Behavioral Ecology Notes Flashcards

Flashcards covering key concepts of behavioral ecology, including terms related to altruism, kin selection, animal communication, mating systems, and types of behaviors.

Altruism is behavior that appears to benefit __ at a cost to oneself.

others

Inclusive fitness refers to the total number of copies of __ passed on through one’s relatives or as one’s own offspring.

genes

__ is behavior that lowers an individual’s own fitness but enhances the reproductive success of relatives.

Kin selection

__ refers to behavior where an organism provides a benefit to another with the expectation of receiving a benefit in return.

Reciprocal altruism

Hamilton's Rule states that altruism is favored if __ for the relatedness coefficient, B for benefit to recipient, and C for cost to donor.

r

The honeybee __ dance is an example of tactile communication.

waggle

In __, one male mates with many females; in tools and mating relationships, it is common in species such as elephant seals.

polygyny

__ involves one female mating with many males, as seen in the pipefish.

Polyandry

__ is commonly observed in many bird species, involving one male and one female forming a pair bond.

Monogamy

Imprinting is a form of learning occurring at a specific life stage where young animals form __ to their parents.

attachments

__ conditioning is associative learning where an animal learns to associate a neutral stimulus with a significant one.

Classical

Operant conditioning involves behavior shaped by __ or punishments.

rewards

Cognitive learning is often characterized by understanding, problem-solving, and __.

reasoning

The __ principle explains the roughly equal sex ratios observed in most sexually reproducing species.

Fisher's

Sexual __ refers to the differences in appearance, size, or other characteristics between males and females of the same species.

dimorphism

Kinesis is a random, non-directional response to __.

stimulus

A __ action pattern is an innate behavior that goes on to completion even when the stimulus is removed.

fixed

Migration refers to the long-range, seasonal movement of __.

animals

is the view popularized by Richard Dawkins which focuses on the gene as the unit of selection and evolution.

The selfish gene

Genetic relatedness impacts the evolution of social behaviors, particularly the favoring of __ genes through natural selection.

altruistic

The cost to the altruist in reciprocal altruism is offset by the likelihood of a __ benefit.

return

An example of __ is the behavior of female vampire bats sharing food with unrelated individuals that had shared food with them previously.

reciprocal altruism

Inclusive fitness can be enhanced by ensuring that __ survive.

relatives

__ refers to the probability that any two individuals will share a copy of a particular gene.

Coefficient of relatedness (r)