Evolution and Animal Behavior Quiz

Evolution and Animal Behavior

• Evolution is a change in inherited characteristics of populations over successive generations.
• Three conditions for evolution are heredity, variability, and selection.
• Genotype is the genetic makeup of an organism, while phenotype is the observable characteristics.
• Variability arises from mutations, gene flow, recombination, and non-genetic inheritance.
• Frequency-dependent selection describes how fitness of a trait depends on its frequency relative to other traits. Positive feedback means fitness increases as frequency increases. Negative feedback means fitness decreases as frequency increases.
• Natural selection favors behavioral adaptations that enhance fitness. Darwinian fitness refers to the relative contribution of a genotype to the next generation.
• Traits resulting from natural selection are adaptations advantageous in the Darwinian sense.
• Directional, disruptive, and stabilizing selection are different ways that natural selection acts on populations.

Self-Organized Properties of Social Behavior

• Self-organization in social behavior includes foraging in ants, schooling in fish, and flocks in starlings.
• Models of self-organization show that behaviors can arise from simple interactions between individuals and their environment.
• Starling flocks coordinate their movement using local interactions with nearby individuals, and relying on attraction, alignment, and avoidance behaviors.
• The comparative method is useful for understanding the evolutionary reasons behind behaviors by comparing closely related species.
• Phylogeny and genetics help to understand evolution of traits.
• Modeling yields testable predictions, and meta-analyses allow for large-scale testing.

Dominance Interactions in Macaques

• Macaque societies can range from despotic (e.g., Java Macaque) to egalitarian (e.g., Celebes Macaque).
• Despotic hierarchies, have greater average distances, asymmetrical attacks, and strong female preferences.
• Dominance interactions in macaques are modeled through the capacity to win, relative dominance, and aggression intensity.
• Higher dominance ranking leads to more intense aggression, meaning high intensity of aggression is more likely to produce a higher variation of dominance wins.

Ontogeny of Behavior

• Ontogeny is the development of behavior from embryo to adulthood.
• Ontogeny includes concerns about mechanisms, functions, and evolution.
• Environmental influences and genetic interactions are crucial for development.
• Examples include maternal effects (like predator response or licking), phenotypic plasticity (adaptation), and predispositions (e.g., species-specific learning biases).

Animal Welfare

• Animal welfare has three components: biological function, emotional state, and natural state.
• Five freedoms: freedom from hunger or thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury, or disease, freedom to express normal behavior, and freedom from fear and distress.
• The five domains also include mental/ emotional states of the animals such as nutrition, environment, health, behavior, and metal states.
• Animal welfare should be measured from the animal's perspective to ensure successful welfare outcome.

Human-Animal Interactions

• The human-animal bond is a mutually beneficial interaction that influences health and well-being.
• Theories of human-animal interactions include attachment theory, biophilia hypothesis, and social support theory.

Social Support

• Social support theory emphasizes the importance of social acceptance, connection, and support in social behavior.

Winner Effect

• Winning an aggressive encounter increases the likelihood of future success.
• Successful winning encounters result in higher testosterone levels.

Learning

• Learning is a relatively permanent change in reaction to a situation in response to experiences.
• Learning is linked to aspects of phenotypic plasticity.
• Cognition, a process of acquiring, storing, and using information for decision-making, is closely tied to, but distinct from, learning.
• Learning is not always the cause of changes in behavior. Maturation influenced by behavior can also be a factor.

Bird Song

• Bird song is a form of communication essential for survival and reproduction.
• Bird song learning involves sensory phase, sensory motor phase, and crystallization.
• Imitation is the process of copying, or emulating another individual's behavior or action which is also common in birds.

Partial Migration and Timing

• Partial migration is the split decision between migrating and not migrating. Timing is crucial for migration.
• Orientation is the process of determining a correct direction and navigation is the process of reaching a target location.
• Migration is facilitated by internal (e.g., circadian rhythms) and external (e.g., environmental cues) factors.
• Mental maps can aid navigation by integrating spatial information and predicting movements.

Test your knowledge on evolution and its impact on animal behavior. This quiz covers key concepts such as heredity, genotype, phenotype, and natural selection. Understand how different selection mechanisms influence the evolution of species.