Studied by 4 people
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Ethology
The study of animal behavior, integrating insights from various disciplines.
Natural selection
The process by which organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and reproduce.
Evolution
The rise of species through mutation and natural selection.
Individual learning
Learning from previous experiences.
Cultural transmission
Learning behaviors by copying others, passed down through generations.
Social learning
Learning behaviors from others, synonymous with cultural transmission.
Peter and Rosemary Grant
Studied finches and found that bird songs are a form of cultural transmission.
Xenophobia in African mole rats
Arid rats are more competitive and aggressive due to scarce resources.
Dukas and Bernays
Found that grasshoppers remember food scents and colors, leading to better foraging choices.
Galef and Wigmore
Demonstrated cultural transmission in rats through foraging behavior.
Proximate questions
Focus on immediate factors affecting behavior.
Ultimate questions
Focus on evolutionary factors influencing behavior.
Artificial selection
Humans selecting specific traits in organisms, e.g., breeding dogs for specific characteristics.
Fitness
The ability of an organism to pass genes to the next generation.
Heritability
The proportion of variance in a trait due to genetic variance.
Mendel’s rules
Principles of segregation, independent assortment, and dominance/recessiveness in inheritance.
Gene
A unit of heredity determining characteristics; allele:a variant of a gene.
Brood parasitism
Relying on others to raise young, allowing parents to have more offspring.
Eusociality
High-level social organization with cooperative care and division of labor, seen in species like naked mole rats.
Kinship theory
Cooperation and altruism increase with genetic relatedness.
Coalition
Cooperative action by individuals against another group, e.g., cheetahs hunting together.
Endocrine system
Hormone system regulating various bodily functions.
Helping behavior
Assisting relatives to increase one's own fitness through kin selection.
Neuron
A cell transmitting electrical signals, crucial for animal behavior responses.
Mushroom body
Brain structure in bees involved in spatial learning.
Mallard ducks
Sleep with one eye open for predation defense.
Environmental sex determination
Temperature influences sex in reptiles during embryonic development.
Damselfly aversion
Not an example of learning; relies on chemical cues for danger.
Individual learning
Permanent behavior change due to experience; phenotype:observable traits.
Simple learning
Basic behavioral changes; sensitization:increased sensitivity to stimuli; habituation:decreased sensitivity.
Pavlovian conditioning
Associating a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus.
Conditioned vs
Conditioned elicits a response after association; unconditioned elicits a response naturally.
Appetitive stimulus
Positive or rewarding stimulus; aversive stimulus:negative or unpleasant stimulus.
Instrumental learning
Learning through reinforcement of responses.
Law of effect
Positive outcomes strengthen the association between stimulus and response.
Thorndike's puzzle boxes
Demonstrated instrumental learning through rewards.
John Garcia's experiment
Showed natural selection favors pairing gustatory cues with internal discomfort.
Extinction curve
Graph showing weakening of learned associations over time.
Group living
Facilitates quicker learning due to competition for resources.
Salmon navigation
Use odors of home streams to return for spawning.
Parental investment
Influences offspring's ability to learn about mate locations.
Recognizing family
Important for kin selection and inclusive fitness in wildlife.
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