Deck 1: Principles of Animal Behavior

Question 1

Natural selection is best described as a process through which the frequency of:

A) traits that confer reproductive and/or survival success and that are heritable increase over generations.
B) certain traits increase over evolutionary time in a random fashion.
C) traits that confer reproductive and/or survival success increase over generations.
D) traits that are heritable increase over generations.
E) traits that hinder reproductive and/or survival success and that are not heritable increase over generations.

Answer 1

traits that confer reproductive and/or survival success and that are heritable increase over generations.

Question 2

Individual learning and cultural transmission differ in which of the following ways?

A) Individual learning alters the behavior of an organism within a lifetime, while cultural transmission does not.
B) Individual learning can lead to the rapid spread of a behavior through a population, while cultural transmission cannot.
C) Individual learning involves copying the behavior of others, while cultural transmission does not.
D) Individual learning does not permit the transmission of information across generations, while cultural transmission does.
E) Individual learning allows behavioral traits to spread quickly through a population, both within an organism's lifetime and across generations, while cultural transmission allows behavioral traits to spread through a population only across generations.

Answer 2

Individual learning does not permit the transmission of information across generations, while cultural transmission does.

Question 3

Xenophobia is defined as the:

A) fear of scarce resources.
B) fear of unknown individuals from outside one's group.
C) fear of arid environments.
D) fear of disruption of group dynamics.
E) fear of living underground.

Answer 3

fear of unknown individuals from outside one's group.

Question 4

Which of the following statement(s) are NOT true?

A) Past experiences can alter behavior within the lifetime of an individual via learning.
B) The ability to learn can be genetically encoded.
C) Learning and natural selection operate independently.
D) Natural selection can operate on the ability to learn.
E) Learning can change behavior within a generation, while natural selection can change the frequency of different learning rules across generations.

Question 5

W. D. Hamilton's inclusive fitness hypothesis states that:

A) total fitness depends only on the number of viable offspring an organism produces.
B) the number of viable offspring sired contributes less to total fitness than the number of related offspring an individual helps to rear.
C) total fitness is influenced to a large extent by helping to rear unrelated offspring.
D) total fitness is influenced only by the extent to which an individual helps to rear offspring of blood relatives.
E) both one's own offspring and the benefits received from helping to raise related offspring contribute to total fitness.

Question 6

Conceptual approaches to ethology involve:

A) generating complex mathematical models of the world to establish explicit predictions about animal behavior.
B) conducting controlled experiments in the field to test hypotheses related to animal behavior.
C) combining ideas from different subdisciplines in a novel way to generate new sets of predictions about animal behavior.
D) conducting controlled experimental studies in the laboratory to test hypotheses related to animal behavior.
E) neglecting past observations and experiments in order to generate novel concepts concerning animal behavior.

Question 7

Which of the following best describes the empirical approach to ethology?

A) Always assume that correlations between two events indicate that one event caused the second event to occur.
B) Design controlled experiments in the field or laboratory.
C) Avoid manipulating ethological or environmental variables in order to conduct a properly controlled study.
D) Observe animal behavior in a natural setting to uncover interesting trends and use controls or manipulations to determine causality.
E) Utilize only observational methods to test theories and concepts related to animal behavior.

Question 8

Contemporary ethological experimentation was initiated by which of the following Nobel Prize winners?

A) John Maynard Smith
B) R. A. Fisher
C) James Watson
D) Niko Tinbergen
E) W. D. Hamilton

Question 9

The three foundations of ethology are:

A) molecular genetics, natural selection, and learning.
B) cultural transmission, natural selection, and learning.
C) neurobiology, anthropology, and psychology.
D) psychology, learning, and cultural transmission.
E) endocrinology, developmental biology, and natural selection.

Question 10

Marlene Zuk's work on field crickets of the Hawaiian islands has shed much light on how natural selection can operate in the wild over short periods of time. Which of the following phrases best describes Zuk's primary findings?

A) Parasitic flies killed all of the field crickets on the island of Kauai.
B) Parasitic flies exerted strong selection on wing morphology of the field crickets, rendering them incapable of producing song.
C) Parasitic flies ate the wings of field crickets on the island of Kauai, rending the crickets incapable of producing song.
D) Parasitic flies exerted strong selection on wing morphology of the field crickets, making them produce more elaborate song.
E) There was no significant relationship between parasitic flies and any characteristic of the field crickets.

Question 11

What is the key difference between observational and experimental studies in ethology? What are some possible advantages to each type of study?

Question 12

Can natural selection and learning or natural selection and cultural transmission influence specific behavioral patterns simultaneously? Provide an example demonstrating the possible interactions between natural selection and either learning or cultural transmission.

Question 13

Based on the definitions provided in the text, what are the primary differences between individual learning and social learning?

Question 14

Conceptual advances in ethology often mark the marriage of ideas generated in animal behavior with those of different subdisciplines or even entirely different fields. What do conceptual approaches contribute to ethology? As you become more familiar with the animal behavior literature, can you identify key interactions between different disciplines that have triggered new developments and/or novel ways of thinking about a specific set of behaviors?

Question 15

As a student of animal behavior, it is essential that you distinguish between correlation and causation. What types of information can be gleaned from a correlation between two events? How can you establish whether the first event causes the second to occur? As an optional exercise, devise an imaginary correlation between two events relevant to animal behavior. Present this discovery to your classmates and formulate several alternative causal hypotheses; that is, what else could have caused this event to occur? Finally, develop an experiment or multiple experiments to test among these alternatives.