Animal Behavior test 2

Aposematic Coloration

Warning colors used by toxic animals to discourage predators via operant conditioning.

Camouflage

Blending into the background to avoid detection; costs include needing the right background and being visible if moving.

Stotting (Pursuit Deterrence)

Gazelle behavior demonstrating vigor to a predator, often causing the predator to abandon the hunt.

Tephritid Fly Defense

Waving banded wings to mimic a challenging spider, causing the actual predator to retreat.

Dilution Effect

Passive social defense where being in a group reduces an individual's statistical chance of being eaten.

Confusion Effect

Group movement that makes it difficult for a predator to single out a specific prey item.

Selfish Herd Hypothesis

Individuals in a group reduce their own risk by putting others between themselves and the predator.

Mobbing

Active social defense where individuals cooperate to chase away larger predators; carries risks of injury or attracting more predators.

Sentinels

Individuals (often in kin-based groups) that watch for danger and use alarm calls to warn others.

Optimality Theory

A method to determine the best phenotype by measuring the costs and benefits of specific traits.

Optimal Foraging Theory

A model balancing food intake (benefit) against the energy spent searching for food (cost).

Dugong Foraging Tradeoff

Dugongs choose "cropping" over more nutritious "excavating" when sharks are present to prioritize safety over calories.

Landscape of Fear

The spatial variation in an animal's perception of predation risk, which alters behaviors like feeding patterns.

Yellowstone Elk Case Study

The re-introduction of wolves changed elk feeding patterns, which ultimately affected the number of surviving calves.

*fear made females lose weight, making their calves not have enough nutrition

Cognitive Buffer Hypothesis

Large brains provide behavioral plasticity that helps individuals cope with harsh or unpredictable environments.

Seed-Caching

A cognitive behavior (seen in Clark’s Nutcracker) used to store and retrieve food for later use.

New Zealand Robin Study

Evidence that higher cognitive ability correlates with reproductive fitness, as higher-performing males fathered more offspring

Ideal Free Distribution Theory

Predicts how animals choose between alternative habitats of different qualities when competition for resources exists.

Density-Dependent Habitat Selection

Concept that animals must consider the intensity of intraspecific competition when choosing a habitat to maximize reproductive fitness.

Territory

An area where the owner has sole access to resources such as food or mates.

Economic Defensibility

The trade-off between the costs and benefits of maintaining a territory; individuals defend an area only if it is "worth it".

Resource-holding Potential

Predicts that superior competitors will successfully occupy and defend the best available environments.

Lethal Aggression

Extreme territorial defense, such as in chimpanzees, which can result in killing neighbors to expand territory.

Cost of Territoriality (Energy)

Energy spent patrolling reduces survival unless supplemented by food, as seen in Yarrow's spiny lizards.

Mating Season & Territoriality

The tendency for "peaceful" coexistence to switch to territoriality only when the benefits of monopolizing resources outweigh the costs.

American Redstart Habitat Case

Superior males compete for black mangrove forests (preferred) over second-growth scrub to gain a reproductive advantage.

Telomeres & Habitat Quality

DNA sequences that shorten with age/stress; males in preferred habitats have longer telomeres than those in lower-quality areas.

Dispersal

A one-way move from an individual's natal (birth) area to a new location.

Migration

A round-trip movement away from and back to the same location in an annual pattern, typically between breeding and non-breeding grounds.

Inbreeding Avoidance Hypothesis

The theory that sex-based dispersal (e.g., male ground squirrels moving further than females) evolved to reduce the fitness costs of inbreeding.

Tropical Origins Hypothesis

The theory that migration evolved through a geographic shift from tropical origins to temperate breeding grounds for food.

Temperate Origins Hypothesis

The theory that migration evolved from temperate breeding grounds to tropical wintering grounds to seek milder climates.

Costs of Migration

Includes high energy/metabolic demands, risk of death during long-distance travel, and increased predation risk.

Benefits of Migration

Provides access to abundant food supplies and longer daylight hours for feeding during northern summers.

Conditional Migration Strategies

When some individuals in a population migrate while others remain resident based on behavioral plasticity or dominance status.

Pre-existing Trait Hypothesis

Signals evolve from non-signal behaviors or physiological traits that already exist in the sender.

Pre-existing Bias Hypothesis

Signals evolve to exploit a sensory preference or "bias" that already exists in the receiver's sensory system.

Sensory Exploitation

The evolution of a signal that taps into a receiver's pre-existing visual, auditory, or chemical sensitivities.

Sensory Trap

When a signal mimics a stimulus that is already important to the receiver (e.g., food or a mate), triggering a pre-set response.

Extra Androgen Hypothesis

The theory that female pseudopenises (e.g., in hyenas) evolved as a byproduct of high testosterone levels used for aggression.

Production Cost

A way to ensure honesty; signals are energetically expensive to produce, making them difficult for low-quality individuals to fake.

Badges of Status

Physical traits (like dark patches on wasps) that signal dominance and are kept honest by social reinforcement or "policing."

Index Signal

A signal that is physically impossible to fake because it is tied directly to a physical attribute (e.g., deep croaks in large frogs).

Novel Environment Hypothesis

Maladaptive responses to deceit occur because the environment has changed faster than the species can adapt.

Net Benefit Hypothesis

Sensory mechanisms remain because the average fitness gain from responding to a signal outweighs the occasional loss to a deceiver.

Tactical Deception

The use of a normally honest signal in a false context to manipulate the behavior of a receiver.

Batesian Mimicry

When a harmless species mimics the warning signals of a dangerous or toxic species to avoid predation.

Aggressive Mimicry

When a predator mimics a harmless or attractive signal to lure in prey (e.g., firefly "femme fatales").

Illegitimate Receiver

An individual (often a predator or parasite) that intercepts a signal meant for someone else to the detriment of the sender.

Mobbing Calls vs. Seet Calls

High-frequency "seet" calls are harder for hawks to locate than lower-frequency mobbing calls, reducing the risk to the sender.

Fundamental Asymmetry of Sex

The evolutionary difference where females produce few costly eggs while males produce many "cheap" sperm.

Reproductive Skew

The unequal partitioning of reproduction within a population, often resulting in high variance for male success.

Bateman’s Principle

The theory that male reproductive success is limited by access to mates, while female success is limited quality of mate and offspring care.

Sexual Selection

A form of natural selection favoring individuals with traits that increase their ability to obtain or choose mates.

Intrasexual Selection

Competition between members of the same sex (usually males) for access to mates.

Intersexual Selection

Male courtship of females who then select their preferred mates based on specific traits.

Dominance Hierarchy

A social ranking system where top-tier males often gain priority access to fertile females.

Subordinate Male Tactics

Alternative behaviors, like "sneaking" or forming alliances, used by lower-ranking males to obtain matings.

Sperm Competition

A post-copulatory form of male-male competition where sperm from different males compete to fertilize the same eggs.

Extra-pair Copulations

Mating outside of a pair bond, which can increase the fitness of both the male (more offspring) and the female (genetic diversity).

Mate Guarding

Behaviors intended to prevent a mate from copulating with other individuals to ensure paternity.

Direct Benefits

Material gains provided to a female by a mate, such as food (nuptial gifts), territory, or parental care.

Indirect (Genetic) Benefits

Genetic advantages that increase the fitness of a female's offspring, even if the male provides no material resources.

Good Genes Hypothesis

The theory that females choose mates with traits that honestly signal high genetic quality or robust health.

Immunocompetence Handicap

The idea that secondary sexual traits are "honest" because they are costly to maintain under the immunosuppressive effects of testosterone.

Runaway Sexual Selection

A positive feedback loop where a female preference for a trait and the trait itself evolve together, leading to exaggerated characteristics.

Sexy Sons Hypothesis

Females choose attractive males so that their male offspring will also be attractive and successful at mating.

Cryptic Female Choice

The ability of a female to physiologically manipulate which male's sperm fertilizes her eggs after mating has occurred.

Sexual dimorphism

Usually in intrasexual selection for larger body size