Lecture 1 & 2 Flashcards
(27 cards)
What is kin selection?
Favoring increased reproductive success of not just of offspring but also of close genetic kin.
What is direct fitness?
Number of offspring plus effect on reproductive success.
What is indirect fitness?
Effect of reproductive fitness of genetic kin.
What are the three foundations (not approaches) of ethology?
Natural selection, Individual learning, Cultural transmission.
Which two types of questions are proximate?
Mechanistic and Developmental.
Which two types of questions are ultimate?
Survival value and Evolutionary/Phylogenetic.
What are the four types of questions?
- Mechanistic. 2. Developmental. 3. Survival Value. 4. Evolutionary/Phylogenetic.
What kind of questions are mechanistic?
“What stimuli elicit behavior?” “What sort of neurobiological and hormonal changes occur in response to, or in anticipation of, such stimuli?”
What kind of questions are developmental?
“How does behavior change as an animal matures?” “How does developmental variation affect behavior later in life?”
What kind of questions are about survival value?
“How does behavior affect survival and reproduction?”
What kind of questions are evolutionary/phylogenetic?
“How does behavior vary as a function of the evolutionary history, or phylogeny, of the animal being studied?” “When did a behavior first appear in the evolutionary history of the species under study?”
Which type of analysis focuses on immediate causes?
Proximate analysis.
Which type of analysis focuses on the evolutionary forces that have shaped a trait over time?
Ultimate analysis.
What is animal behavior?
Coordinated responses of whole living organisms to internal and external stimuli.
What are two examples of natural selection?
Crickets and their loss of a mating call when predators came and xenophobia (more xenophobic when food sources are low).
What is an example of individual learning?
Grasshoppers and the importance of predictability.
What is an example of cultural transmission?
Foraging behaviors in rats (learn new food source by smelling breath and observing effects on the one that ate it).
What is cultural transmission?
Transfer of info from one individual to another through teaching or social learning.
What are the three approaches to ethology?
Empirical, Theoretical, Conceptual.
What is the empirical approach?
Involves gathering data and drawing conclusions generating new, testable predictions, from that data.
What is an example of the conceptual approach?
Kin selection.
What is an example of the conceptual approach?
Kin selection.
What is the theoretical approach?
Uses math to describe behaviors(?)
What was Niko Tinbergen’s contribution to the field of ethology?
4 Areas of inquiry, and expressing more use of the scientific method.
