Animal Behaviour

Question 1

Animal behaviour

Answer 1

What an organism does and how it does it, usually in response to stimuli in its environment. Diverse, can be characteristic of a species and also individual variation, learning and culture.

Question 2

What is animal behaviour studied for?

Answer 2

Animal welfare, animal husbandry, conservation, public interest, pivotal role, promotes higher level of organisation and has a critical role in adaptations and evolution

Question 3

Natural selection

Answer 3

Behaviour is the product of natural selection on phenotypes and indirectly on genotypes that code for them. Have a set of adaptations

Question 4

Tinbergen’s four whys?

Answer 4

Causation - proximate factors initiating behaviour
Development - genetics and learning
Evolution - how it evolved from ancestral phenotypes
Function - how behaviour contributes to survival

Question 5

Proximate causation

Answer 5

Mechanisms underlying behaviour - comparative psychology

Question 6

Ultimate causation

Answer 6

evolution, selection pressures, ethology and behavioural ecology

Question 7

Biological communication

Answer 7

The action of one organism alters the probability pattern of behaviour of another - adaptive to either of both and sender must intend to alter the other’s behaviour

Question 8

Why communicate?

Answer 8

Not in isolation
Interactions between heterospecifics and conspecifics
Mating
Heterogenous landscapes - aggregations and non-random associations between individuals
Social interactions

Question 9

Sender

Answer 9

Transmits signals

Question 10

Receiver

Answer 10

Individual who’s probability of behaving in a certain way is altered by the signal

Question 11

Signal

Answer 11

Any behaviour or feature that conveys information from sender to receiver

Question 12

Display

Answer 12

A signal involving behaviour patterns adapted to function as a social signal

Question 13

Channel

Answer 13

A medium through which the signal is transmitted

Question 14

Context

Answer 14

The setting in which the signal is transmitted and received

e.g. lion roar to neighbouring prides/own pride

Question 15

Noise

Answer 15

Irrelevant background activity

Question 16

True communication

Answer 16

Both sender and receiver benefit

Question 17

Ignoring (spite)

Answer 17

Both sender and receiver do not benefit/-ve

Question 18

Eavesdropping (exploitation)

Answer 18

Sender -ve and receiver benefits

Question 19

Manipulation (deceit)

Answer 19

Sender benefits, receiver doesn’t benefit/-ve

Question 20

Discrete signals

Answer 20

All or none

Question 21

Graded signals

Answer 21

Intensity varies in proportion to stimulus strength

Question 22

Afferential

Answer 22

Communicates info about sender

Question 23

Referential

Answer 23

Communicates info about an entity external to communicating individual

Question 24

Composite signals

Answer 24

2 or more signals combined give a new meaning

Question 25

Syntax

Answer 25

Changing the sequence of displays

Question 26

Metacommunication

Answer 26

One display alters subsequent e.g. play bow in canids

Question 27

Message

Answer 27

What the signal encodes about the sender

Question 28

Meaning

Answer 28

What the receiver construes from the signal

Question 29

Reducing the risk of eavesdropping

Answer 29

Difficult to detect or locate signals e.g. 7Hz freq Cant tell direction of birdsong Signals selectively unavailable to repudiators Direct to specific individuals

Question 30

Audience effects

Answer 30

Presence of a particular onlooker can make behaviours more or less likely

Question 31

What makes a good signal?

Answer 31

How well situated signal is to being detected in receiver's environment: detectability, discriminability, memorability, specific and unambiguous

Question 32

Stereotypy

Answer 32

Ritualisation of displays

Question 33

Antithesis

Answer 33

Signals conveying opposite messages often have opposite forms e.g. threat/submissive postures of dogs

Question 34

Sensory channel

Answer 34

The physical form used to transmits signals from sender to receiver - depends upon machinery available to individual, environment, evolutional josyoru

Question 35

Strategies to reduce degradation of signal

Answer 35

In forests = low fre1, avoid trills | In open terrain = trills favoured, repeated elements

Question 36

What behaviours did displays evolve from?

Answer 36

Intention movements Displacement activities - where animal is undecided to appropriate response Physiological change Thermoregulatory behaviours Food changes - Comparisons of closely related species Elaboration of functional behaviours

Question 37

Inter-specific signals

Answer 37

Predator deterrence and co-evolution

Question 38

Group spacing and co-ordination

Answer 38

Distance increasing Distance maintaining Distance reducing Proximity maintaining

Question 39

Recognition

Answer 39

Species recognition - avoids infertile matings, courtship Deme recognition Neighbour recognition - no aggressive response upon familiar individuals Kin recognition - parent-offspring Individual recognition - dolphin whistles

Question 40

Alarm

Answer 40

Alerts groups to danger e.g. Veret monkeys have different signals for different predators

Question 41

Finding food

Answer 41

Advantage of group living - increased foraging efficiency, signals aid exploitation/acquisition of food but typically selfish

Question 42

Giving and soliciting care

Answer 42

Begging and offering food between parent and offspring of among relatives. Distress all by young and soliciting play

Question 43

Aggression

Answer 43

Any activity directed towards to discomfiture of another individual

Question 44

Agonistic behaviour

Answer 44

Behaviour patterns used during conflict with a conspecific

Question 45

Causes of conflict

Answer 45

Limited resources, heterogenous environment, patchy resources, aggressions of individuals

Question 46

Resolving conflict

Answer 46

Ritualised displays decided whether to quit or continue to fight as they give info about the individuals fitness

Question 47

Why are physical fights rare?

Answer 47

Potential high cost of energy and risk of injury, selection favours evolution of conflict resolution mechanisms, most conflict avoided y display

Question 48

Avoiding conflict

Answer 48

Maintaining social space (territories), appeasement and submission (dominance relationships), pre-fight displays, fights are a last resort.

Question 49

Escalation of conflicts

Answer 49

Conflict most likely when opponents equally matched. One often prepared to persist longer or escalate further as it has more to gain from winning e.g. hunger, thirst; perceived resource value, may lead to evolution of signals ownership

Question 50

Conflict and eavesdropping

Answer 50

Observing encounters between other combatants may affect the observer's behaviour in subsequent encounters

Question 51

Conflict signals and honesty

Answer 51

Cant lie about dominance due to costs - development of mass and weaponry, social 'policing'

Question 52

Sexual selection

Answer 52

Compete successful for mating opportunities - aid competition within 1 sex for access to the other and enhancing attractiveness off individuals of one sex to members of the other (pre-copulatory)

Question 53

Secondary sexual characteristics

Answer 53

Females invest more are costly large gametes - must pick good quality males Males invest less - uncertainty of paternity = less choosy Male-male competition (intra-sexual) Courtship displays (inter-sexual) May conflict with survival e.g. antlers energetically expensive and bright plumage conspicuous to predators

Question 54

Functions of courtship

Answer 54

Species, deme, class and individual recognition Mate attraction and choice Coordination of reproductive behaviours and physiology between sexes Maintain long term bonds and coordinate provision for offspring

Question 55

Mate attraction

Answer 55

Means by which males can be compared by females, More complex songs and stamina preferred - healthier, possessing better territories, enhanced parenting potential and good gene - honest signals of male quality. Courtship displays may also involved additional material e.g. nest building, nuptial gifts

Question 56

Deception

Answer 56

e.g Femme fatale firefly flashes patterns with photogenic abdomen but can also mimic smaller species - prey. Caused co-evolution where males perform prey species patterns then switch back too mate

Question 57

Complex communication

Answer 57

e.g. food location in honey bees - waggle dance: direction of food rel. to sun = direction relative to gravity,. Duration increases with distance, 1 waggle = 30m

Question 58

Language acquisition

Answer 58

Limited resource of signals - e.g. human lang unbounded set bases on 20-60 phonemes. True language: symbols for abstract ideas, syntax, displaced functional reference.