Animal Behavior Exam 3

Costs to parental care

limited time, energy, future reproduction, amount of care (divided among offspring)

relatedness =

proportion of alleles shared with another individual due to descent

what is the relatedness, r, for: identical twin or clone

1

what is the relatedness, r, for: random member of population

0

what is the relatedness, r, for: parent-offspring

0.5

what is the relatedness, r, for: sibling-sibling

0.5

What is the “Parent Offspring Conflict”? Offspring side

offspring values itself twice as much as parent does

What is the “Parent Offspring Conflict”? Parent side

Parents should allocate reproductive effort in a way that is optimal RS, even if not optimal for each offspring

Hatch asynchrony: In many birds, parents lay eggs ___

separated by a couple days, giving older siblings an advantage

sibling competition: ___ influences parental care

relative condition

ex where relative condition influenced parental care. Coot experiment.

parents of chicks half dyed orange, half dyed black preferred feeding the orange chicks

Why is parental care female biased?

physiological investment, assured maternity, males opportunity cost

Male opportunity cost:

could be getting more mates to inc fitness (instead of offering parental care)

Male opportunity cost ex (frog)

males spend more time guarding a larger clutch

Uncertain paternity: what did the blue footed boobies do after being removed when their female is fertile?

males killed the first egg laid by her once back

Uncertain paternity: bluegill example

males defend eggs less if they see a sneaker male in the environment (thus are less sure that the eggs are their kids)

indeterminate growth

adults can keep growing throughout life

should males or females get bigger w indeterminate growth

female fecundity increases more with large body size

Parental care is more costly for ___

females bc it stops them growing to larger size

how do male water bugs assure paternity?

frequent mating between egg laying

What does intraspecific brood parasitism mean

same species

hormones and parental care experiment (rats)

childless rats injected with prolactin and steroids exhibit greater maternal behavior than controls

hormones and parental care experiment (birds)

an artificial egg in a nest stimulates prolactin and development of brood patch

Learning

A change in behavior based on experience and environmental influence

innate behavior

occurs without previous experience

Habituation

learn to stop reacting to harmless stimulus

Classical conditioning

learn to associate a new stimulus with an existing behavior

Classical conditioning examples

Pavlov’s dogs, damselfish predator alarm

Operant conditioning

increase/decrease behavior based on outcomes (trial and error learning)

Classical conditioning examples

rats detect mines, rescue dogs

Operant conditioning and fitness: Bumblebees

bumblebees innately prefer blue flowers but will learn to prefer yellow if nectar only in yellow

example of how animals have evolved to learn some things / ignore others

insect eating bats learn to avoid food associated with toxin, vampire bats don’t

memory and caching example: Jays

jays more reliant on caching have better spatial memory

memory and caching example: chickadees

birds in harsher environments cache more and have better spatial memory

learning ability and fitness: budgies

after watching an unpreferred male solve a puzzle for food, females switch mate choice to smarter male

learning example: indigo buntings

babies learn the constellations to orient south for migration

Learning example: sparrow songs

babies have to hear their song in critical period and hear themselves practice

learning example: prarie dogs

young prarie dogs learn to be vigilant from watching adults (shows social learning)

local enhancement is when animals ___ as an indicator that there’s food there

use presence of other individuals foraging

public information is when animals ___ as an indicator of where to forage

see how successful other individuals are at foraging

Social influences: foraging, fish example. If no food information, the fish will ___

go to where there are more fish

Social influences: foraging, fish example. If yes food information, the fish will ___

go to the most food, regardless of what others do

Social influences: foraging, osprey example. Ospreys will ___

follow if neighbor got a schooling fish

what does this graph tell us about the relationship of maternal age to parental investment?

mothers invest more in offspring as they age

Why does mothers giving birth to more fit children as they age make sense in terms of the cost-benefit analysis of parental investment?

as female age, their likely future reproduction decreases because they’re going to die soon, so it makes sense to invest more in current offspring rather than save resources / avoid risk for future offsrping

Why is there parent-offspring conflict over the level of parental care provided to offspring? a) why parents would want to limit parental care at all

parental care comes at a fitness cost: increased care now decreases future reproduction

Why is there parent-offspring conflict over the level of parental care provided to offspring? b) why offspring would want to limit parental care

offspring want parents to keep reproducing because their siblings represent indirect fitness. If a parent invested so much in one kid that there were no siblings, this might reduce the offsprings’ fitness.

Why is there parent-offspring conflict over the level of parental care provided to offspring? c) why these limits are not the same.

to the parent, all offspring are equal: r = 0.5. But to the offspring, itself is worth twice as much as siblings (1 vs 0.5). Thus it is selected to seek twice as much care as mom is selected to give. this is the zone of conflict

3 reasons that a host bird species might raise the offspring of a brood parasite. 1.

bird is too small to lift egg out of nest, so only way to avoid raising kid would be to re-nest, and the cost of re-nesting is too high

3 reasons that a host bird species might raise the offspring of a brood parasite. 2.

deceptive communication: some brood parasites use visual and auditory signals to appear like host offspring, mom doesn’t know she’s raising parasites

3 reasons that a host bird species might raise the offspring of a brood parasite. 3.

Mafia hypothesis: parasite will destroy nest and kill host kids if host doesn’t raise parasite offspring

Birdsong learning is a classic example of the interaction between genes and environment to produce behavior. list two reasons from the studies discussed in class that demonstrate a genetic contribution to bird song learning

developmental critical period for learning, all birds will try to sing something, the species-specific template for song

Birdsong learning is a classic example of the interaction between genes and environment to produce behavior. list two reasons that demonstrate an environmental contribution to birdsong learning

birds need to hear the song to sing it correctly, they will learn only the songs they hear, they have to hear themselves practice to learn correctly

definition of teaching, 3 parts

experienced individual modifies its behavior only in the presence of pupil, behavior is costly for teacher, pupil learns more quickly than would on own

Social influences on learning: teaching, White-tailed Ptarmigan ex

mom will drop high protein food on ground to show chicks, chicks of moms that called more had better diets

definition of culture for animal behavior

learned behavior passed on to others

culture example: Japanese Macaque monkey

one monkey learned how to wash sand off sweet potatoes, other monkeys copied, behavior spread for generations

culture example: different groups of chimps

different populations show different learned behaviors (ex, this group does termite fishing, this group cracks nuts with rocks)

Culture example: bird milk stealers

in populations where a bird figured out how to open milk, behavior spread rapidly because others learned too