PWS 554 Animal Behaivoral Ecology Exam 1 Study guide

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.