Behavioural Ecology Flashcards

Flashcards on Behavioural Ecology

Behavioural Ecology

The evolutionary and ecological basis of behaviours.

Ethology

Study of animal behaviour from an evolutionary prospective.

Proximate Mechanisms

Neuronal, hormonal, anatomical mechanisms.

Ultimate Causes

Selection pressures that shaped the evolution of the behaviour.

Adaptation / Function

One of Tinbergens four questions asking how does the behaviour increase the animal’s fitness?

Evolution

One of tinbergens four questions asking how did the behaviour evolve and how has selection changed it over time?

Causation

One of tinbergens four questions asking what are the triggers or stimuli that cause the behaviour to be performed?

Ontogeny

One of tinbergens four questions asking how has the behaviour changed over the lifetime of the animal?

Stereotypic Behaviour

Unlearned (innate) behaviour that is always exactly the same and occurs repeatedly regardless of experience or environmental context. Usually species specific e.g, web spinning in spiders

Hawk/Goose effect

Baby birds show a reaction to a hawk-like silhouette but none to a goose like silhouette demonstrating highly specific innate responses to predation cues.

Learning + behavioral plasticity

animals are capable of learning a new response to a stimulus. These responses may be attenuated or lost, they may show similar responses to related stimuli and can be taught to others

Cost-benefit analysis

Animals have limited resources and so have to make decisions about how they spend these so that they get more back than they expend.

Conflicting triggers

are stimuli that lead to different behavioral responses, often creating a dilemma for the animal in choosing how to respond.

Risk Cost

Increased chance of death, injury or infection etc. as a result of the behaviour.

Opportunity Cost

Potential benefits that are forfeited or lost from taking the action.

Optimal Foraging

Finding and processing food in terms of costs and benefits - time to find, effort to find and time to masticate. This theory predicts animals will make choices that maximize their net energy intake.

Landscape of Fear

Animals carry a mental map of areas to avoid or limit their time there.

Hybrid behavioural inheritance

offspring express a unique combination of adaptations that make them reproductively isolated

How food varies

ease to find and process, energetic and nutritional value, palatability

Foraging trade off

the balance between food acquisition and the costs associated with obtaining food, such as energy expenditure and predation risk. Such as crabs which prefer mid sized mussels as they are moderately easy to open with moderate food content

Time

Animals may balance effort based on time rather than energt

Time balancing in the galapagos marine iguana

juveniles feed in intertidal zone while adults feed underwater. Swimming is more efficient but comes with a cost due to chill. Time must be managed due to limited intertidal times

Ideal free distribution

is a theoretical model that predicts how individuals will distribute themselves among different habitats or resources to maximize their fitness, assuming that resources are available without cost and individuals are free to move.

Bumblebees and IFD

Bumblebees distribute evenly among patches of flower

Social behaviour

Living in groups provides cost-benefit tradeoffsThis behavior can cause increased competition, spread of disease and attract predators but it can also enhance foraging efficiency, provide protection from predators, and facilitate mating opportunities.

Group defense

Vigilance, dilution, group defense

Vigilance

Multiple animals scout for predators increasing feeding times

Dilution

More possible targets when attacked so any individual is less at risk

Group defense

Groups are capable of fending off threats that individuals cannot

Group foraging

Cooperatively hunting or foraging to increase food acquisition efficiency when resources are plentiful. Increases efficiency, allows larger prey to be tackled, can share knowledge.

Bovids

These herbivores are prey so must trade off between feeding and vigilance, as well as trading off between quantity of food based in body size, and reproductive competition. This causes intersection in morphological features such as size, horn shape mouth shape and social behaviour

Effects of small size bovid

ease of hiding, can speciallise in high quality but rare food like seeds buds and fruit causing narrow mouths. Territorial due to food being a patchy resource and so live in pairs with horns for defense.

Effects of large size bovid

Diffulties hiding, need to take in lots of food so have a large mouth (so are unselective) body size helps to process rough vegetation. Cannot defend teritories so move around a lot, live in large groups to increase vigilance, no female horns but male horns for reproductive competition and display.

Vampire bats - reciprocal altruism

where individuals assist each other based on past interactions, promoting cooperative feeding within their social groups.

Evolutionary stable strategies

strategies that, if adopted by a population, cannot be invaded by any alternative strategy due to their stability in the face of selective pressures. , salmon take 2-3 years to mature and return to rivers to spawn. Slow growing males return after 3 years as large animals that fight to reproduce. Fast growing ones return after only 2 years as female mimics (a generally less successful strategy).

Female mimics in salmon

are fast-growing males that imitate females to gain mating opportunities, often employing this strategy as a less successful alternative to competing males.

Lizard colours

Side-Blotched lizard has three colour morphs indcating their status as either orange, blue, or yellow, which affects their behavior and mating strategies. Each of the three is vulnerablle to one of the others in a rock paper-scissors dynamic, influencing reproductive success

Female side blotched lizard

exhibit morphs with r and K strategies

Honest signals

reliable indicators of an individual's fitness or quality, often used in mating displays or competitive interactions.

Dishonest signals

Misrepresents condition or status

Communication

Cost of a signal varies depending on the benefit. If there is benefit to dishonest signals honest signals or countermeasures may evolve