Behavioral Ecology Flashcards
Lesson 15 (23 cards)
What is a behavior?
nervous system’s response to a stimulus and is carried out by the muscular or the hormonal system
subject to natural selection and have a genetic basis
What are the behavioral traits of a fly reproducting?
Orienting, Tapping, and Singing all have a genetic basis, and each fly has a different “go-to” move
Males lacking the gene don’t court females, and females that get injected with the gene does one of the three methods.
What are other types of behaviors that are studied by biologists?
migration, daily rhythms, communication, learning, and predator avoidance
What is foraging?
food obtaining behavior, includes recognizing, searching for, capturing, and eating food items
What is mate choice?
the act of choosing a reproductive partner
What is social behavior?
Interactions with kin and conspecifics
What were the questions that Niko Tinbergen identified about animal behavior?
- What stimulus elicits the behavior, and what physiological mechanisms mediate the response?
- How does the animal’s experience
during growth and development
influence the response? - How does the behavior aid survival and reproduction?
- What is the behavior’s evolutionary history?
What is behavioral ecology?
The study of the ecological and evolutionary basis for animal behavior
Do crows display optimal foraging behavior?
Trade-off between energy gained (the mollusks) and the energy expended (amount of times having to drop the shell)
*if a behavior enhances survival and reproductive success in a population, it should tend towards optimal levels
Explain trade-offs
High growth = advantages of body size
High reproduction = advantages of birth rate
Animals must allocate energy to one or the other
What are mating systems?
mating relationships shaped by natural selection
What is monogamy?
one male mates with one female
typically have similar external morphologies
What is polygamy?
an individual of one sex mates with several individuals of the other sex
What is polygyny?
a form of polygamy were one male mates with many females
males are usually more showy and larger than females
What is polyandry?
a form of polygamy where one female mates with many males
females are more showy
better for females= many male parents
Explain how multiple different mating behaviors occur in lizards
orange- males are the most aggressive and defend large territories
blue- defend small territories
yellow- mimic females, but use sneaky strategies to mate
The success of each strategy depends on the frequency of all the strategies; drives frequency dependent selection.
What is cooperation?
even though natural selection favors selfish behaviors, animals cooperate when there is a direct mutual fitness benefit, such as group defense and hunting in groups
What is altruism and how does it make sense?
Animals behave in ways that reduce their individual fitness but increase the fitness of others
ex: ants, bees sacrifice their lives to protect their queen
What are the different ways social behaviors influence their fitness?
direct fitness- effect of allele on individual bearing it
indirect fitness- effect of copies of the same allele on other individuals
inclusive fitness- an allele is comprised of both its direct and indirect fitness
When will an altruistic trait evolve? (the Hamilton rule)
If the cost of the trait to the actor is lower than the benefit to the recipient times the relatedness between actor and recipient
r*b(recepient) - c(actor) >0
r is relatedness from 0-1
What is the coefficient of relatedness (r)?
r is the fraction of genes that are shared on average
r is the summation of (0.5)^L , where L is the number of generation links between the individuals
Why does kin selection is selection based on inclusive fitness?
*explains cooperation between relatives
* explains conflict in groups of unrelated individuals
* explains why meerkats make risky alarm calls (only live in family groups)
What is the evolution of social behaviors governed by?
