (over 30,000 years ago) during which the mind and body plans of humans were shaped and laid down by natural selection to solve survival problems operating then.
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What does EEA stand for?
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Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness
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What is the concept called that describes the period in human evolution (over 30,000 years ago) during which the mind and body plans of humans were laid down by natural selection.
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The EEA or Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness
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Define Eugenics.
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A largely discredited set of beliefs that advocates selective breeding amoung humans to remove undesirable qualities and enhance the frequency of desirable genes.
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Define Ethology.
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A branch of biology dealing with the natural behavior of animals. Not to be confused with ethnology.
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Define Fitness
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The term, crucially important to evolutionary theory, continues to elude a precise and universally agreed definition. Fitness can be measured by the number of offspring that an individual leaves relative to other individuals of the same species. Direct fitness (sometimes called Darwinian fitness) can be thought of as being proportional to the number of genes contributed to the next generation by production of direct offspring. Indirect Fitness is proportional to the number of genes appearing in the next generation by an individual helping kin that also carry those genes. Inclusive fitness is the sum of direct and indirect fitness.
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What term is used for the sum of direct and indirect fitness?
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Inclusive fitness.
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What is inclusive fitness?
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The sum of direct and indirect fitness.
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What is Direct fitness as opposed to Indirect fitness?
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Direct fitness (sometimes called Darwinian fitness) can be thought of as being proportional to the number of genes contributed to the next generation by production of direct offspring. Indirect Fitness is proportional to the number of genes appearing in the next generation by an individual helping kin that also carry those genes.
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Define Fixed Action Patterns.
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An innate or instinctive pattern of behaviour that is highly stereotyped and stimulated by some simple stimulus.
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Define Function.
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Sometimes used as a short-hand for the adaptive value of a behavioural trait.
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How did William James and John Dewey first define function within functionalism - and when?
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In the early years of the 20th century, a school of functionalism grew up in psychology and sociology including William James (1842-1910) and John Dewey (1859-1952). Function at this time was conceived as describing the origins of a trait it related to the traits adaptive value.
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Has Functionalism always retained the meaning William James assigned it when first proposing this paradigm for psychology?
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No. ...functionalism became concerned with how individuals became adapted or adjusted in their own lives rather than how traits that had been selected over time became manifest.
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How was the idea of functionalism used by Malinowski or by anthropologists?
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In socioloby and anthropology, functionalists looked at how current behaviors of social practices contributed to the stability of the current order. Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), in his pioneering study of kinship among the Trobriand islanders, for example, tried to show how kinship served the social order as a whole rather than the genetic fitness of individuals.
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How is the modern school of functionalism defining function?
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...a modern school of functionalism, a merger of cognitive science and artificial intelligence, which uses the word in terms analogous to mathematical functions where the mind is interpreted in terms of computer-like inputs and outputs.
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Define Gene Pool.
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The entire set of alleles present in a population.
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Define Innate releasing mechanism.
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A hypothetical mechanism or model devised to help explain how an innate response is triggered by a sign stimulus.
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Define Lamarkian inheritance.
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Shorthand for the inheritance of acquired characteristics. A mechanism (among others) proposed by the French evolutionist Lamarck, whereby it is supposed that characters or modifications to characters acquired by the phenotype can be passed on to offspring through genetic inheritance. The mechanism is now rejected as without foundation.
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Define Monism.
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The belief that the universe is composed of one basic substance. In the context of human behaviour (materialistic), monism would assert that behaviour has physical causes.
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What is Morgan's canon?
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The assertion that explanations for the behaviour of animals should be kept as simple as possible. Higher mental activities should not be attributed if lower ones will suffice.
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Define Naturalism.
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The belief that all phenomena can be explained by scientific laws and principles without recourse to the supernatural or entities outside the remit of science.
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Define Ontogeny.
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(Coming into being). the development and growth of an organism from a fertilised cell, through the fetus to an adult.
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Define Operant conditioning.
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A type of learning whereby an action (operant) is carried out more frequently if it is rewarded.
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Define Paradigm.
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A cluster of ideas and theories that are consistent and form part of a distinct way of understanding the world. Evolutionary psychology can be regarded as a paradigm.
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Define Phenotypic Plasticity.
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A debated term. The average value for a phenotypic character between two individuals with identical genomes or two populations with similar gene freuencies may be different because of different environmental influences. Phenotypic plasticity is often used to refer to irreversible change and phenotypic flexibility to refer to reversible change.
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Does Phenotypic plasticity refer to irreversible or reversible change?
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Irriversible - phenotypic flexibility refers to reversible change.
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Define Positivism.
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The belief that science represents the positive and more advanced state of knowledge. Also the supposition that only objects that can be experienced directly form part of the proper process of scientific enquiry. Positivism seeks to repudiate metaphysics.
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Define Proximate cause.
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In behavioural terms, the immediate mechanism or stimuli that initiates or triggers a pattern of behaviour.
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What is the immediate cause called vs. the first cause.
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Proximate vs. Ultimate.
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Define Selection.
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The differential survival of organisms (or genes) in a population as a result of some selective force.
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Define Ultimate causation.
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The explanation for the behaviour of an organism that reveals its adaptive value.
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What is selectionist thinking?
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Selectionist thinking is the approach that looks for how features of organisms can be interpreted as the result of years of selection acting upon ancestral populations.
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What is directional selection?
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Directional selection tends to favour an extreme measure of the natural variability in a population and the average measure will gradually move in this direction.
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What is disruptive selection?
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Disruptive selection tends to favour more than one phenotype.
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What is stabilising selection?
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Stabilising selection tends to favour the mean values currently found and ensures that variation is reduced.
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When was Darwin and Wallace's paper read out at the meeting of the Linnean Society?
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July 1st 1858.
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When was "On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection" published?
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1859
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What did Darwin believe about instincts?
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That they were adaptations. They also varied slightly between individuals - all the better for natural selection to act upon.
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Who was one of the first comparative psychologists to use controlled experiments?
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Conwy Lloyd Morgan
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Do ethology and comparative psychology overlap?
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They did up until the 20th century when differences in training, methodologies and fundamental assumptions separated the two fields.
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Who is Konrad Lorenz?
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Austrian ethologist that studied bird behavior in Vienna. Famous for getting ducks to imprint on him - discovered imprinting.
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Who's idea was the fixed action pattern?
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Konrad Lorenz.
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Are fixed action patterns instinctual (inborn) or learned?
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According to Konrad Lorenz, they are instinctual, characteristic of a species, forged by natural selection and cannot be unlearnt.
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What is one of the few areas where the concept of a fixed action pattern applies to humans?
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Our response to a baby's huge, lopsided head.
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Three big names in Ethology:
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Oscar Heinroth, Konrad Lorenz and Nikolass Tinbergen
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Who used the psychohydraulic model - or flush toilet model - to conceptualize patterns of behavior in animals?
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Lorenz and Tinbergen. Though Tinbergen's were more hierarchical than water build up leading to release.
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What is Tinbergen's lasting contribution to ethology?
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His 1963 paper "On the aims and methods of Ethology" which outlined the 4 'whys' ethologists should ask.
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What are the 4 'whys' ethologists should ask when examining animal behavior?
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(A)nimal (B)ehavior:
(C)ausation (proximate or immediate cause of behavior) (D)evelopment (ontogeny - is it nature or nurture of the individual that brings about this behavior) (E)volution (how did a behavior evolve) (F)unction (ultimate cause) |
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Comparative psychology was focused on what at the beginning of the 20th century?
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Behaviorism
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Who are the 3 big names in behaviorism?
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Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner
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What did the behaviorist Watson have to say about consciousness and feelings?
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Since they are unmeasurable they should be ignored.
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What place does heredity and natural selection have in behavioural psychology?
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There is no place for heredity or heretible characteristics when all behaviors are said to be produced by the environment and the environment alone.
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What ideas were espoused by philosophers in the Vienna Circle?
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Positivism, that in it's attempt to divorce metaphysics from science, ended up taking all meaning out of purely operationalized enquiry and discussion.
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What brought down Skinner's behaviourism?
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When Skinner tried to attribute language acquisition to operant conditioning.
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Who dealt a death blow to Skinner's behaviourism?
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Noam Chomsky when he reviewed Skinner's "Verbal Behavior" showing that language acquisition cannot be explained as a product of operant conditioning. Instead there are inhereted structures present.
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Beside's Chomsky's work, what else undermined Skinner's behaviourism?
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Animal researchers reporting that operantly conditioned animals will return to behaviors that seem to be innate.
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Who made Little Albert afraid of anything white or fuzzy?
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John Broadus Watson
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Who believed that all behaviour could be resolved and reduced to a basic principle of reinforcement?
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BF Skinner
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Who were the big names and when did Game Theory emerge?
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John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in 1944 published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior and John Nash added his concept of the Nash equilibrium in 1950.
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Who applied game theory to biology?
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John Maynard Smith
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Between 1950 and 1970 which approach to the study of animal behaviour was more accepted and/or known by the general public?
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Ethology because comparative psychology was heavily associated with Watson and Skinner's extreme environmentalism/behaviourism and because Lorenz and Tinbergen could write for the reading public and provide satisfactory unified (from ultimate to proximate causes) explanations of behavior.
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When did ethology and comparative psychology seem to merge?
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By the 1990's.
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What are the competing views of the mind from Kant and Locke?
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Locke (empiricist) believed in a tabula rasa - clean slate upon which anything could be written. Kant envisioned being born with a priori categories or structures that we slot our experiences into.
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What is the opposite viewpoint of Kantian a priori mental categories?
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Locke's empiricism - where our knowledge and the world itself are equal because there is nothing structuring our perceptions or knowledge prior to experiencing the world.
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Who was Herbert Spencer?
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The writer of the Principles of Psychology that proposed a solution to the Kant/Locke argument over thinking or the mind.
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What was Spencer's great contribution to evolutionary theory?
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That the mind is born ready equipped with perceptual categories and dispositions (Kantian) but these categories were mental habits acquired through inheritance - thus they are empirically based (Locke). I.E. If colors did not exist (in the real world) we would not have evolved structures to percieve them.
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What is Spencer's philosophy of mind sometimes called?
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Critical realism.
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Who besides Baldwin conceived of 'organic selection' or the Baldwin Effect?
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Lloyd Morgan
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What is organic selection?
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Also known as the Balwin effect it describes how a learnt adaptation can become fixed in the genome. i.e. an individual who learns to dig deeper for roots can survive giving longer claws a chance to evolve.
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Why does psychobiologist Henry Plotkin think so highly of James Mark Baldwin?
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For his organic selection theory (the Baldwin effect) and his theory on the development of consciousness in children having 3 stages.
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What are the 3 stages of the development of consciousness in children?
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The differentiation of people and objects; the differentiation of self and others; and finally 'ejective consciousness', whereby the child appreciates that others also have mental states different from its own.
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How might the history of psychology have been different in the US beginning in 1908?
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If Baldwin had not been caught in a brothel and resigned his post at John Hopkins then behaviourist Watson would not have taken his post and editorship of Psychology Review.
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Who was William James?
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Philosopher and psychologist of the late 1800's (1870's +). Ascribed over 30 classes of instincts to humans and applied idea of natural selection to ideas themselves.
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What is Pragmatism?
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Philosophy of ideas - an evolutionary epistemology that applies natural selection to ideas themselves. Put forth by William James at the turn of the 20th century.
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Who is associated with the Eugenics movement?
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Francis Galton (1822-1911)
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What set back the use of evolution models in the study of behavior in the early 1900's?
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The eugenics movement.
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Who helped American anthropology move away from the racist ideas of eugenics (and Darwin himself)?
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Franz Boas (1858-1942) Originally from Berlin then at Clark University and then Columbia
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How did Franz Boas discredit ideas that biological inequalities exist between races? (That one race is physically/mentally superior to another)
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Franz Boas with his report on the bodily changes second generation immigrants exhibit. And with his book on how a "primitive" mind does not differ in it's mental capacity from a 'civilised' mind.
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Who studied bodily changes of American immigrants to disprove ideas about superior races?
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Franz Boas in 1911
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What is the standard social science model of human nature held from the 1930's to the 70's (and even today) per Tooby and Cosmides?
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That 1) genetically (biologically) people are all the same, 2) since there is such a wide variety of human behaviour (and #1 is true) then culture supplies the form to the adult mind and shapes adult behavior. (There are no biological constructs a priori that determine human behavior)
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Where does the social science model of human nature of the 1930-70's steer us wrong?
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When it discusses sex roles - attributing them to culture and not at all to biology or natural or sexual selection.
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What effect did the popularity of Margaret Mead's work have on the use of the science of evolution on the study of human behavior?
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The links between biology and human nature were severed since Mead claimed that her ethnographies proved that sex roles and sex difference in behavior were not biologically ordained. They were culturally/socially produced.
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What were the challenges in psychology to behaviorism in the 1950's and 60's?
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The Cognitive revolution: Chomsky's review of Skinner's 'Verbal Behavior', the new field of psycholinguistics with it's inherent/inhereted language structures, Piaget's work coming to America, and development of computing and IT.
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What was John Garcia's finding that provided a devastating challenge to Skinner's assumption of the equipotentiality of stimuli?
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That nausea was a stronger negative reinforcement than electric shock for teaching rats to avoid a certain colored water.
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What is behavioral ecology?
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An established and uncontroversial epithet for those who study the adaptive significance of the behaviour of animals. It studies focus more on non-human animals.
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Is Sociobiology the same as behavioral ecology?
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No. Closer to Human behavioral ecology since behavioral ecology focuses more on non-humans.
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How did sociobiology come about?
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When biologists tackled the question of altruism as an adaptation.
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Who are the sociobiologists and the biologists who contributed to sociobiology?
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WD Hamilton with his papers on inclusive fitness. GC Williams with his paper that argued natural selection must take place at the level of the individual not the group. Robert Trivers with new ideas on reciprocal altruism and parental investment. John Maynard Smith with is application of game theory to ideas about fitness.
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Who wrote Sociobiology: The New Synthesis?
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EO Wilson in 1975
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Since the term sociobiology is now rarely used, what discipline lives on that examines the adaptive mental mechanisms that are inherited?
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Evolutionary Psychology.
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Has Evolutionary Psychology taken over the field and unified it as once predicted by William James, Darwin, Spencer, etc etc
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No.
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What are the 3 aspects of the Darwinian Wheel of Life?
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Reproduction, Variation and Differential Survival.
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What is Teleology?
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The belief that nature has purposes, that events are shaped by intended outcomes.
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Is evolution goal directed?
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No it is a teleological explanation of nature.
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Define Phenotype.
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The characteristics of an organism as they have been shaped by both the genotype and environmental infuences.
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Define Genotype.
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The term can be used in two senses: llosely, as the genetic constitution of an individual, or as the types of allele found at a locus on the genome.
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What is Lamarckism?
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Doctrines associated with Jean Baptiste Lamarck. Usually take to refer to his mechanism of inheritance.
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Did Darwin reject all of Lamark's ideas.
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No, he rejected the teleological thinking of Lamarck but accepted the possibility of a mechanism of adaptation born from the effects of use and disuse of one generation carried into the next.
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Who laid Lamarck's theory to rest?
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Along with a bunch of rat's tails, August Weismann buried Larmarck's theory. He distinguished the difference between somatic cells and germ cells. Germ cells direct somatic cells but not the other way around.
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What is the central dogma?
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The idea that the information flow from DNA through RNA and to the proteins of cells that make up an individual is one way and irreversible.
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Why did a two-way flow from genotype to phenotype and back again not evolve?
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Because most changes to the phenotype are in the form of damage.
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What is a gamete?
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A sex cell. Gametes are said to be haploid in that they only contain one copy of any chromosome. A gamete can be an egg or a sperm.
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What is DNA?
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Deoxyribonucleic acid: The molecule that contains the information needed to build cells and control inheritance.
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What is a genome?
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The entire set of genes carried by an organism.
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What is a gene?
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A unit of hereditary information made up of specific nucleotide sequences in DNA.
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One gene, one _______.
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polypeptide.
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Proteins are made ups of long chains of chemical units called _________.
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Amino acids.
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What is an amino acid?
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The molecular builing blocks of proteins. There are 20 main amino acids in the proteins found in organisms. The particular sequence of amino acids in a protein determines its properties and is itself related to base sequences on DNA.
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What is RNA?
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Robonucleic acid. Molecules that act as intermediaries as the hereditary code in DNA is converted into proteins. Messenger RNA (mRNA) is the molecule that carries information from DNA in the nucleus to the sites in the cytoplasm where protein synthesis takes place.
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How many bases of the DNA strand are used to code for a protein?
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3 - called a codon - discovered in 1961.
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How many amino acids are there?
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20
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What is a codon?
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Three nucleotides along DNA that specify one amino acid.
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What is a chromosome?
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Structures in the nucleus of a cell that house DNA. Chromosomes contain DNA and proteins bound to it. Chromosomes become visible to the optical microscope during meiosis and mitosis.
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What is meiosis?
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A type of cell division whereby diploid cells produce haploid gametes. The double set of chromosomes in a diploid cell is thereby reduced to a single set in the resulting gametes. Crossing over and recombination occur during meiosis.
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What is mitosis?
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Part of the process where one cell divides into another identical one with the same number of chromosomes as the original. The growth of an organism is through mitosis. Sexual reproduction requires meiosis.
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What is a locus?
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The particular site where a particular gene is found on DNA.
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What is an allele?
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A particular form or variant of a single gene that exists at a given locus on the genome of an individual. There may be many forms of alleles within a population of one species. An allele is therefore a sequence of nucleotides on the DNA molecule.
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What are sex chromosomes?
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Chromosomes that determine if an individual is male or femail. In humans, a female possesses two X chromosomes and a male one X and one Y chromosome.
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What are autosomes?
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Any chromosomes other than the sex chromosomes.
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Define homozygous.
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A state describing individuals that have identical alleles for a given trait at a given locus (AA or aa).
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Define heterozygous.
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A state describing individuals that have two different alleles (for example Aa) at a given genetic locus.
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What is a dominant allele?
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An allele that is fully expressed in the phenotype. An allele A is said to be dominant if the phenotype in the heterozygotic condition Aa is the same as that in the homozygotic condition AA. In this situation, allele a is said to be recessive. Alleles can be dominant, recessive or partly dominant.
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What is recombination?
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An event whereby chromosomes cross over and exchange genetic material during meiosis. Recombination tends to break up genes that are linked together.
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What is the production of sperm called?
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Spermatogenesis.
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What is the production of a female gamete (egg) called?
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oogenesis.
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What is the process of crossing over?
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During meiosis, chromosomes in a diploid cell may exchange segments of DNA. It ensures a recombination of genetic material. The process results in highly variable gametes.
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What are the four positions on the spectrum from genetically determined behaviors to non-genetically determined?
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1. Unlearnt patterns of behaviour invariant with respect to environment.
2. Unlearnt (genetically inherited) but modified by learning. 3. Selectively learnt or selectively expressed. 4. Learnt behavior. |
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Define heritability.
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The extent to which a difference in a character between individuals in a population is due to inherited differences in the genotype. It is often expressed as a number between zero and 1 that refers to the proportion of variance in a character in a population that is ascribable to inherited genetic diferences.
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What is the unit of natural selection.
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The gene.
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What is group selection?
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Selection that operates betwee groups rather than individuals. The notion was attacked and shunned in the 1970s but may be making a comeback in studies on human evolution.
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What problem still faces the acceptance of the gene as the unit of selection?
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Linkage disequilibrium. Some genes do not act as separate units.
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What is linkage disequilibrium?
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A condition where genes travel together in the process of inheritance. The result is that the frequency of a group of linked genes is different to what would be expected from random recombination.
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Define altruism.
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Self-sacrificing behavior, whereby one individual sacrifices some component of its reproductive value for another individual.
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Who explained altruism as a product of group selection that prevents individual animals from overgrazing?
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Wynne-Edwards. Strongly opposed by George Walden and John Maynard Smith.
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What is the excepted explanation for altruism (instead of Wynne-Edwards group selection)?
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Kin selection or inclusive fitness.
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Who and when proposed inclusive fitness or kin selection as an explanation of altruism?
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WD Hamilton in 1963
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Define kin selection.
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The suggestion that altruism can evolve because altruistic behaviour favours increases in the gene frequency of the genes responsible. A situation where altruism to relatives is favoured and spreads.
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What is the coefficient of relatedness (r)?
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The r value between two individuals is the probability that an allele chosen at random from one indiviual will also be present in another individual. Can also be thought of as the proportion of the total genome present in one individual present in another as a result of common ancestry.
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What is Hamilton's rule?
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Help when the cost to self (donor) is less than the benefit to the reciever times the beneficiary's degree of relatedness to self. rb>c Where r is coefficient of relatedness, b is benefit and c is cost.
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Translate: rb>c
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Hamilton's rule: Help when the cost to self (donor) is less than the benefit to the reciever times the beneficiary's degree of relatedness to self. rb>c Where r is coefficient of relatedness, b is benefit and c is cost.
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What are the r values or coefficients of relatedness between kin pairs in humans for parent/child, full siblings, half-siblings, grandparent/grandchild, cousins?
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.5 parent/child
.5 full siblings .25 half siblings .25 grandparents .125 cousins |
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Define eusocial.
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A term to describe highly socialised societies, such as found among ants and bees, where some individuals forego reproduction to assist the reproductive efforts of other members of the social group.
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Why is raising an alarm call considered altruistic behavior?
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Since the caller draws attention to himself. "It would presumably pay the first observer of a predator to skulk silently away, leaving others to their fate."
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According to Dunbar (1996) why might dialects and even languages have evolved.
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To prevent freeloaders from appearing to be part of the group (kin) when they are not.
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What is kin discrimination?
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The ability of an animal to react differently to other individuals depending on their degree of genetic relatedness.
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Why is it important to be able to tell kin from non-kin?
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To prevent inbreeding and to preform altruistic acts only for kin.
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What are the 4 mechanisms available to animal species for identifying kin?
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Location (next to you=family), familiarity (brought up together), phenotype matching (odor), recognition alleles (green beards).
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What are recessive alleles.
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An allele that is not fully expressed in the phenotype.
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It is estimated that each human probably carries between ____ and ____ lethal recessive alleles.
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3 and 5 !
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What is the major histocompatibility complex? (MHC)
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A set of genes coding for antigens responsible for the rejection of genetically different tissue. The antigens are know as histocompatibility (that is, tissue compatibility) antigens. There are at least 30 histocompatibility gene loci. The genes of the MHC are subject to simple Mendelian inheritance and are co-dominantly expressed; that is alleles from both parents are equally expressed. Each cell, therefore, in any offspring has maternal and paternal MHC molecules on its surface. The human MHC is found on the short arm of chromosome 6.
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What is the green beard effect?
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A term used by Richard Dawkins to describe the largely theoretical possibility that individuals may grow and display some phenotypic marker (the 'green beard') to indicate to others of the same species the presence of common genes. The idea is that such markers may allow individuals to direct their altruistic efforts more effectively.
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Female gametes are usually at least ______ times larger than male gametes.
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100 times larger
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Define anisogamy.
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A situation where the gamets from sexually reproducing species are of different sizes. Males produce small, highly mobile gametes in large numbers; females produce fewer and larger eggs.
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What is parthenogenesis?
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Asexual reproduction. Production of offspring by virgin birth.
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Why is sexual reproduction problematic - or counterproductive?
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1-Time and effort spent getting/keeping mate.
2-Vulnerable to predation during sex 3-Risk of damage during sex 4-Risk of disease due to sex 5-Recombination may through up a dangerous recessive allele 6-Introduces same-sex competition & dangers. 7-Sex breaks up an obviously highly successful combo of genes. |
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Define Asexual reproduction.
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Production of offspring without sexual fertilization of eggs. Also known as parthenogenesis.
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Is asexual reproduction that is found in whiptailed lizards, some frogs and dandelions new or old?
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Evolutionarily new: dandelions still bright colored even though they do NOT need to be pollinated. Whiptailed lizards still need to be groped but the male contributes no genetic material.
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Why sex? Name the 4 major theories as to why.
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1) Lottery principle - George Williams 2) Tangled bank theory - Michael Ghiselin 3) Red Queen Hypothesis - Leigh Van Valen 4) DNA repair hypothesis - Bernstein et al
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What is the lottery principle?
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Advanced by George Williams to explain sexual reproduction - one needs to buy a lot of different tickets to insure survival (gene's) given changing environments
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What is the Tangled Bank theory?
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Michael Ghiselin's theory to explain sexual reproduction - in highly competitive/limited resources environments genes try to hitch up with as diverse a lot as possible to live on. But this does not show as viable in reality.
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What is the Red Queen Hypothesis?
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Advanced by Leigh Van Valen to explain sexual reproduction - keep running to stand still (not fall behind one's genetic enemies such as parasites).
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What is the DNA repair hypothesis?
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Advanced by Bernstein et al to explain sexual reproduction - babies are born young. Their (somatic) cells as products of a completely repaired couple of gametes have no defects.
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What did Graham Bell find about the relationship between stable environments and sexual reproduction.
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In a stable environment sex is favoured but in a quickly changing environment it is best to reproduce asexually to forego the 'time-wasting business of sex'.
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What other terminology might be used for the Red Queen hypothesis for explaining sexual reproduction?
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The parasite exclusion theory.
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Define parasite.
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An organism in a symbiotic relations with another (host) such that the parasite gains in fitness at the expense of the host.
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Define mutation.
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In modern genetics, a mutation is a heritable change in the base sequences in the DNA of a genome. Most mutations are deleterious.
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What is the Muller's ratchet effect?
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That deleterious mutations build up over time.
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How is sexual reproduction better than asexual reproduction in weeding out harmful mutations to the DNA of the genome?
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Some unlucky individuals will be homozygous for a mutation and die while others without the mutation will live. But photocopies, once smudged, remain smudged and all are garbage.
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What is the estimated rate of mutations appearing in the genome.
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1.6 deleterious mutations per person every 25 years. But thanks to sexual reproduction they do not come to the fore in each son or daughter.
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Why are gametes so different in size?
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Because strategically it makes sense for one gamete producer to become the provisioner (providing it's own gamete with energy resources) and one to become the seeker (produce lots of gametes with no energy resources). This is per Parker et al. in 1972.
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What are extrapair copulations?
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Mating by a member of one sex with another outside what appears to be the stable pair bond in a supposed monogamous relationship. (sneak copulations)
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What are the monogamy numbers for birds?
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90 percent are socially monogamous but may be as little as 10 percent are genetically monogamous.
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What is the monogamy number for mammals?
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Less than 3 percent of all mammal species are monogamous.
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What are the monogamy numbers for preindustrial societies?
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About 19 percent of preindustrial human societies are monogamous.
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What are the different mating 'systems'.
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Monogamy, polygamy that includes polyandry and polygyny and polygynandry or promiscuity.
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What are the problems with using a mating system monicer?
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Labels are sex specific. Species themselves do not behave as a single entity. Within a species, individuals may utilise different reproductivie strategies.
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What is the sex ratio conundrum?
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Why so many males? Since a single male can impregnate many women (a male's single ejaculate could impregnate every American woman!) why not skew the sex ratio to have many more females?
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Define sex ratio.
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The ratio of males to females at any one time. At birth for humans the ratio is about 1.06.
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What is the proximate cause of an equal sex ratio (at birth)?
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The male's gametes are have X and half Y - thus a 50/50 chance exists to have a boy or girl.
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What does Fisher's theory say about sex ratio's?
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That as the ratio slides to one side, it is more reproductively profitable to supply more of the sex that is lacking - thus bringing the ratio back to 1:1.
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Who did what to confirm Fisher's theory empirically?
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Conover in 1990 (couldn't con) the silverside fish to produce more of one sex than another over time. Even though temperature differences produce different sexed children, (cold=females, warm=males) the ratio's returned to 1:1 over time despite the temperatures being artificially maintained.
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Define sexual dimorphism.
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Differences in morphology, physiology or behaviour between the sexes in a single species.
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Define sexual selection.
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Selection that takes place as a result of mating behaviour. Intrasexual selection occurs as a result of competition between members of the same sex, intersexual selection occurs as a result of choices made by one sex for features of another.
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What are the two types of sexual selection?
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Intrasexual selection and intersexual selection.
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What is intrasexual selection?
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Competition between membrs of the same sex (typically males) for access to the opposite sex.
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What is intersexual selection?
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A form of selection driven by the exercise of choice by one sex for specific characteristics in a mating partner of the opposite sex.
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What is parental investment and who formalised the concept in 1972?
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Trivers. Actions that increase the survival chances of one set of offspring but at the expense of the parent procuring more offspring.
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What does Trivers have to say about intersexual and intrasexual selection?
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The parent (male vs female) that invests the most will be the sought after sex.
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Trivers concept of parental investment leads to the idea that the ideal number of offspring for each parent would be ____________.
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Different. A low investing male's ideal number is infinity (with that number of partners) and a female's is less for better quality.
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What is the operational sex ratio?
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The ratio of sexually receptive males to females in a particular area or over a particular time.
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Operational sex ratio =
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Fertilizable females
---------------------------- Sexually active males The higher the ratio = more female competition for mates and visa versa |
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Why is symetry attractive?
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It is difficult to fake and it cannot be achieved if parasites or other diseases or environmental stresses are effecting the individual.
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What is sperm competition?
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Competition between sperm from two or more males that is present in the reproductive tract of the female.
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What are some 'devices' used by males for post-copulatory competition?
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Copulatory plugs, enlarged penis that does not allow disengagement from the female for a half hour.
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Do Barker and Bellis' (1988)kamikaze sperm exist?
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No, Harcourt (1991) showed that if it did, those males competing the most heavily would have the most deformed (kamikaze) sperm - but that is not the case.
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What are the two possible mechanisms for intersexual competition - why the peacock has such a ridiculously big tail.
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1 - Good taste theory: Fisher's runaway fashions idea - preference just gets over emphasized
2 - Good sense theory: signs of the quality of the genome |
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Define good genes.
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An approach to sexual selection that suggests individuals choose mates according to the fitness potential of their genome.
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Define honest signals.
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A signal that reliably communicates the quality of an individual in terms of its fitness.
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Define handicap (in terms of sexual selection).
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Features of an organism that seem at first sight to have a negative impact on fitness. The handicap principle was an idea advanced by Zahavi in 1975 to account for what appear to be maladaptive features, or handicaps, of an organism... Zahavi suggested that these features were honest advertisements of genetic quality, since an animal, usually the male must be strong in order to grow and bear such a burden.
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Define Life History Theory (LHT).
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A theory that considers how organisms allocate resources to various life processes, such as mating, growth and repair across the lifespan.
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What is the theory called that involves signal's of fitness having to be a handicap to the signaler and/or somehow honestly linked to the quality of the trait it is trying to signal?
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Costly signaling theory (CST)
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What is costly signaling theory?
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The idea that signals of fitness must either be honestly linked to the quality of the trait it is trying to advertise and/or the signal must be a handicap to the signaler.
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What are the three domains Life History Theory proposes are in competition for an individual's lifetime's energy?
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Growth
Repair and Maintenance Reproduction |
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What are androgens?
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Male sex hormones such as testosterone.
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What is an r-selected species?
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Species that produce many short-lived and quickly maturing offspring that need little parental investment.
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What is a k-selected species?
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Species that produce small numbers of slow-growing and long-lived offspring that require considerable parental investment. Humans are a K-selected species.
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Define menarche.
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The first menstrual period or bleeding experienced by a girl. It is a key feature of puberty.
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What is the demographic transition?
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A phase in the economic development of cultures such that both mortality and fertility fall, often leading to families that produce children at or below the replacement rate (two children per couple). This phase has already been reached by most advanced industrialised nations such as those of Europe and the US.
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Name some theories to account for the demographic transition.
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Barkow and Burley - women's conscious choice is not their biologically optimal one
Perusse - men still want wealth but don't get that it's meaningless without the extra offspring Irons & Turke - humans still doing what made for more kids in EEA but now too busy to have the kids. Lancaster - kids need even more training from parents to be competitive in marriage market Kaplan & Lancaster - same as above but this leads to need for contraception (not reverse) Turke - nuclear vs extended family leaves mother & father short on time and thus need to reduce number of offspring |
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What are two possible explanations for people living past 60?
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1 - a non-functional period of decline that simply takes years to complete
2 - a period that has been shaped by natural selection to yeild fitness benefits |
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What is menopause? And what makes it adaptive?
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The cessation of monthly ovulation experienced by women usually in their late forties. Women are infertile after the menopause. The adaptive significance of the menopause is probably related to the risks of childbirth and the need to care for existing children.
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Why might women not die soon after their last child reaches maturity?
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The grandmother hypothesis proposes that women can still achieve fitness gains late in life by diverting investment to grandchildren.
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