Animal Behavior Exam 2

Lectures 6-12

What’s the adaptive value of animal movement?

Movement is essential to animals for finding food, avoiding predators, finding a mate, and avoiding competition.

What sources of information animals use to navigate?

Earth’s magnetic field, visual landmarks, internal maps, echolocation, etc.

List the different ways animal sense time and space.

Idiothetic (internal) cues (counting steps) and allothetic (external) cues (landmarks and compass)

How do animals orient? What types of movement do and don’t require orientation

Animals orient through a variety of cues.
-Taxis and kinesis requires orientation
-Random movement and passive locomotion (drift) don’t require orientation

Different ways animals can measure distance and how we know

They can measure distance based on sensory-based methods and internal cues. We know this because of behavioral experiments, animal tracking technologies, etc.

The difference between dispersal and migration

Dispersal: Permanent/one-time, to find a new/unknown habitat
Migration: Seasonal, revisit known habitat

Random movement

movement that cannot be predicted by an animal’s previous movement or by assessing the surrounding environment

Search

Movement to find a goal

Navigation

Guided movement from one location to another

Homing

Movement with the goal of reaching a known resource, such as shelter, that is used as the central place within an animal’s home range.

Migration

The act of moving to and returning from a habitat or region.

Orientation

Deducing the cardinal direction OR facing/moving in a particular direction.

Idiothetic (internal) cues

Vestibular senses, auditory cues, counting steps, etc.

Allothetic (external) cues

External sensory information used by animals for navigation and spatial awareness.

Landmark

A significant environmental feature in a stable location that can be used for orientation. External/allothetic cue

A Physiological or mechanical device that allows the assessment of direction. ~The most common _ rely on the Earth’s magnetic field. A type of allothetic (External) cue

Path integration

The ability to track an outward path and calculate the shortest possible route back to the starting point.

Triangulation

Finding the source of a stimulus by perceiving it from two directions (can be simultaneous or sequential)

Kinesis

The most basic changing of direction or velocity in response to stimuli (does not involve orientation). “Undirected search”, requires only very simple sensory systems.

Taxis

A movement that is directed with respect to a stimulus such as an object, a light, or an odor source (combines orientation with kinesis)

Positive

Attractive stimuli…

Negative

Repulsive stimuli…

Menotaxis

Moving at an angle relative to the stimulus, rather than directly toward or away from it… often seen when using landmarks.

Counterturning

Each change in direction is balanced by a turn in the opposite direction. Is a basic way of dealing with obstacles likely used by most animals.

Step-counting

Assessing distance via number of steps

Visual flow

the rate at which the landscape image moves across an animal’s eyes.

Speed cells

a type of odometer cell (such as in rats) that fire more rapidly the faster the animal is traveling.

Dispersal (NEVER GO BACK!!!; unidirectional)

-Often discussed for juveniles, moving away from natal habitats prevents competition with kin, usually doesn’t require an animal to “know” any specific way they need to go.

-Allows for asymmetric dispersal of males vs. females which prevents inbreeding.

Migration

The same individual or sequential generations return to the original location.

-Requires an animal to either: remember a previously traveled route, learn a route from experienced adult, or find and follow this route on its own.
-Isn’t necessarily seasonal but mostly is.
-Requires knowledge of: direction and distance

Stopover Points

Are important for resting, refueling, spatiotemporal adjustments (figuring out orientation… where you are).

-Can be learned via social learning

How can migration routes can be a conservation challenge?

Butterfly Migration: Monarch, across multiple generations, genetically very fixed paths (not learned), sun compass, changes in day length cue migration direction (experimental manipulation of light/dark cycle)

Sit and wait predation

Ex: spiders, a strategy for foraging for food.

Cooperative hunting

Ex: wolves, a strategy for foraging for food.

Mimicry and luring

A strategy for foraging/how animals get food

Optimal Foraging Theory

Behavioral ecology model that helps predict how an animal behaves when searching for food. Obtaining food provides energy. Searching for and capturing the food require both energy and time.

-SO: to maximize fitness, an animal adopts a foraging strategy that provides the most benefit (energy) for the lowest cost, maximizing the net energy gained.

What’s the 3 elements of predator avoidance? Be able to give examples of different strategies animals use to accomplish each.

1.) Avoiding detection (Ex: Arctic Hare)
2.) Evading capture (Ex: Asian Honeybees “waving” to ward off predators)
3.) Fighting back (Ex: Harvester Ants and their venom)

What vigilance behavior is and be able to explain the adaptive function it serves.

Vigilance is the awareness that an animal has of its surroundings and potential predators.

The adaptive function is that groups are worse at hiding, but better at detecting threats (“many eyes” effect)

Different strategies for how defense is accomplished among social animals.

-Mobbing, vigilance, alarm calls, and territorial defense.
-Ex: honeybees and stinging or birds and mobbing.

How animals defend themselves behaviorally from parasites and pathogens.

-Avoiding areas they get parasites

-Grooming (ex: elephants rolling in mud)

-Self-medication

-Elimination of waste

-Sexual selection for strong immune system

Crypsis

A behavior, color or shape that makes an animal difficult for predators to (anything that makes an animal hard to find) (avoid detection)

Camouflage

Color or shape that helps to hide an animal from visual predators when it is on its normal substrate.
-Several types of _: Countershading, disruptive coloration, background matching
(avoid detection)

Countershading

A type of camouflage. Gradation from light underside to dark dorsal surface. Avoids detection.

Disruptive coloration

A type of camouflage which coloration that obscures an animal’s shape. Avoids detection.

Background Matching

Matching environmental pattern and color; a type of camouflage and avoids detection.

Aposematism

warning coloration

Mimicry

looking like something else

Müllerian Mimicry

unpalatable or dangerous species evolve to share similar warning signals

Batesian Mimicry

harmless species evolves to resemble a dangerous or unpalatable species (Ex: butterfly wings mimic owl eyes)

Vigilance

The awareness that an animal has of its surroundings and potential predators.

Benefit: Groups are worse at hiding, but better at detecting threats (“many eyes” effect)

“Flash” behavior

combining retreat with a surprising display

A way to evade capture

Stotting

Stereotyped, hopping upwards movement used by the prey to advertise its readiness to take on a predator in a chase (many ungulates do this) Ex: deer
Evade capture.

Mobbing

Common in birds, prey cooperatively harass and attacks a predator to lower the immediate and long-term risk posed by it, warn others, and communicate about the predator’s threat.
Fight back adaptation.

LD₅₀

lethal dose required to kill 50% of some model organism

LC₅₀

lethal concentration required to kill 50% of a model organism

Would a more potent venom have a lower or higher LD₅₀?

It would have a lower LD₅₀ value. A lower LD₅₀ indicates that a smaller amount of the substance is required to cause death, meaning its more toxic or potent. Ex: Harvester Ants

Ectoparasites

a parasite that lives on the exterior of its host

Explain how and why anisogamy evolved.

-How? Originated from isogamy (equal sized gametes) through disruptive selection, where gametes sizes became advantageous.
-Why? ~Gametes need to unite for sexual reproduction to occur.

           ~Smaller gametes can be more motile but provide low nutrition to the zygote.

           ~Bigger gametes can’t move around as easily but provide higher nutrition.

         ~Having one big and one small gamete gives and animal the advantage of both.

What type of environments tend to select for asexual reproduction and which select for sexual reproduction.

-Asexual Reproduction: adaptive in environments that change little from generation to generation.

-Sexual Reproduction: more adaptive in environments that are in constant change.

How animal behaviorists define “male” and “female” and how it’s tied to gametic investment.

-Male: among sexually reproducing, dioecious animals the sex producing smaller gametes

-Female: sex with larger gametes

How gametic investment and parental investment relate to mating behavior.

-Females have higher parental investment (energy needed to produce successful offpsring) than males bc they make fewer, more costly gametes (eggs)
-This means females are choosier than males in selecting mates.

What factors affect mate choice in animals.

1.) What the mate possesses (such as territory)

2.) The perceived genetic quality of the mate (used to forecast the genetic viability of the potential offspring)

3.) A non-gamete offering provided by the mate (a “nuptial gift”)

Define and give examples of the different sub-types of sexual selection

~Mates with just one individual; Monogamy is most likely to evolve: when finding a mate is difficult, when offspring survival requires more intense care than one parent can provide.

-Benefits of monogamy: don’t need to spend as much time and energy on finding new mates constantly. Bi-parental care.

-Costs of monogamy: The entire reproductive investment of an individual depends on the fitness of its mate. (choosing the wrong mate is very costly)


~Mates with more than one individual; Polygyny is most likely to evolve: when finding new potential mates is easy, when offspring survival does not require care from more than one parent.

-Benefits of polygyny: reproductive investment of an individual does not depend on the fitness of a single mate.

-Costs of polygyny: more time and energy spent on attracting new mates.

Difference between intersexual and intrasexual selection

-Intersexual: Mate choice, one sex choosing mates based on certain traits.

-Intrasexual: Competition within a sex (such as males) for access to mates.

Define and give examples of each mating system

-Serial monogamy (one mate per season, ex: bald eagles)
-Harems/female defense polygyny (males compete for group of females, ex: elk + lions)
-Lek Polygyny (males display together to attract mate, ex: some birds)
-Polyandry (multiple males per female, ex: Spotted sandpipers)
-Polygynandry (both males and females have multiple mating partners, ex: chimps)
-Promiscuity (mating of multiple males with multiple females outside of societal structure, ex: Hummingbirds)

Mating System

How mates are chosen and how mating is carried out.

Sex

The act of mating (verb), physiological or anatomical state within a spectrum that may or may not include maleness and femaleness (ex: male, female, intersex in humans, hermaphrodite in other animals, etc.) (noun). Is used more than gender in animal behavior.

Gender

The sociocultural construct of attributes and behaviors associated with particular identities (ex: women, men, and gender-diverse people) (noun)

Parental Investment

Any energy expenditure needed to produce successful offspring. In this case, we are talking about the raw material it takes to make a gamete. Females produce fewer, large gametes, and males produce more, smaller gametes.

                  ~This often means that females are choosier than males in selecting a mate.

Isogamous

producing gametes that are all the same size.

Ansiogamous

producing gametes of two different sizes.

Disruptive Selection

Favors two extremes

Hermaphrodite

A (non-human) animal that can produce both large and small gametes.

Simultaneous hermaphrodites

simultaneously produce large and small gametes

Sequential hermaphrodites

change from sex to another over time.

Protandrous hermaphrodites

animals that are first male (produce sperm), then female (produce eggs)

Protogynous hermaphrodites

animals that are first female (produce eggs), then male (produce sperm).

cost of meiosis

disadvantages of sexual reproduction compared to asexual reproduction.
-For an asexually reproducing animal, 100% of the genes are carried on into the next generation.

-For a diploid, sexually reproducing animal, only 50% of the genes are expressed in an offspring

Parental Care

Caring for the young

Sexual Selection

a type of natural selection related to mate choice and/or competition for mates.

sexual dimorphism

observable differences between female and male sexes. (is the result of sexual selection)

Intersexual Selection

selection pressure of one sex on another sex (ex: mate preference)
                  ~Results in features that attract mates (ex: flashy tail feathers)

Intrasexual selection

selection pressure of individuals within a sex on other individuals within that sex (ex: competition for mates)
                  ~Results in features that aid in competition (ex: antlers or big body size)

Runaway Selection

a type of intersexual selection in which one sex chooses mates based on a characteristic of another sex, resulting in an extreme expression of that trait over many generations.

Nuptial Gifts

items besides gametes exchanged during mating.
                  -Usually given by the mate with otherwise less parental invest to that of more parental investment (often this means from males to females, but not always)
                  -Often beneficial for offspring (ex: nest materials)

Courtship Feeding

When the nuptial gift is food eaten by the mate.

Sexy Son Hypothesis

Females should prefer to mate with males that will produce sons that will be attractive to future females (under this hypothesis, genetic quality and parental potential don’t matter)

Social Mate

Affiliated with its mate for a substantial period of time (ex: a breeding season), may help rear young.

Genetic Mate

Contributor of genes to an offspring, may or may not be the same as the social mate.

Monogamy

An animal that mates with just one individual.

Polygamy

An animal that mates with more than one individual.

Polyandry

multiple males per female

Polygyny

multiple females per male

Serial monogamy

(often in the form of having one mate per season) allows for the parental care benefits of monogamy, but the genetic benefits of polygamy.

-Having a social mate and multiple genetic mates is another strategy with similar benefits.

Harems/female defense polygyny

Females cluster around a resource and males compete to monopolize that group of females. High male-male intrasexual selection, low intersexual selection.

Lek polygyny

a group of 2 or more males that display together to attract a mate. Establishes a territory near females or near an attractive “hotshot” male.

Polyandry

multiple males per female, some of the best examples are the mating systems of social bees and ants.

Polygynandry

the mating of multiple males with multiple females within a societal structure.

Promiscuity

the mating of multiple males with multiple females outside of a societal structure.

Luteinizing Hormone (LH)

associated with receptivity, a surge in LH occurs before ovulation, primes female sexual behavior.

Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH)

Gonads produce testosterone and estrogen in response to FSH and LH. In mammals with ovaries, FSH and LH levels fluctuate throughout the cycle (peaking when eggs are fully mature)