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BIOL2010
Module 4
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What were Tinbergen's four questions related to in behavioural ecology? | mechanism (causation), ontogeny (development), adaptiveptive value (function), phylogeny (evolution) |
| What is a proximate approach to behavioural ecology? | focuses on the mechanisms or the 'how' behind a behaviour (mechanism and ontogeny); immediate causes of behaviour |
| What is the ultimate approach to behavioural ecology? | includes their evolutionary origins and the selective processes that have shaped their past and current functions; the 'why' of a behaviour (adaptive value and phylogeny); historical/evolutionary causes of behaviour |
| Mechanism (causation) questions | how does this behaviour occur in an individual? Do hormones, genes, or nerve impulses control this expression of behaviour? can explain the mechanisms underlying the behaviour |
| Ontogeny (development) questions | how does this behaviour arise in an individual? the organisation and development of an organism from when egg is fertilised to adult; e.g. socially learnt behaviours |
| Adaptive value (function) questions | why is this behaviour adaptive for the species? considers the contribution that behaviour makes to fitness through either increased survival or reproduction |
| Phylogeny (evolution) questions | how does this behaviour arise in the species? generally addressed in a comparative manner, where the behaviour in question is compared across the animal kingdom |
| How can you compare behaviour? | can compare between unrelated taxa (e.g. cockatoo's and humans); between closely related taxa (e.g. weaver birds); between separate populations of same species (e.g. chimpanzees tools); and within individuals |
| Studying behaviour variation within individuals | relatively new to ecologists; important when considering natural selection acts on variation among individuals; to study them we can look at behavioural types, behavioural plasticity, behavioural predictability, and behavioural syndromes |
| Behavioural types within individuals | personality traits; after measuring the same behaviour on multiple occasions across multiple individuals, the differences among individuals are consistent across time and contexts |
| Behavioural plasticity within individuals | an individual animal's behaviour may also be context dependent,; for instance, it may change across the life history stages of an animal or under certain environmental conditions |
| Behavioural predictability within individuals | individuals have very little within variation across a measured behaviour; for instance, unpredictable individuals are more variable across their behavioural type, whilst there is little variance in the behaviour of a predictable animal |
| Behavioural syndromes within individuals | behavioural types can vary with one another creating a behavioural syndrome; e.g. bolder individuals are also more aggressive; of great importance because correlated behavioural types may co-evolve and therefore constrain the evolution of those traits |
| What drives behaviour? | is ultimately the expression of an individual's relationship with its environment and the conspecifics it contains; multiple genetic and environmental factors contribute to the expression of behaviour |
| Trait variation | partly the result of a genetic component (G) which is fixed within a lifetime, but also the result of environmental components (E), which can be made up of many contributing factors (parental effects, cultural variation etc.) |
| What is epigenetic variation? | the expression of genes and parental effects where either parent can influence the expression of a trait/phenotype in the offspring; is also a factor which drives behaviour |
| What are examples of traits that increase mating success? | weaponry (or armaments); colouration; nest architecture |
| Weaponry (armaments) as a mating strategy | armaments are anatomical weaponds which have evolved amongst species whose males compete intra-sexually for access to females; used in direct contests; e.g. tusks, antlers; increase success in rivalry among competitors to gain or maintain dominance |
| Colouration as a mating strategy | species invest in sexual signalling strategies that rely on vision; increases risk of predation for brightly coloured males, could indicate genetic quality to females if they avoid predators; another theory is pigment is energetically expensive so fitter |
| Nest architecture as a mating strategy (bower birds) | males build a bower with brightly coloured objects to attract mates;bowers within a species share a general form but no significant variation, collection of objects reflects the biases of males of each species and its ability to procure items from habitat |
| What is intraspecific sexual selection? | occurs between individuals of the same SEX within a species |
| What is interspecific sexual selection? | occurs between males and females of the same species |
| What is sexual dimorphism? | difference in appearance between males and females of the same species |
| Choice of females for mates | in some animals, females can show preferences for males mates with specific qualities; preferences may be to generate fitness benefits to female or her offspring; may be based on optimal age, dominance status, genetic quality, relatedness, colouration etc |
| What dictates mating systems? | whilst conflict within and between sexes is happening, the underline environment in which they live will ultimately dictate the mating system that evolves (e.g. weaver bird); depends on two primary factors (resource distribution, pattern of parental care) |
| Types of mating systems: | monogamous; polygamy (polygyny, polyandry, promiscuity) |
| What is a monogamous mating system? | where males and females will pair with a single mate during the breeding season; some even mate for life |
| What is a polgyny mating system (polygamy)? | where one male mates with several females in the breeding season, and often the female provides most or all of the care to their offspring |
| What is a polyandry mating system (polygamy)? | where one female mates with several males during the breeding season, so often the males collectively provide most or all of the care to the offspring |
| What is a promiscuity mating system (polygamy)? | where both males and females have multiple sexual partners during the breeding season |
| How does resource distribution dictate mating system occurrence? | resources such as food, water and nesting material may be distributed variably over space and time; will influence the dispersion of males and females; in doing so, may impact the probability to gain access to mates |
| How does the pattern of parental care dictate mating system occurrence? | how an animal chooses to raise their young has direct implications on the reproductive success of the parents; monogamous systems likely to occur when rearing offspring needs lots of energy; polygamy gains higher genetic variation among offspring |
| What is social monogamy? | where matings may occur outside the primary pair bonds, but both members of the pair still contribute substantially only to the care and feeding of the young from their own nest |
| What is egg dumping? | a form of social monogamy; where a female lays her eggs in the nest of another pair of the same species; often occurs when there's a high proportion of unpaired, young females, small availability of nesting sites, females lost nest during laying period |
| What is extra pair paternity? | a form of social monogamy; occurs when a male copulates with other females outside of his primary social bond but does not contribute to offspring rearing from the secondary bonds; is linked to adult survival |
| What is quasi-parasitism? | form of social monogamy; occurs when a female lays an egg in another female's nest and that egg is fertlised by the male partner at the parasitised nest |
| Social behaviour is | effectively defined by social interactions among individuals of the same or different species; these interactions consist of an exchange between at least two individuals |
| What is social tolerance? | the basis of social behaviour and social interactions; behavioural ecology uses spatial proximity as a proxy for social interactions; distance is different between species because the spatial scales at which social interaction occur are likely to vary |
| Solitary species (diversity of social systems) | usually intolerant of other species, although may interact to reproduce or share resources (e.g. crocodiles share river bank space to bask) |
| Eusociality (diversity of social systems) | sometimes described as the highest level or organisation of sociality; includes cooperative brood care, overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labour into reproductive and non-reproductive groups (castes) |
| Cooperative breeding (diversity of social systems) | occur when offspring receive care not only from their parents, but also from additional group members, often called helpers; in some groups helpers can sometimes achieve co-breeding status by producing their own offspring as part of the group's brood |
| Fission-fusion societies (diversity of social systems) | change in size and composition over time as animals move throughout the environment; animals merge into groups (fusion) or split (fission); group composition is a dynamic property; change in composition, subgroup size, and dispersion of different groups |
| What is the socio-ecological theory? | it treats the life history of males as very different othat of females; for males, life is about reproduction and accessing as many mating events as possible; for females, life is about accessing resources she requires energetically to produce offspring |
| Four major factors that impact animal social systems? | predation; sexual selection; resource competition; inbreeding avoidance |
| What are the 3 key ways species can respond to rapid human induced environmental change? | disperse; adjust through phenotypic plasticity; adapt through genetic changes |
| What is directional selection? | where selection pressure is applied to one extreme of the frequency distribution |
| What is stabilising selection? | occurs when selection pressure is at both extremes of the frequency distribution; results in a higher frequency of the stable phenotype over time |
| What is disruptive selection? | selection pressure is applied to the phenotype mean |
| What is phenotypic plasticity? | the tendency of a particular genotype to produce different phenotypes under altered environmental conditions; allows an animal to adjust to suit the conditions of its immmediate environment and, in some cases, increase their fitness |
| What is behaviour? | the expression of an individual's relationship with its environment and the conspecifics it contains; social behaviours are highly dynamic, and can vary depending on consepcifci density, where you are in habitat, seasonally |
| Best way to respond to human induced change? | plasticity; dispersal may not be possible (habitat fragmentation); adaptation limited due to rapid changes; the ability of an animal to alter its behaviour can improve its prospects of surviving and reproducing in the face of environmental change |
| What are the three types of avoidances? | spatial; short-term; long-term |
| What are spatial avoidances? | where individuals completely disassociate from another individual and they never share the same space |
| What are short-term avoidances? | where an individual will immediately withdraw from another individual, but may interact with them in the future |
| What are long-term avoidances? | where an individual may share a significant amount of space across their home range, but over many years they may habitually avoid particular individuals, just as they may form close associations with others |
| Water dragon avoidances | as the density of individuals increases so do the number of avoidances; dragons only resort to avoiding individuals when they start having much higher density of conspecifics which leads to competition; have more avoidances in core home range |
| In dolphins: | the transmission of avoidances contribute to social structure; for dolphins, the enemies of their friends are also their enemies; the more that two individuals associate with one-another, the more friends, but also the more avoidances they share |
| r reproductive strategy: | logistic growth curve; as resources become constrained and competition for resources starts to influence population density, reach carrying capacity (K); little parental care, many offspring |
| K reproductive strategy: | long gestation periods that may last several months; young mature slowly and become reproductive much later in life; receive extended parental care and usually long life spans |
| Are r and K set in stone? | for some species, there is environment-specific plasticity in reproductive strategies; in certain contexts, a species may be more r than K, but in other contexts the same species may be more K than r |
| What are the limitations of frugivory? | fruit is not always available (plants fruit asynchronously and seasonally); fruit not always accessible (usually fruit as high up as possible); not nutritious (sugar rich, no nitrogen) |
Created by:
tkeen40
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