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Animal Behaviour
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Ethology | Biological study of animals |
| Tinbergens 4 questions | Ontogeny, function, causation, phylogeny |
| Tinbergens causation | What immediately causes the behaviour |
| Tinbergens function | How does the behaviour impact long term fitness |
| Tinbergens phylogeny | How did the behaviour evolve over generations |
| Tinbergens ontogeny | How has the behaviour developed over a lifetime |
| Sensory cue | A sensory stimulus given out without the intention of being used by others |
| Signal | A sensory stimulus given with the intention of being used by others |
| How signals evolved | Ritualisation, sensory exploitation/bias |
| Ritualisation | A sensory cue evolves into a signal over time to reduce ambiguity |
| Signalling arms race | Receivers and signallers compete; signallers attempt to manipulate, receivers resist |
| Problems with ritualisation | Presumes both parties act mutualistically; little evidence as hard to prove |
| Sensory exploitation/bias | Males use other animals’ non |
| Exploitation perceivers | Expect females to evolve resistance to male ploys to reduce cost to themselves |
| Chase away selection | Receivers evolve resistance to signaller manipulation to reduce effectiveness |
| Natural selection | Individuals with beneficial traits are more likely to survive and reproduce |
| Sexual competition | Competing for mating opportunities |
| Intrasexual competition | Competing within sex, often through force (e.g. stags fighting for dominance/mates) |
| Intersexual competition | Competing outside of sex, often through attraction and display (e.g. lyrebird song) |
| Lek | An area where multiple males perform courtship displays |
| Direct benefit | Mating with a male grants immediate benefits (e.g. protection, resources, care) |
| Indirect benefit | Mating with a male grants long |
| Honest traits maintained by | Zahavi’s handicap principle |
| Zahavi’s handicap principle | Costly traits act as handicaps that indicate male quality |
| Types of Zahavi handicap | Qualifying, conditional, revealing |
| Qualifying handicap | Males live or die because of the handicap; high |
| Conditional handicap | Only the highest |
| Revealing handicap | The handicap reveals traits that would otherwise be hidden |
| Hamilton and Zuk hypothesis | Sexual traits indicate male health via the costs and benefits of the trait |
| Ethogram | A catalogue used to record animal behaviour |
| Ethogram includes | Behaviour name, description, frequency, latency, duration |
| Importance of clear behaviour definition | Reduces observer ambiguity, allows comparison, improves consistency |
| Sampling rules in behaviour studies | Decide which subject to observe and when |
| Purpose of sampling rules | Reduce bias, increase repeatability, allow statistical analysis |
| Ad libitum sampling definition | Ethogram method with no systematic restraint; all visible behaviours recorded |
| Ad libitum pros | Good for preliminary observations |
| Ad libitum cons | Not systematic; biased toward conspicuous animals and behaviours |
| When to use ad libitum | Preliminary studies only; not suitable for main experiments |
| Focal sampling definition | Ethogram method focusing on one individual or unit; all behaviours recorded at set times |
| Focal sampling pros | Accurate quantification of individual behaviour |
| Focal sampling cons | Subject may be out of sight; missed behaviours cause bias |
| Scan sampling definition | Ethogram method where whole group is scanned at set intervals |
| Scan sampling pros | Allows recording of multiple individuals simultaneously |
| Scan sampling cons | Difficult to identify individuals; biased against brief behaviours |
| Behaviour sampling definition | Whole group observed continuously; only specific behaviours and IDs recorded |
| Behaviour sampling pros | Good for rare but important behaviours (e.g. fighting, mating) |
| Behaviour sampling cons | Biased toward conspicuous behaviours |
| Why independent samples are needed | Behavioural data points are otherwise not independent |
| Decisions for independent sampling | Sampling units and number of independent replicates |
| Why individual ID is required | Avoids resampling the same animal and ensures independence |
| Continuous recording definition | Record all behaviour plus start and end times |
| Data from continuous recording | True duration, frequency, and latency of behaviours |
| Continuous recording pros and cons | Very accurate but time |
| Continuous recording requires | Focal observation and high observer effort |
| Time sampling | Behaviour recorded at set time intervals |
| Instantaneous sampling | Behaviour recorded at exact points at the end of intervals |
| Instantaneous sampling requires | Scan sampling; can also be focal |
| Instantaneous data expressed as | Behaviour occurred this often at this point in time |
| Limits of instantaneous sampling in large groups | Hard to scan quickly; short intervals impractical |
| One | zero sampling |
| Limits of one | zero sampling |
| One | zero sampling useful for |
| Most common ethogram methods | Instantaneous, continuous, focal |
| Benefits of group living | Protection, help with young, cooperative hunting, shared resources |
| Selfish herd theory (Hamilton 1971) | Animals group together to reduce individual predation risk without cooperation |
| Selfish herd mechanism | Predators attack nearest prey; grouping reduces chance of being targeted |
| Aggregation | Animals selfishly form groups to reduce predation risk |
| Dilution effect | In groups, individual predation risk decreases (risk = 1/n if constant) |
| Limits of dilution effect | Larger groups may attract more predators via sound, smell, or sight |
| Confusion effect | Moving groups are harder for predators to target and catch |
| Group vigilance | More individuals watching increases predator detection and warning |
| Costs of group living | Competition, higher disease and parasite risk, predator attraction |
| Optimal group size | Point where benefits and costs are balanced |
| Producer | Individuals that find or create resources |
| Scrounger | Individuals that exploit resources found by producers |
| Frequency | dependent selection |
| Producer–scrounger equilibrium | Both strategies persist once a balance is reached |
| Animal behaviour | The study of how and why animals behave |
| Signal function | Increases sender fitness by influencing receiver behaviour |
| Cost | benefit analysis |
| Economic optimality | Animals behave to maximise fitness under constraints |
| Game theory | Models fitness of strategies relative to others’ behaviour |
| Ultimate questions | Why a behaviour exists; phylogeny and function |
| Proximate questions | How a behaviour works; causation and ontogeny |
| Timescale problem | Evolution occurs over timescales humans usually cannot observe |
| Behaviour fossil problem | Behaviour rarely fossilises |
| Genetic basis of behaviour | Behaviour influenced by inherited genetic variation |
| Pleiotropy | A single gene affects multiple traits or behaviours |
| Artificial selection | Humans breed organisms for desired traits |
| Domestication syndrome | Selection for tameness causes physical and behavioural changes |
| Silver fox experiment | Classic example of domestication syndrome |
| Heritability | A trait can only evolve if it is inherited |
| Behavioural plasticity | Behaviour can change over an individual’s lifetime with experience |
| Learned vs innate behaviour | Exists on a spectrum from genetic to learned |
| Sensory bias theory | Preferences evolve before traits and drive signal evolution |
| Zebra stripes | Hypothesised to reduce biting fly attacks |
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