Primate Behavioral Ecology, Evolution, and Social Systems

What is behavioral ecology?

The study of behavior in relation to ecological conditions and its consequences for survival and reproduction.

What are Tinbergen's four questions?

Development, mechanism, evolutionary history, and function.

What does Tinbergen's development question ask?

How a behavior develops during an individual's life, including learning and maturation.

What does Tinbergen's mechanism question ask?

How a behavior works now: the immediate physiological, neural, hormonal, or environmental causes.

What does Tinbergen's evolutionary-history question ask?

How the behavior arose or changed across evolutionary history and related lineages.

What does Tinbergen's function question ask?

How the behavior may affect survival and reproduction; why it may be adaptive.

Which Tinbergen questions are proximate?

Development and mechanism.

Which Tinbergen questions are ultimate?

Evolutionary history and function.

Does wording a question with 'why' automatically make it ultimate?

No, classify the explanation itself, not whether the sentence begins with how or why.

A hormone immediately triggers infant care. Which Tinbergen question is addressed?

Mechanism: an immediate cause of behavior.

Early social experience changes later infant care. Which Tinbergen question is addressed?

Development: how behavior changes through an individual's life.

Infant care is compared across related ape lineages. Which Tinbergen question is addressed?

Evolutionary history: the trait's history across lineages.

Infant care is associated with more future offspring. Which Tinbergen question is addressed?

Function: a potential reproductive consequence.

Can multiple Tinbergen explanations apply to the same behavior?

Yes, the questions address complementary levels of explanation.

Who was Niko Tinbergen?

An ethologist associated with the four questions of behavior; shared the 1973 Nobel Prize with Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch.

What is habituation?

A reduction in animals' responses to repeated, non-threatening observer presence, enabling observation of more typical behavior.

What approach did Kinji Imanishi establish?

Studying wild primates using habituation, individual identification, and long-term observation.

What did Imanishi and Jun'ichiro Itani pursue in Africa?

Studies of chimpanzees at Mahale and bonobos in the Congo basin.

What did early behaviorism emphasize?

General laws of learning, laboratory research, and the idea that similar learning principles apply broadly across species.

What is equipotentiality in behaviorism?

The idea that learning follows broadly similar principles across organisms.

Which researcher is associated with behaviorism?

B. F. Skinner.

Match the early ethologists to their examples: Tinbergen, von Frisch, Lorenz.

Tinbergen: instinct; von Frisch: bees; Lorenz: imprinting.

Who commissioned early wild-primate studies in the 1930s?

Robert Yerkes.

What did Henry Nissen study?

Wild chimpanzees in French Guinea.

What did Clarence Ray Carpenter study?

Howler monkeys, gibbons, and rhesus macaques.

Who supported the 'Trimates'?

Louis Leakey.

Who were the Trimates?

Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas.

Match Jane Goodall with her field study.

Chimpanzees at Gombe, Tanzania.

Match Dian Fossey with her field study.

Mountain gorillas in Rwanda.

Match Birute Galdikas with her field study.

Orangutans at Tanjung Puting in Indonesian Borneo.

Why were diary-style descriptions inadequate for some behavioral questions?

Conspicuous or rare events could be overrepresented; rates and changes were hard to establish.

What was Jeanne Altmann's key methodological contribution?

Standardizing systematic behavioral data collection.

Which project is associated with Jeanne and Stuart Altmann?

The Amboseli Baboon Project in Kenya.

What is interobserver reliability?

Agreement or consistency among different observers recording the same behavior.

What does internal validity concern?

Whether a study's design supports trustworthy conclusions.

What does external validity concern?

How well findings apply beyond the particular study conditions.

What validity trade-off does Lecture 2 emphasize?

Captive studies often offer greater internal validity; wild studies often offer greater external validity.

Why can captive studies poorly represent natural fitness trade-offs?

Provisioning, protection, constrained mating, and managed social conditions can alter survival and reproductive consequences.

Why is reproductive rate alone an incomplete fitness measure?

A higher rate could be offset by shorter lifespan or poorer offspring survival.

What is the fitness benchmark emphasized in Lecture 2?

Lifetime number of offspring that survive to reproduce.

Why study many wild groups rather than just one?

To document variation as well as average patterns in social organization and behavior.

What are major challenges of long-term field studies?

Habituation, individual identification, observer consistency, limited experimental controls.

What are benefits of long-term field studies?

Following life courses, studying natural variation, supporting conservation.

What can habituation change besides observation quality?

Human presence may itself affect animals or their exposure to people.

What are the four traditions of primate studies?

Anthropology, psychology, biology, and applied conservation biology/ecology.

What question characterizes anthropology's primate tradition?

What primates can tell us about human ancestors.

What question characterizes psychology's primate tradition?

What primates can tell us about the human mind.

What characterizes the biological tradition of primate studies?

Studying primates in their own right.

What characterizes applied conservation studies?

Understanding how to protect endangered primates.

How do empirical papers differ from review papers?

Empirical papers report new data; reviews synthesize existing research.

What is a primate?

A member of the mammalian order Primates.

What common primate features are emphasized?

Grasping hands/feet, strong vision, relatively reduced smell, generalized teeth and bodies.

What is stereoscopic vision useful for?

Depth perception from overlapping visual input from the two eyes.

What is an encephalization quotient?

A measure of brain size relative to that expected for an animal's body size.

What is life history?

The pattern and timing of growth, maturation, reproduction, and survival across an organism's life.

What makes primate life histories relatively slow?

Generally small litters, longer gestation, extended juvenile periods, and longer lives.

Do all primates have every 'typical primate' trait?

No, similar features also occur in nonprimates.

What examples challenge a 'generic monkey' stereotype?

Aye-ayes are nocturnal and specialized; spider monkeys have reduced/lost thumbs; some have grooming claws.

What are monochromatic, dichromatic, and trichromatic vision?

Color-vision systems with one, two, or three cone classes respectively.

What is taxonomy?

The classification of organisms.

What do taxon and taxa mean?

Taxon is one named classification group; taxa is the plural.

What is a phylogeny?

An evolutionary relationship/history represented by branching ancestry.

What is a monophyletic group?

A common ancestor and ALL its descendants.

What is a paraphyletic group?

A common ancestor and some, but not all, of its descendants.

Does rotating branches around a tree node change relatedness?

No, common ancestry and branching connections matter.

What determines which two taxa are more closely related?

How recently they shared a common ancestor.

What is the broad classification sequence shown for primates?

Kingdom Animalia, phylum Chordata, class Mammalia, order Primates; then family, genus, species.

What are the two primate suborders emphasized in the newer classification?

Strepsirrhines and haplorrhines.

Which primates are strepsirrhines?

Lemurs, lorises, and galagos/bushbabies.

Which primates are haplorrhines?

Tarsiers, monkeys, and apes, including humans.

What did the older 'prosimian' grouping include?

Lemurs, lorises, and tarsiers.

Why is the traditional prosimian grouping paraphyletic?

It includes tarsiers but excludes monkeys and apes.

What are anthropoids/simians?

Monkeys and apes, including humans; tarsiers are excluded.

Are tarsiers haplorrhines or strepsirrhines?

Haplorrhines.

What nose differences distinguish strepsirrhines and haplorrhines?

Strepsirrhines have moist noses; haplorrhines have dry noses.

What are typical strepsirrhine traits?

Longer snouts, moist noses, divided upper lip, grooming claw, and tooth comb.

What is a postorbital bar versus postorbital closure?

A bar is a bony ring around the orbit; closure adds a bony wall behind the eye.

What is a tapetum?

A reflective layer in the eye associated with enhanced low-light vision.

What is a grooming claw?

A specialized claw used in grooming.

What is a dental tooth comb?

Closely spaced, forward-projecting lower anterior teeth used in grooming.

Where are lemurs native?

Madagascar.

Which five lemur families are listed?

Lemuridae, Lepilemuridae, Cheirogaleidae, Indriidae, and Daubentoniidae.

Which examples belong to Lemuridae?

Ring-tailed lemurs and red or black-and-white ruffed lemurs.

What are key features of sportive lemurs?

Nocturnal, herbivorous, medium-sized; one living genus, Lepilemur.

What is self-anointing?

Rubbing a foreign substance or object over the body.

What is the red-fronted lemur self-anointing example?

Chewing millipedes and rubbing secretions on the fur.

Which family includes dwarf and mouse lemurs?

Cheirogaleidae.

What is torpor?

A state of reduced metabolic activity and body temperature.

Which primates illustrate torpor/hibernation?

Dwarf and mouse lemurs.

Which family includes sifakas, indris, and avahis?

Indriidae.

Which family includes the aye-aye?

Daubentoniidae.

What niche does the aye-aye illustrate?

A specialized 'woodpecker-like' extractive-foraging niche.

Which families make up Lorisoidea?

Lorisidae and Galagidae.

Where are Lorisidae and Galagidae located?

Lorisidae: Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa; Galagidae: sub-Saharan Africa.

How do lorises/pottos differ from galagos?

Lorises/pottos are slow-moving and tailless; galagos are fast-moving and have tails.

What is a dental formula counting?

Counting incisors, canines, premolars, and molars in one quadrant.

What dental formula is shown for catarrhines?

2.1.2.3 per quadrant, totaling 32 teeth.

What dental formula is shown for New World monkeys?

2.1.3.3 per quadrant, totaling 36 teeth.

What haplorrhine traits does the lecture emphasize?

Dry noses, single upper lip, forward-facing eyes, no tapetum, postorbital closure.

What are platyrrhines?

New World monkeys, native to Central and South America.