davids score
high school = high dominance
pukeko beaks
made the beaks smaller and the bird would have more attacks because he acted how he would with his regular beak size and the others thought he was being cocky so they attacked him, after the experiment the beak actually did get smaller showing a feedback mechanism
cukoo birds
males toss eggs out of the nest
proximate
immediate PHYSIOLOGICAL response that leads to behaviour
ultimate
adaptive value or evolutionary origins of behaviour - why they behave this way
deprivation experiment
no learning, isolate the subject so the genetic component of a behaviour can be proved
ex. squirrel is raised in a box from infancy without it’s natural environment and once placed in it’s environment with a nut it’ll bury the nut - suggests genetic component
selection experiment
breed for specific traits, after generations of selective breeding you get a large directional selection (separation) so you get both extremes
crossing of genetic strains
bees - haplodiploidy
haplodiploidy
queen bee stores sperm in the spermitheca and the bee will become a diploid female (worker), if the bee keeps the spermitheca closed then the bee will be a haploid male drone
hygenic bees
dead larvae in a cell - unseal and remove - reduces infection risk
nonhygenic bees
do not uncap and do not remove dead larvae
molecular genetics
mono amine oxidase - neurotransmitter that isn’t broken down causes hyperaggression
rover maggots - wander back and forth between food source
sitter maggots - sit on a patch of food
gene on chromosome 2 that has a forager gene causing the PKG to increase
fruit fly
high pkg for rover, low pkg for sitter
honey bee
high pkg makes the bee go to the hive quicker, low pkg causes the bee to stay in housekeeping for longer
worm
high pkg causes them to sit, low pkg causes them to roam (opposite)
ant
high pkg causes high guarding capabilities and have a major caste, low pkg causes high foraging with a minor caste
fixed action pattern
pattern played to completion once activated by a sensory cue, geese roll eggs back to nest no matter what, if you take the egg away mid roll it will keep rolling without the egg
blackcap birds
originally go southwest but now they go west and southwest, migration has a genetic component
instinct
during the first signal the behaviour is functional
learning
adaptive change in animals behaviour, experience based
pink cockatoo and galah
both lay eggs in the same nest and the cockatoo will kick the galah out but the nest will have galah eggs, the begging call will be galah, alarm call will be galah but contact call will be cockatoo because thats who the bird was raised around
habituation
repeated stimuli without reaction, we get used to wearing clothes
imprinting
structured learning, lifelong and genetically based
associative learning
classical conditioning (pavlovs dog), operant conditioning (trial and error)
insight behaviour
reasoning, not instinct
harring gulls
chicks are attracted tot he red part underneath the parent beak, if the peck it then the parent will feed them
newborn: a red dot on a fake parent causes them to peck
5 days: only peck at head shapes with red dot
3 weeks: will only peck at parents
LEARNING CAN SHAPE INSTINCT
wasps
use pinecones to find burrows, honeybees communicate by using the sun and gravity, a downward motion shows where the food is and the amount of waggling determines how far away it is
altruist
one who behaves in ways to benefit others at a cost to itself, a bad explanation
birds
have an epidietic display, if the population is too high they won’t reproduce that year, but the selfish birds will ultimately making more selfish birds and causing destruction of the habitat
hamiltons rule
rB>C means you should help another, r = coefficient of relatedness, B = darwinian fitness benefit to the recipient, C = darwinian fitness cost to the donor
human change in DNA compared to our nearest living relative
undergenetic drift, favoured natural selection and only acts on non-synonymous substitutions
non-synonymous : synonymous
non-synonymous should be higher in genes that differ from directional selection
ecology
study of environment and how organisms interact with it, biotic and abiotic
wetlands: bogs
stagnant water, acidic, unproductive, carnivorous plants
wetlands: marshes
nonwoody plants, productive, no trees - cootes
wetlands: swamps
trees and shrubs
tropical wet forests
rich in species, high temperature - low variation, high precipitation - high variation
subtropical desert
high temperature - moderate variation, low species, low precipitation - moderate variation
temperate grasslands
moderate temperature-moderate variation, low precipitation - no variation
temperate forests
broad leaved deciduous trees, moderate temperature-moderate variation, moderate precipitation - moderate variation
boreal forests
needled trees and evergreens, low temperature-high variation, low precipitation-low variation
arctic tundra
cold tolerant shrubs, evergreens, low temperature-high variation, low precipitation-low variation
evolutionary adaptation
long term, genetically based changes due to natural selection
psychological adaptation
weeks/months, metabolic and physiological adjustment in cells and tissues, helps cope with environment
behavioural response
short term, retreat to burrows in heat/from predator
organismal ecology
how do individuals interact with each other and environment?
population ecology
how and why does population size change over time
community ecology
how do species interact with each other and what are the consequences
ecosystem ecology
how do energy and nutrients cycle through environment?
generation
average time between a mothers first offspring and her daughters first offspring
life table
probability that an individual will survive and reproduce in any given time interval over the course of it’s lifetime
survivorship
proportion of offspring produced that survive to a certain age
cohort
a group of the same age that is followed through time, how many survive to age 1,2,3 etc.
fecundity
number of female offspring produced by each female in a population
age specific fecundity
average number of female offspring produced by a female in age class x
age class
group of individuals of a certain age (between 4-5 yrs old etc)
why do fitness trade offs occur?
every individual has a certain amount of time and energy it can use, female lizard uses most of her energy to produce lots of offspring, she can’t devote that to her immune system etc that increases survival
life history
how an individual allocates resources to growth, reproduction and activities related to survival, shaped by natural selection to max fitness
high fecundity
grow quickly, reach sexual maturity at a young age, produce many small eggs or seeds
high survivorship
grow slowly, invest resources in traits to reduce damage from enemies and increase ability to compete for water, sunlight/food
exponential population growth
r doesn’t change with population density or size
density dependent
population growth where the rate doesn’t depend on the number of individuals in a population
carrying capacity K
max number of individuals in a population that can be supported in a certain habitat over a sustained period of time