Introduction to Animal Behavior - Chapters 1 and 2 Flashcards

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering core topics, theories, examples, and terminology from Introduction to Animal Behavior Chapters 1 and 2.

Animal Behavior

Coordinated responses of whole living organisms to internal and/or external stimuli.

Chauvet Cave

A cave containing charcoal and pigment animal artwork created $28,000-32,000$ BP by the first wave of modern humans in Europe.

Northern Wheatear

A bird species whose $3$-month-old juveniles undergo a $9,000$-mile one-way migration from the Arctic to Africa.

Clock Corrected Compass

A navigational mechanism used by monarch butterflies during migration that requires the sun and an internal clock to maintain orientation.

Mechanism (Tinbergen's Question)

A proximate question asking what stimuli elicit a behavior and what genetic, neurobiological, and hormonal changes occur in response to, or in anticipation of, such stimuli.

Development (Tinbergen's Question)

A proximate question asking how behavior changes with the development of an organism.

Adaptive Value (Tinbergen's Question)

An ultimate question asking how a behavior affects an organism's survival and reproduction.

Evolutionary History / Phylogeny (Tinbergen's Question)

An ultimate question asking how behavior varies as a result of evolutionary history or phylogeny, including when a behavior first appeared in a species.

Natural Selection

A process and mechanism for evolutionary change where individuals with favorable heritable variations are more successful at surviving and reproducing.

Evolution

The process by which the heritable traits of a population of organisms change over time.

Darwin's Four Postulates

The four measurable traits of natural selection: individual variation in traits, heritability of trait differences, overproduction of offspring relative to survivors, and non-random survival/reproduction based on favorable traits.

Fitness

Lifetime reproductive success, which is a product of both how long an animal survives and its success at attracting mates.

Phenotype

The observable characteristics of an organism, such as height, wing length, fur color, tameness, aggressiveness, or boldness.

Genotype

The genetic makeup of an individual organism.

Allele

A gene variant representing one of two or more alternative forms of a gene.

Teleogryllus oceanicus

The field cricket species studied on the Hawaiian Islands (such as Kauai) that evolved modified wings in response to fly parasitism.

Ormia ochracea

A parasitic fly that locates male field crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus) using the male cricket's song and lays eggs on them, eventually killing the crickets.

Flatwing Males

A heritable phenotype in male field crickets characterized by modified wings with a reduced file, allowing them to act as satellite males that avoid fly parasitism while mating with females attracted to singing males.

Artificial Selection

The process of humans selectively breeding animals for desirable traits, where fitness is tied to whichever trait the breeder wants to accentuate.

Directional Selection

A type of selection where individuals on one side of the trait distribution perform poorly or well, shifting the phenotype frequency distribution curve to the left or right.

Stabilizing Selection

A type of selection where average individuals in the middle of a trait distribution perform best, causing the edges of the curve to shrink.

Disruptive Selection

A type of selection where average individuals in the middle of a trait distribution perform worst, causing a single peak distribution curve to split into two curves.

Russian Farmed Fox Experiment

A decades-long experiment selectively breeding farmed foxes for tameness, resulting in dog-like behavioral traits (seeking human contact) and physical/vocal traits (color splotches, floppy ears, curly tails, barks, and whines).

Individual Learning

A relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of experience within the lifetime of an individual organism.

Classical (Pavlovian) Conditioning

A learning process involving the pairing of a neutral stimulus (e.g., a tone or light) with a naturally positive or negative stimulus (e.g., food) to alter the response to the neutral stimulus.

Cultural Transmission

The transfer of information from individual to individual through teaching or social learning.

Parus major

A small songbird (great tit) that rapidly spreads learned behaviors across populations, such as piercing milk caps or opening food feeders.

Conceptual Approach

An approach to studying behavior where broad concepts are identified after observation and experimentation to reshape general understanding of behavior.

Kin Selection

A conceptual framework demonstrating that natural selection favors behaviors increasing the reproductive success of an individual's close genetic kin in addition to individual reproductive success.

Theoretical Approach

An approach to studying behavior involving the development of mathematical models (often derived from economics) to predict and understand behavior.

Optimal Foraging Theory

A theoretical mathematical model used to predict animal foraging behavior based on energy value ($E$), handling time ($H$), and encounter rate ($\lambda$).

Empirical Approach

An approach to studying animal behavior through direct collection of observational or experimental data to test hypotheses or answer questions.

Leading Indicator

The application of animal behavior in conservation, where behavioral shifts precede population decline and act as early warnings for environmental disturbances.

Nerodia sipedon

The common watersnake species used in studies analyzing changes in bite force distribution across populations over time.