Pt. 1 Flashcards by Joey Baxter

Proximate questions = …

Ultimate questions = …

How, Why

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Niko Tinbergen identified four specific questions that can be asked about a behaviour. What are these? Separate them into proximate and ultimate questions.

Proximate:
- Causation (mechanism)
- Development (ontogeny)
Ultimate:
- Evolution (phylogeny)
- Function (selection)

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E.g. squirrels store nuts in the Autumn. Red Squirrels cash their nuts in piles in the ground. Grey squirrels hide them individually everywhere and often forget where they’ve left them. Red squirrels find these food sources again in winter when other food is scarce. Let’s go through Tinbergen’s 4 questions, starting with the causation. What is a plausible hypothesis for what causes the squirrels to store the nuts?

In Autumn, an overabundance of nuts means that squirrels are over-satiated with food so, instead of leaving the nuts for other animals to eat, they hide them away from these other animals.

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How did the squirrel nut-hiding behaviour develop over the early life stages of the squirrel (ontogeny)?

Hypothesis: Instincts lead them to hide the nuts and learning hones their ability to hide the nuts in safe hiding spots

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What is the evolutionary history of the squirrel behaviour (phylogeny)?

Hypothesis: The ancestors of red squirrels gathered nuts into a pile in a safe place and sat and ate them. Over evolutionary time they left the piles for longer and longer periods until they became a winter food source

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What is the function of the squirrel behaviour (i.e. the selective pressure that maintains this behaviour)?

Hypothesis: individual squirrels that store nuts are more likely to survive through winter and go on to reproduce in the spring

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Emperor moth/eyed hawk moth eye spots used to startle predators example:
Causation?

Presence of predator stimulates the sensory system of the animal. This provokes a reaction in the motor systems of the animal which elicits the behaviour of displaying the eyespots. This sensory-motor system is, in turn, mediated by the hormone system within the insect.

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(Eyespot) Development?

The physiology, and therefore the behavioural mechanism, of the moth will have developed over time as it developed through its juvenile stages to a fully functioning adult. This development will have been determined by the insect’s genes, the interaction of the products of these genes with the environment

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(Eyespot) Phylogeny and function?

This behaviour increases the likelihood of the moth surviving for long enough to enable it to transmit itself to the following generation, and the behaviour has evolved over evolutionary time, due to these fitness benefits.

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The proximate and ultimate questions and their answers are often referred to as two different … of …

level of analysis.

look at table at 7:30 in lecture 1

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One of Tinbergen’s classic studies for the … reasons for a behaviour was carried out on bee wolves (a type of wasp). The female bee wolf provisions her underground nest with … …. She always finds her way back to the nest. Tinbergen wanted to find out how. He found that the female covers the … before going hunting and … it a few times. Tinbergen hypothesised that she was … the … near the entrance. To test this, he set up some very obvious … (… …) around the nest and waited for the female to leave. He then … these to somewhere else, and found that the female could not locate her nest. This provided good evidence that the female bee wolf’s proximate mechanism for finding her nest is … the … of nearby …, and using them to navigate back to her nest entrance.

proximate, honey bees, entrance, circles, memorising, landmarks, landmarks, pine cones, moved, memorising, position, landmarks

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Tinbergen made an …, developed a clear …, and performed a simple … of this …. This resulted in a clear …

observation, hypothesis, test, hypothesis, answer.

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One of Tinbergen’s classic experiment for the … reasons for a behaviour was carried out in gull nests. Many birds remove the … … from their nests after chicks hatch and dump these somewhere else. Tinbergen suspected that the broken … …, which were highly … due to the inside of the egg shell being … rather than … like the outside, could attract … such as …. He hypothesised that egg shell removal might increase fitness as it makes it impossible for … to use egg shells as an … of a nearby nest with … in it. To test this hypothesis, Tinbergen set up artificial gull nests containing a single egg with a broken egg shell at various … away from the nest. He observed the nests and found that the … the broken egg shells were to the nest, the greater the chance of the nest being … … by crows. …% predation rate when eggs 15cm away from nest, 21% predation rate when eggs 200cm away from nest. This supports his hypothesis.

ultimate, egg shells, egg shells, visible, white, camouflaged, predators, crows, predators, indicator, chick, distances, closer, predated upon, 42, 21

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A recent experiment that ties proximate and ultimate ideas together was carried out on … and … butterflies. Both species have leaf-resembling … underwings and …, … dorsal wing surfaces. Commas have a white ‘C’ on their underwings too, which may resemble bird faeces or draw attention away from the overall shape of the insect. If disturbed while resting, the … keeps its wings closed to maintain camouflage, while the … opens them to reveal large … and makes a … … by rubbing its forewings and hindwings together, which effectively deters blue tits.

comma, peacock, bright, colourful, comma, peacock, eyespots, hissing noise

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Peacock butterflies have two potential ways of scaring off predators: … and … …. Vallin et al. wanted to know which of these was responsible for scaring predators. various combinations and controls using black marker (to cover eyespots) and cutting parts of wing off (hind of front wing to remove ability to hiss). The butterflies were presented to blue tits in cages, and each blue tit was only given one butterfly so that it could not learn their taste. Vallin recorded how many butterflies were predated upon to determine how effective the strategies were. He found that the more effective strategy was the …. In fact, the … did not protect the butterflies from predation (from blue tits). The … alone are effective at protecting the butterfly from predation. perhaps the hissing is effective with …

eyespots, hissing noise, eyespots, hissing, eyespots, bats

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Not all eyespots are for scaring predators. … … butterflies have small black eyespots near their wing tips, which instead provide a …-… target for the predator, so that the butterfly can …

Non-vital, escape

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What are the 4 steps of the scientific method?

Ask a question about an observation (e.g. observed behaviour)
Establish a hypothesis to explain what has been seen
Set up predictions based on this hypothesis
Test these predictions by gathering appropriate data (field observations, experiments etc.)

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… is when a bird such as a blue jay, disturbs an ant mound, allowing the ants to climb onto its body and spray the bird with defensive chemicals (formic acid). Some birds will pick up the ants and rub them into their feathers. There are two hypotheses for this behaviour:

Formic acid kills … in the feathers, such as …
Encouraging the ants to secrete formic acid makes them more …

Anting, parasites, lice, palatable

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There are four subfamilies of Apidae bees (orchid bees, stingless bees, honeybees, bumblebees). These bees show interesting behaviours. Honeybees,, bumblebees and stingless bees are all …. Orchid bees are …. Honeybees and stingless bees are …-forming (during winter colony raises many offspring and population grows, overcrowding nest by spring. Colony rears new queen and the old queen flies away to form new colony, taking with her old worker bees. This flying swarm temporarily attaches itself to a tree branch, while … bees are sent out to find new nest sites, returning with information). Honeybees and stingless bees also exhibit … …, where a … bee returns to the hive with lots of nectar and transfers this to a … bee, who stores the nectar in a …. This is an example of … …, where a task is divided into subunits and two or more individuals are specialised to perform the different elements of the task.

eusocial, solitary, swarm, scout, nectar transfer, forager, receiver, task partitioning

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What is the evolutionary history of eusociality, swarming, and nectar transfer (when, during evolutionary history, did these behaviours arise)? To answer this we need to look at the … of the bees. This is not yet known for certain, as … and … data give different results. One potential phylogeny indicates a single origin of …, as this is the most … explanation. It indicates that swarming and nectar transfer evolved …. Either that or it evolved … and was subsequently lost in … However, if the phylogeny was slightly altered, each behaviour would only have had to evolve once and not been lost at all, which is more parsimonious.

(27.00 in lecture 1)

Phylogeny, molecular, morphological, eusociality, parsimonious, twice, once, bumblebees

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Animal behaviours can seem paradoxical from a darwinian evolutionary perspective. Give an e.g. of such a behaviour in humans

Humans eat unhealthy and potentially harmful amounts of sugary sweets and drinks

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Why do humans eat so many sweet things?

Hypotheses:

Contain sugar which tastes good (Proximate)
Sugar is an energy source that keeps helps keep people alive (Ultimate)
Our ancestors depended on sugar-rich fruits, and we’ve inherited the same tastes that they had (Ultimate)
Our genes shape the development of nerve cells that provide perceptions of sweetness and pleasure (Proximate)
The sensory input from taste receptors in the tongue to the selected brain cells leads to a positively reinforcing sensation of sweetness (Proximate)

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… langurs live in social groups with one male, several females and young. When a male is displaced by challenging younger male, infants die and new males are most often the cause of this, called …. Females may … the new male if they see him murdering infants.

Hanuman, infanticide, attack

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Why do males kill offspring? 3 hypotheses:

…-… : e.g. social …brought on by overcrowding - male driven insane - unlikely as infanticide always occurs after a takeover and isn’t more prevalent in … groups
Favoured by NS at … level - infanticide frees females to become … sooner (as she stops lactating and enters oestrus cycle again), so the male … offspring sooner and has more … before he is himself overthrown by another male - most likely
Favoured by NS at … level - infanticide reduces … which would cause the group to … its food or other resources

non-adaptive (not natural selection), pathology, larger

individual, pregnant, fathers, offspring

group, overcrowding, overexploit

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...-level selection is very rare

group

Group selection suggests an individual's behaviours are adaptations that assist the survival or their group, e.g. reproducing less to avoid overexploiting resources. Groups with individuals that practice self-..., for example, survive better. The problem with this is that ... selection will usually be .... Those individuals who don't practice ...-... will usually ... within the group.

restraint, individual, stronger, self-restraint, prosper | See diagram at 10:00-13:00 lecture 2

Group selection will only be favoured if groups are relatively ...-... in relation to the lifespan of the individuals and if ... ... is important to the group's survival

long-lived, intergroup competition

Meerkats live in social groups with a dominant ... and ..... Pregnant females will kill all the pups of other females. Infanticide of a newly born litter of dominant and subordinate females is more likely if another female is pregnant (survival of offspring lower). This is because other litters would...

females, subordinates, compete for resources and decrease survival and (reproductive) quality of their own litter

When a worker honeybee stings something, she leaves the barbed sting behind, known as sting ..., and subsequently ....

autotomy (casting off of body part), dies

The honeybee sting exhibits a complex adaptive behaviour, even when detached. The sting contains muscles, nerve ganglion, a ... sac and an ... ... gland. The muscles and nerves cause the drilling of the 3 sting ... into the flesh and the pumping of .... The ... ..., a volatile compound, disperses within the environment and guides other worker bees to the intruder and increases their likelihood of .... This means that the intruder is likely driven away before being able to...

venom, alarm pheromone, stylets, venom, alarm pheromone, stinging, reach and damage the nest and bees within

The venom injection and pheromone release are most effective when...

the sting is detached from the bee

Why do worker bees sacrifice themselves for the good of their nestmates?

Honeybee workers do not normally reproduce directly, instead rearing their siblings. This reproductive altruism is selected for because workers normally rear close relatives with whom they share many genes - kin selection at work - self-sacrifice actually protects genes

In the honeybee sting example what are the proximate and ultimate explanations?

proximate - sting venom and pheromones more effective when detached ultimate - increases chance of relative's survival

In Anthias fish, when a dominant male dies...

a female will change into a male to "fill his space", growing a new set of gonads, which takes time and energy. This increases her fitness when she is a large female.

Male spiders are often much smaller than females. How does the male garden spider avoid being eaten by a female when approaching her on her web?

Waits near web until she is mature and very carefully approaches her, plucking strands of web as he goes to let her know he is not food - not always successful as occasionally male mistaken for meal and eaten

Male crab spiders have a different strategy:

He grabs the female by the legs and waits until she stops struggling before tying her down. Once she is trapped he manoeuvres underneath her and copulates with her, then running off, leaving her to untangle herself and unable to eat him

Some male spiders give the female a ... ...

nuptial gift

Redback spiders: females much larger than males, live longer. Males mature at ... .... There are many males per female (can be up to 6 males in a female's web trying to mate). Females mate with multiple males. Males deliberately...

younger age, place themselves in a female's jaws during copulation.

What is the male Redback's fitness benefit to sacrificing himself to the female?

If the first male is cannibalised, 67% of females reject a second male. If the first male is not cannibalised, only 4% of females reject a second male - The female is less likely to relate if she cannibalises the first male - less competition for paternity

As copulation duration increases, ... ... paternity increases

second male (after first male has been consumed)

Males that are not cannibalised copulate for around ... seconds, and gain only about ... of paternity, whereas cannibalised males copulate for around ... seconds and gain over ... paternity

11, 50%, 25, 90%

Female bean weevils that have mated have significantly more damage to their ... ... than females that have never mated. Females that ... successfully dislodged males earlier in mating - significantly less damage to reproductive tract. No difference in ... between females that had experienced one damaging mating and two damaging matings (this would not be advantageous to male fitness) - damage does, however, decrease her .... Genital damage incurs no fitness cost to ..., but does to ...

reproductive tract, kicked, fecundity, lifespan, males, females (males currently winning battle of sexes)

Predators and prey are often locked into a ...-... struggle

co-evolutionary - over time predators will evolve adaptations that help them to find or catch prey and prey will evolve adaptations that make them harder to find or catch

Tinbergen observed that when a new type of ... appeared in woodlands, songbirds (passerines) rarely brought it to their nests. But once a few had been located, the birds collected them at...

caterpillar, a greater rate - The birds had come to recognise the caterpillars and had formed a search image - come to recognise subtle characteristics and learned them - like where's wally

Animals tend to take longer to build up a ... ...

search image - built up as repeatedly find food item

Blue jays were shown slides of ... ... of either the same or 2 different species with different ... ... and ... .... The birds improved their recognition over ... ... when presented with ... species but not when given ...

cryptic moth, colour patterns, resting positions, repeated trials, one, both - good evidence that they build up search image - and evidence that it is difficult to build up search image of two things simultaneously

Striped skunks are ... foragers and find foods by .... They form the equivalent of a search image but for ... (... search image). Young skunks were allowed to forage in an outdoor enclosure. Food was found at greater ... as they gained experience (judged by a pose they use when they detect food)

nocturnal, odour, smells, olfactory, distances

Animal groups often act as ... .... By watching and interacting with other conspecifics in the group, an individual can gain information about a ... ..., including its location and characteristics

information centres, food source

In social insects e.g. ants and honeybees, colonies are made up of ... ... individuals, so cooperation is strongly favoured by ... ..., whereas in other group-living animals, most groups are made up of mostly ... individuals, so kin selection doesn't drive cooperation in these groups. Other advantages, such as being able to hunt ... prey (e.g. wolves can take down caribou) are present in these groups.

closely related, kin selection, unrelated, larger

Another difference between social insects and other group-living animals is the fact that social insects deliberately ... with nest mates, e.g. the honey bee ... ... or pheromone trails in ants. In other animal groups, individuals tend not to communicate ..., instead being more likely to ... other individuals, e.g. heading in direction a successful forager came from

communicate, waggle dance, directly (indirect communication), observe

In social insects, workers help each other by ... ... (e.g. in army ants), defending a ... ... (e.g. ants, some stingless bees), or, most commonly, by communicating the ... of food to nest mates (e.g. waggle dances in honey bees and direct leading and ... ... in ants)

capturing prey, food patch, location, pheromone trails

Who carried out most of the initial research on the honey bee waggle dance?

Karl von Frisch

How does the waggle dance work?

2 types: - if food is within 50m do round dance - if food over 50m away do figure of eight dance - direction given by angle from vertical = angle of food source relative to sun - distance given by duration of dance - dancer touched by antennae of other workers so they can analyse the dance to work out the location of the food in the dark

In a '... test', Karl von Frisch trained scout bees to a feeder and put out 6 other, equally attractive feeding stations in different directions and counted the recruits. More arrived at the ... location than other locations. Did the same with same direction but different distances (trained to ...). Again same result.

fan, advertised, 750m

Natural combs are .... Honey bee foragers will dance on ... combs, orienting to a directional ... ... instead of gravity. By removing directional ... from ... combs the directional information in the dances is removed. It is then possible to compare the success of bees with informative vs non-informative dances. A larger proportion of recruits come to the advertised site when combs are ... (both no light source)

Vertical, horizontal, light source, light, horizontal, vertical

How does a dancing bee know how far it has flown?

Use speed at which images pass their eyes to estimate distance flown - known as the image motion hypothesis

Bees that had flow through tunnels with ... ..., all within 50m, performed a lower proportion of ... dances than those flown through no tunnels or tunnels with parallel lines. This shows that the bees use complex patterns to judge the distance they have travelled as they fly past. Supports ... ... hypothesis

complex patterns, round, image motion - proximal mechanism for judging distance - 21:45 lecture 3

What are the ultimate benefits of dancing behaviour?

By following dances, foragers don't find flowers faster, but they find better quality ones, as only scouts finding high quality flowers dance. Dancing allows the whole colony to achieve greater fitness in winter (but not summer as plenty of food available) - build up greater store of food to survive through winter months

In some coastal areas, ... form loose ... nesting colonies. ... fish are a particularly good prey item. Ospreys ... colony mates to find fish (as shoals can be hard to find in sea). If no ospreys return with fish, departing ospreys depart the colony in ... .... If an osprey returns with a herring, departures are significantly taken in the ... direction. This communication is not ...; the forager probably receives little to no benefit. Also, ... ospreys find fish faster than ... birds (ultimate fitness benefit)

Ospreys, gregarious, shoaling, watch, all directions, same, deliberate, informed, naïve

Barn swallows, which also nest in similar gregarious colonies, do not show this same tendency to follow successful conspecific foragers. This is due to...

the nature of their prey: ospreys hunt fish which live in large shoals, so if one is caught there are likely many more in the same location. Swallows hunt flying insects, which are far more spread out and fast moving, and following a successful conspecific likely provides no increased likelihood of finding prey

Female ... ... live in groups and hunt together. Group hunting carnivores take larger prey (e.g. zebras) than solitary hunters. Mammalian social carnivores can capture prey weighing between ... and ... times as much as one adult hunter - common among unrelated taxonomic groups (e.g. spotted hyenas, lions, wolves). Solitary carnivores (e.g. striped hyenas) typically catch much smaller prey species

African lions, 6, 12

It is beneficial to meat intake to hunt larger prey when prey is ..., but not when it is .... However, there are also larger costs in ... .... It is suggested that group hunters are maximising the difference between energy ... and ... (e.g. creel and creel African hunting dogs study)

scarce, common, energy expenditure, gained, expended

Optimal foraging (e.g big Tesco vs corner shop)

big shop too expensive at corner shop. Too energetically costly to go all the way to Tesco for a bottle of milk

We can build ... based on the ... and ... of different behaviours, in order to make precise predictions about the behaviour of individuals

models, costs, benefits

In order to maximise fitness, animals should forage as ... as possible. This is the basis of the ... theory - that selection will favour animals that forage most ..., by ... food (calorific) intake and ... food handling time. Optimality models are used to determine the best course of action for an animal (for maximising food. intake or offspring provisioning)

efficiently, optimality, efficiently, maximising, minimising

John Maynard Smith took ... models and applied them to ... ...

economic, behavioural ecology

North Western crows feed on ... on the coast. To get into them, crows ... them on a hard surface from great .... When feeding like this, the crow is faced with a number of decisions, e.g. which ... to pick, how high to fly before dropping them, how many unsuccessful attempts before moving on. Zach (1979) observed that crows always select ... whelks and drop them from approx. ... onto rocks to break them open, and that they keep dropping a whelk until it breaks.

whelks, drop, heights, whelk, large, 5m,

Zach's predictions were that: - ... whelks should break more easily at 5m than ... whelks - Whelks dropped at <5m should be ... likely to break, whelks dropped at >5m should be ... ... likely to break - The chances of a whelk breaking should be ... ... the number of times it is dropped He tested these by dropping whelks from a tower. He found that all 3 of these were supported, so the crows are behaving optimally

large, small, less, no more, independent of

When a hypothesis based on cost benefit logic is found to be incorrect this can lead to further insights: 1. The animal may not have been well "..." by ... 2. The observations may have been ... 3. An important factor may have been ... from the model 4. The ... may have not been valid

designed (e.g. environment changed and animal hasn't "caught up"), selection, inappropriate, omitted, assumptions

A study of oystercatchers found that birds selected mussels that were ... than predicted. The behaviour did not fit the model as most large mussels were ... to .... When this was factored into the model, the new predictions were .... Oystercatchers are predicted to select large mussels that yield the most food. However, when only mussels that can be opened are considered, the optimum size matches observations.

smaller, impossible, open, upheld

Animals' needs for specific ... can also place a constraint on foraging - more often for ..., as ... are often deficient certain nutrients

nutrients, herbivores, plants

Moose (Lake Superior, NA) need to eat energy (calorie) rich ... ... and sodium rich ... .... ... space is another constraint. Moose eat to maximise ... intake while still meeting their minimum ... requirements, and staying within the constraints of their .... Moose therefore appear to behave ... within their constraints.

(deciduous) forest leaves, aquatic vegetation, stomach, energy, sodium, rumen (first stomach), optimally - watch part of lecture 4 (15:45)

Charnov's ... ... Theorem: - foraging environments tend to be ... - e.g. hummingbirds have to fly from flower to flower (patch to patch) - The longer an individual spends in the patch, the lower and lower the ... ... and ... ... become (may be due to resource depletion in patch or food becoming more of encumbrance). This curve of ... returns is known as the ... curve. Foraging becomes less efficient with time spent in patch. - The problem a foraging animal faces is when to give up on a ... and move onto the next or when to return to its offspring. What is the optimal time spent in a patch? - ... time between patches must be considered. The longer the ... time, the longer should be spent in the patch

Marginal Value, patchy (not even), food intake, fitness gains, diminishing, loading, patch, travelling, travelling - should watch this part of lecture 4 too (immediately follows moose)

E.g. starlings forage for leatherjackets and bring back to offspring nest. Foraging efficiency decreases with time (diminishing returns) spent as the more prey it carries in its beak, the less efficient it is at probing. Using an optimality model, we can predict how long a starling will spend in a particular patch before returning to its nest. Results match predictions - longer travel time =....

more prey items caught and carried back

What are the restrictive assumptions of the marginal value theorem?

- assumes travel time between patches is known - travel costs = patch costs - patch profitability is known - no predation these assumptions are reasonable in some cases, but if violated the model may need to be adjusted to take this into account

e.g. great tits - set up 30 experimental trees (patches) with different spacing between patches to vary travel time. Found that if travel time was plotted on x axis and the time spent in a patch was plotted on the y axis, the fit from the predicted model was not very accurate (dots tended to be above model line). When energy expenditure was taken into account, which was greater during travelling than during time spent in a patch, the new predicted line was much closer to the observed results. This shows that, in this case, the assumption that travel costs = patch costs is ...

false - differences in travel and patch costs affect an individual's foraging behaviour

Is patch profitability known? Downy woodpeckers were trained to forage seeds from holes in logs. Each log had 24 holes and some were empty, some had seeds. The woodpeckers had to use information gained at the start of each foraging bout to decide how long to spend searching each log. In each experimental trial, 2 logs were presented, 1 always containing no seed, and the other had either 6, 12 or 24 seeds in the log. The birds then ... each log in order to decide how long to spend foraging in each log. The predicted number of holes checked before switching logs for optimum foraging were very close to those actually observed. Therefore, woodpeckers use information gained while foraging to forage in a way that maximises their net energy intake and minimises their searching costs.

sample

Models: 1. provide testable ... predictions 2. involve ... assumptions 3. illustrate the ... of decision making

quantitative, explicit (that do not apply to all situations but the model can be adjusted when necessary), generality (can be applied to different species and behaviours other than just foraging, e.g. parasitoid wasp egg laying site)

What do we do when a model fails to predict observations? 1. ... it (count as acceptable error) 2. Accept animal is ...-... 3. ... model (BEST SOLUTION)

ignore, sub-optimal, re-build (adjust)

An adaptation is a ... trait that enhances the ... of its bearer.

heritable, fitness

Adaptations can have ... benefits or have had benefits ... ... .... Not every factor that reduces predation is an ...

current, in the past, adaptation

Reasons why not all current traits are adaptations: 1. Trait evolved under conditions that no longer exist, e.g. some arctic ... fly in regions where ... are absent, but still cease ... upon exposure to an experimental ... stimulus

moths, bats, locomotion, ultrasonic

Reasons why not all current traits are adaptations: 2. The trait develops as a ... side effect of an otherwise ... proximate mechanism, e.g. female rodents living in a communal nest may sometimes give ... to offspring other than their own as a by-product of their strong ... drive, which usually results in adaptive care of their own genetic offspring.

maladaptive, adaptive, milk, parental

Reasons why not all current traits are adaptations: 3. The trait is expressed as a ... consequence of a very recent change in the ... (a hypothesis that combines elements of hypotheses 1 and 2). e.g. sea turtles sometimes die as a result of eating ... ..., which resemble ... sufficiently to trigger a feeding response.

maladaptive, environment, plastic bags, jellyfish

Most behaviour is likely to be currently ...

adaptive

Nesting gulls, terns and skuas ... intruders, which is risky behaviour as they may get injured or killed while ... predators. There must be a benefit to the individual that outweighs the potential costs. The benefits may be that the behaviour distracts predators so that they don't attack the nest and eat the chicks. If mobbing is a behavioural adaptation against egg predators, then mobbing should... Kruuk found that ... predation became lower the further inside the gull ... you went, supporting the prediction

mob, mobbing, reduce egg predation (increasing reproductive success), colony

If the experimental approach is not possible for a behavioural study, often the ... is used. This is a way of testing evolutionary hypotheses by comparing .... The basic idea is to determine whether one factor causes another by establishing whether the presence or absence of two factors is .... e.g. if mobbing is an adaptation we expect it only in species in which it is necessary or effective at reducing predation. If mobbing is not beneficial then it won't occur in that species as individuals who display it are risking injury or death.

comparative, taxa, correlated

Cliff nesting gulls, such as ..., don't suffer from predation by ... predators, so we might predict that cliff-nesters won't mob intruders on the ..., but might mob ... predators. This is in fact ....

kittiwakes, ground, ground, aerial

In both ... and ... phylogenies, mobbing behaviours have been ... due to similar ... .... In gulls due to ... ... and in swallows due to species becoming ... (require several individuals to mob)

gull, swallow, lost, selection pressures, cliff nesting, solitary

What are the four types of anti-predator adaptions? 1. anti-... 2. anti-... 3. anti-... 4. anti...

detection, attack, capture, consumption

Anti-detection adaptations include ..., e.g. ..., transparency, nocturnally, ... living

crypsis, camouflage, subterranean

Anti-attack adaptations evolve to protect an animal that has been detected by a predator, e.g. ... in springbok, selfish ..., ... and ... colouration

stating, herding, mimicry, warning + horned lizards squirt blood from eye containing noxious chemicals + peacock butterfly eyespots from before

Anti-capture adaptations evolve to protect the animal after a predator has decided to pursue it, e.g. vigilance, fast running or swimming or flying, ... (lizards losing tail)

autotomy

Anti-consumption adaptations evolve to protect an animal if it gets captured by a predator, e.g. ... back, feigning ..., ... chemicals, being hard to swallow (e.g. ... by puffer fish)

fighting, death, noxious, inflation

Camouflage can involve any sense, not exclusively ..., such as smell. Also, both ... and ... may be camouflaged

vision, predators, prey

blue jay white underwing moth experiment is an example of ... .... Moths were harder to detect when positioned upright on pale bark (as lines on wings align with lines on bark). The behaviour of moths (e.g. where they settle) affects the ability of birds to detect them.

operant conditioning - 15:45 lecture 5

... crabs cover themselves in anemones, algae and coral to camouflage themselves. Juvenile crabs preferentially decorate with ... .... This led to the prediction that crabs decorated with this alga will be less likely to be killed by predatory fish than those unable to use this alga. In fact, crabs with Dictyota were found to be ... times more likely to avoid predation than those with another, less preferred, alga in an experiment.

Decorator, Dictyota menstrualis, five

What is the mechanism for this? Is the alga better ... or is it ... or .... In fact, the alga contains a ... that ... omnivorous fish

camouflage, repellent, distasteful, chemical, repels - these crabs exploit another organism's own defence mechanism to protect themselves

When Thomson's Gazelles spot a predator they may .... (jumping up to a meter into the air with legs held straight and white patch fully visible on their back). This is a somewhat paradoxical behaviour as the prey appears to be advertising itself to a predator. In fact, stetting may signal to predators that an individual has ... them and is very ... and ready to ..., so predators don't bother to chase animals that .... It is an ... signal of health and vitality as it is athletically challenging.

stot, seen, fit, flee, stop, honest

The "I've seen you and am ready to flee" explanation is called the "... hypothesis". There are a number of other competing hypotheses to explain stotting: - The "...-... hypothesis suggests that stotting lets gazelles ... what is ahead to reduce their chances of being ambushed. However, stotting occurs in all habitats including short grass, despite it being energetically costly. FALSE. - The ... ... hypothesis: stotting warns conspecifics, especially ..., that a predator is near (indirect fitness explanation). But even ... animals stot. FALSE. - The ... cohesion hypothesis: stotting enables gazelles to form groups and flee in a coordinated manner - again, even solitary animals stot. FALSE. - The ... effect hypothesis: confuses and distracts a predator, preventing it from focusing on ... animal - but even solitary animals stot. FALSE

unprofitability, anti-ambush, see, alarm signal, solitary, social, confusion, one

Stotting has been shown to be a ... indicator, as: a) a smaller proportion of stutters vs non-starters are ... b) predators failed to ... stotters

quality, chased, kill

What is selfish herding?

individuals within a population attempt to reduce their predation risk by putting other conspecifics between themselves and predators. The prey is not the only target. e.g. shoaling fish

Selfish herding benefits the ..., but may increase the total ... ... by creating a more ... and ... target.

individual, predation risk, tempting, visible

Individuals in groups can still have lower mortality if the selfish herd effect outweighs the increase in conspicuousness. E.g if a group of 4 frogs is twice as likely to attract a predator as a single predator, the risk per individual in a group is still ... that of a lone frog, assuming that the predator only kills ... ....

half, on individual

Selfish herding is an example of ... ....

game theory

Bluegill sunfish prefer to nest in the ... of groups, where they are safer from egg predators

centre

Selfish herding works through a mechanism known as the ... effect. The ... the group, the lower the individuals chances of predation.

dilution, larger | look at slide, 29:00 lecture 5

... beetles are large aquatic beetles that sit on the surface of ponds eating other small insects. They are predated upon by ... that attack from below. Larger groups are more ... to predators, however, in larger groups the predation rate per individual is ...

Whirligig, fish, attractive, lower

Whirligig beetles face a trade off between ... ... vs predation risk, as ... is more abundant on the edge of a group but ... ... is higher.

obtaining food, food, predation risk

Beetles that have been experimentally deprived of food, tend to feed on the ... of the group, as for these beetles, the benefits of obtaining food outweigh the costs of increased predation risk.

edges

So selfish herding and the dilution effect can influence the ... behaviour of individuals. It can also affect the ... of behaviours, e.g. in mayflies

spacing, timing

Mayflies have nymphs that live in freshwater. Adults emerge from the water to mate and complete their life cycle. Predation risk is lower when many adults emerge simultaneously as...

their predators become satiated after eating a lower proportion of mayflies. This dilution effect has lead to a synchrony of emergence (selfish herding in time)

Similar synchrony occurs in ...-... in ..., which again may be to satiate predators (e.g. gulls) preying on ... chicks

egg-laying, seabirds, fledging

Group formation may not only reduce the chance of an individual being predated, but may reduce predator ... or ... via greater .... If one individual in a group sees a predator it can warn the rest, or the others can observe and follow its ... behaviour. The prediction is that individuals in a group will react more ... to a threat than ... individuals

attack, success, vigilance, escape, quickly, lone

This (improved group reaction) was the case with ... being predated by .... As the number of individuals in the flock increased, the median ... ... (... at which predator was spotted) also increased. Total attack ... was lower in larger flocks

woodpigeons, goshawks, reaction distance, distance, success

Grouping can also be costly, for example increased ... competition

food

Sparrows may feed alone or in groups. When predation risk is low they tend to be .... When predation risk is high they tend to be found in .... They chirrup to attract others to them. They chirrup ... when foraging close to safe cover and far from a ...

solitary, groups, less, predator

predator and prey adaptations are likely to always be in an ... ....

arms race

Pt. 1 Flashcards

(118 cards)