behaviour- tucker

Question 1

Ethology

Answer 1

The scientific and objective study of animal behaviour under natural conditions
Nature

Question 2

Behaviourism

Answer 2

Rooted in psychology, stimulus and response

Nurture

Question 3

What are Tinbergen’s 4 questions?

Answer 3

Proximate causes of behaviour:

1. Mechanism- underlying causation, eg. the release of specific hormones leading to a motor response
2. Ontogeny- the development history of an individual, eg. because it is learned from parents

Ultimate causes of behaviour:

3. Function- impact on fitness, eg. doing something that increases its chances of food
4. Phylogeny- evolutionary history of a species, eg. because other species within the family do

Question 4

Lorenz

Answer 4

All species have a repertoire of innate, species-typical behaviours

Question 5

David Lack’s robins

Answer 5

Highly territorial and aggressive
Males attack adult birds, not juveniles
Also attacked red feathers
The signal is the red

Question 6

Little Albert

Answer 6

Baby given white rat
When he played with the rat, there was a loud noise
Conditioned for fear
Showed that not all behaviours are innate, some can be learned

Question 7

Wynne-Edwards study

Answer 7

Red grouse populations
Found that a pop. that doesn’t overexploit resources will be more successful than one that does
Social behaviours have evolved to benefit the group

Question 8

Ethogram

Answer 8

Complete inventory of all the behaviours of an organism

Question 9

Behaviour sampling methods

Answer 9

1. Ad-libitum sampling
   - Qualitative
   - Record individuals or groups
   - Good for initial research, but has a limited data quality
2. Focal animal sampling
   - Record either all behaviours or the occurrence of a specific behaviour
   - Can reproduce more easily than ad-lib
3. All occurences sampling
   - Measure more than one behaviour, records occurence
   - Useful for recording rate, frequency
4. Binary sampling
   - Whether a behaviour did (1) or didn’t (0) occur
   - Limited use as lots of info lost by rigid categorising
5. Scan sampling
   - Records instant activity of behaviour of all individuals in a group at set time intervals
   - Useful to understand frequency of behaviours in a whole group

Question 10

What do we measure

Answer 10

Latency- time from a specific event to the start of a behaviour

Frequency- no. of times a behaviour is displayed per unit of time

Duration- length of time that a behaviour lasts

Question 11

Krebs experiment (foraging)

Answer 11

Experiment with great tits
Put them in a foraging box with a perch and a conveyor belt with food
Had to fly down to the food and collect it or it would be lost - this is the handling time
Changed perch distance, speed, what food was on the belt
Found that when the encounter rate was high, birds only took the biggest prey
When the encounter rate was low, they took big and small prey
Predictions using equation were correct

Question 12

Caraco et al. experiment (foraging)

Answer 12

A few feeders drop seeds at the same time
All have the same average seeds overall, but some drop the exact same number every time and some vary
When the average seed number is high, chose the more consistent feeder
When the average seed number is low, chose the variable feeder- it is worth the risk for potential rewards

Question 13

Bass + bluegill experiment (foraging)

Answer 13

Adult bass can’t eat adult bluegills, only juvenile
Divided pond into 2- one side had adult and juvenile bluegills, other also had bass
On both sides, adult bluegills foraged in the open
On the no-bass side, juveniles foraged in the open, but on the bass side, they stayed in the vegetation
Grew 27% slower on bass side- change foraging to avoid predation, didn’t go for optimal food source

Question 14

Orb weaver spider (foraging)

Answer 14

Catch grasshoppers and butterflies/flies in web
Bite to kill, or wrap- wrapping takes longer and risks escape
Bite butterflies, wrap grasshoppers, as can avoid damag from them easier

Question 15

Cocos finches (foraging)

Answer 15

Insectivores and eat nectar from flowers
Looked at their foraging in 6 hibiscus plants
Would expect there to be an optimal foraging technique that all would use, however each bird had its own individual technique- each was specialised
So the inequality is different for different individuals

Question 16

Absolute fitness

Answer 16

The expected number of offspring that an individual will produce over the course of its lifetime

Question 17

Examples of crypsis

Answer 17

Draco lizard on bark

Peppered moth

Question 18

Crypsis behavioural experiment

Answer 18

Catocala cerogama and Euphyia intermediata
Superimposed on trees at different angles, flashed up to see if visible
In Catocala cerogama, better in vertical- so behaviour helps

Question 19

Mimicry experiment

Answer 19

Snowberry fly mimics the zebra jumping spider
When encounters one, pushes wings out and does territory dance
Swapped house and snowberry fly wings
The spider only retreated when had the correct wings and dance

Also Macleay’s Spectre woooo

Question 20

Predators using mimicry examples

Answer 20

Jumping spiders mimicing ants
Alligator snapping turtle tongues mimic worms to attract fish
Butterfly larvae smell like ant larvae- brought back and fed
Wasp pheromones confuse colony, lay eggs in butterfly larvae- mutualism b/w wasp and ants

Question 21

Aposematism examples

Answer 21

Monarch butterfly- tastes nasty
Coral snake- can kill
Strawberry poison dart frog- poisonous

Question 22

Phenotypic plasticity example

Answer 22

Prarie bird locust
Genetically identical raised in high and low densities
High densities = colourful (show they aren’t tasty)
Low densities = plain (hide)

Question 23

Batesian mimicry

Answer 23

Only one is poisonous
Coral snake and milk snake
Macleays spectre and scorpions/mantids

Question 24

Mullerian mimicry

Answer 24

2+ harmful animals evolve to look like each other
Bees and wasps
Heliconius butterflies

Question 25

Lemming population control

Answer 25

Would expect dispersal to be reduced if not successful | Not just stoats controlling pop- in bumper years, snowy owls and arctic foxes join in

Question 26

Why should we see the dying out of dispersal

Answer 26

Should be no disperal in temporally constant environments Dispersers leave natal patch, go to another patch There, they reproduce, so the population goes up At the end of dispersing, the percentage of dispersers in the population has gone down, so should see dying out

Question 27

What are the costs of dispersal?

Answer 27

Energetic costs- drosophila egg exp. Investment in physiology- cricket wing/wingless morphs Predation- voles dispersing, can't find new hiding spot Failure to find new habitat- butterflies and plantagos

Question 28

Name for the probability that animal will disperse

Answer 28

Dispersal propensity

Question 29

Things that contribute to decrease in dispersal propensity over time

Answer 29

1. First individuals to colonise will be good dispersers 2. Individuals that maintainthe ability to disperse tend to have lower reproductive potential 3. In every generation, some good dispersers leave the patch and don't come back

Question 30

Invasion and dispersal

Answer 30

Selects for increased dispersal Eg. cane toads brought to Australia to eat beetles ruining cane sugar Poison monior lizards that eat crocodile eggs, so increased crocodile pop

Question 31

What is inbreeding depression?

Answer 31

Reduced fitness in a population as a result of inbreeding Recessive alleles are brought together and exposed to selection- unlikely if unrelated 4 voles were released in different patches, some related and some not- more disperal in patches with siblings

Question 32

What is philopatry?

Answer 32

The tendency of an organism to stay in/return to an area | Eg. loggerhead turtles

Question 33

Living in groups experiment

Answer 33

1. Algorithms- found that copying more did better But didn't take into account competition Best to copy when temporal variability was low ``` 2. Rats First chose between cinnamon and cocoa Second watched and then chose Usually chose the same as the first rate chose Uneven environment, so copy ``` ``` 3. Goats 2 ends of a strip of grass, trough at either end First goat went, another watched Split evenly betwen the troughs Even environment, so don't need to copy ```

Question 34

4 theories of how living in groups avoids predation

Answer 34

1. Selfish herd theory - Predation rate hasn't changed, just the chance of it being you - Common redshank- predated on by sparrowhawks more if further from the group 2. Predator satiation - Predators can only eat so much - Eg. cicadas- look at wings and shells, large groups emerging = less predated - Birds that remember the last one are dead lol 3. Reduced vigilance - Don't need to spend as much time looking around as others are too- if one runs, everyone runs - More time for foraging - Goa exp. found that bigger groups = less scanning - But have to do more foraging in a group due to competition so can't be as vigilant- cost?? 4. Predator confusion - Schools of prey in tank, 1, 6, or 20 - Introduced types of predators- all were less successful when there were larger groups