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40 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
What is behavior?
The way an animal responds to stimuli in its environment.
What is proximate causation? Ultimate causation?
The way a behavior happens (nerve impulses/hormones) [how]. The adaptive value of a behavior [why].
Describe the mechanism of innate behavior.
A sign stimulus, or key stimulus, triggers an innate releasing mechanism in the nervous system that causes the execution of a motor program called the fixed action pattern.
What is the concept of supernormal stimuli?
When presented with two key stimuli, animals tend to react to the larger key stimuli.
Is behavior determined by genetics, experience, or both?
Both.
What is learning?
The altering of behavior based on previous experiences.
What is nonassociative learning? What is habituation?
Learning that doesn't require associating between two stimuli or a stimulus and a response. Decreased response to a repeating stimulus that doesn't have positive or negative consequences.
What is associative learning? What is the term for the modification of behavior through associative learning?
Learning that requires association between two stimuli or a stimulus and a response. Conditioning.
What are the two types of conditioning?
Classical/Pavlonian conditioning (associating two stimuli) and Operant conditioning (associating stimulus with reward or punishment).
What is imprinting? When are the chances of imprinting success highest?
The development of social attachments or preferences that influence behavior later in life. A sensitive phase or critical period.
What is sexual imprinting? What is cross-fostering?
The process of an individual directing its sexual behavior to members of its species. Placing an individual of one species into the care of a family of another species. This causes sexual imprinting toward the family species and not the individual's species.
What is a genetic template?
An instinctive program that helps an animal to learn something fully.
What is cognitive behavior?
The processing and resonding to information in a way that suggests thinking.
In migratory behavior, what is taxis? Kineses? Migrations?
Movement toward or away from a stimulus. Increase or decrease in activity in response to stimulus intensity. Long-range, two-way movements.
What is the difference between orientation and navigation?
Orientation is the ability to follow a bearing and navigation is the ability to set a bearing and then follow it.
Courtship sometimes occurs by use of a _______-________ ______ in which one individual's behavior triggers a behavior of another.
Stimulus-response Chain.
What chemicals are used as sex attractants between animals?
Pheromones.
Many insects, amphibians, and birds produce species specific ______ ________ to attract mates.
Acoustic Signals.
What is the level of specificity?
The amount of information that the animal gives about itself in its signals.
How do scout honeybees communicate where food is to the rest of the gathers at the hive?
The waggle dance.
What is behavioral ecology? What is survival value/adaptive significance?
The study of how natural selection shapes behavior. How a behavior helps an animal stay alive or reproduce (fitness).
What does optimal foraging theory state? What are its two assumptions?
Natural selection favors animals that maximize their feeding efficiency. 1. Increased energy increases reproductive success, 2. Optimal foraging resulted from natural selection.
What is territoriality? What is a home range?
The behavior in which individuals maintain exclusive use of an area containing a limiting resource. The area an individual often moves over during daily activity (can overlap with others).
What is reproductive strategy?
The set of behaviors that have evolved to maximize chances of reproductive success.
Is it males or females who more commonly make the mate choice? Why is this?
Females. Females tend to have higher parental investment.
What is sexual selection? What are the two types? What are the structures involved in sexual selection called?
Competition for mating opportunities. Intrasexual (same sex competition) and Intersexual (other sex charming). Secondary sexual characteristics.
What is sexual dimorphism? What is sperm competition?
Differences between males and females as a result of intrasexual selection (i.e. male deer antlers). Competition between sperm of two individuals to fertilize the egg.
Sometimes individuals choose a mate with a detrimental trait. What is a hypothesis concerning the reason for this? Explain it.
The handicap hypothesis. If an organism can survive with such a handicap, it must have some quality genes.
What is sensory exploitation?
The evolution of one of the sexes to accomodate for the sensory systems of the opposite sex (i.e. color or sound preferences).
What are the three mating systems?
Monogamy (one male, one female), Polygyny (one male, multiple females), Polyandry (multiple males, one female).
What does it mean for offspring to be altricial? Precocial?
They require extensive parental care. They require little parental care.
What are extra-pair copulations?
The mating of a female with a male other than her primary mate.
Is there always only one type of male and one type of reproductive strategy?
No. Some animals have different male forms, some of which are territorial and mate directly, and others that sneak in and act as extra-pair copulators.
What is altruism? Why is it puzzling?
The performance of an action that benefits another individual at a cost to the actor. It doesn't seem that natural selection would support altruism.
What is group selection?
A rare form of natural selection that acts on a group on individuals.
What is reciprocal altruism?
A partnership between individuals in which partners perform altruistic acts for other participants.
What is kin selection?
Selection that favors altruism directed toward relatives.
What is Hamiltons' Rule?
Altruistic acts are favorable when rb>c. b=benefits. c=costs. r=coefficient of relatedness.
Describe an eusocial system.
Usually, males are haploid, females are diploid (haplodiploidy). Most females are sterile and assist the reproductive female (queen) in caring for offspring.
What is a society? Insect societies may contain different ______, which differ in size, morphology, and jobs.
A group of individuals of the same species that are organized in a cooperative manner. Castes.