Deck 51: Animal Behaviour

Question 1

A female cat in heat urinates more often and in many places. Male cats are attracted to the urine deposits. Which of the following is a proximate cause of this increased urination?

A)It announces to the males that she is in heat.
B)Female cats that did this in the past attracted more males.
C)It is a result of hormonal changes associated with her reproductive cycle.
D)The female cat learned the behaviour from observing other cats.
E)All of the options are ultimate causes of behaviour.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Animal communication involves what type of sensory information?

A)visual
B)auditory
C)olfactory
D)tactile
E)visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile

Answer 2

E

Question 3

Animals use pheromones to communicate

A)reproductive readiness.
B)species recognition.
C)gender recognition.
D)danger.
E)All options are correct.

Answer 3

E

Question 4

Karl von Frisch demonstrated that European honeybees communicate the location of a distant food source by

A)performing a short, straight run during a waggle dance.
B)performing a long, straight run during a waggle dance.
C)performing a round dance with fast rotations.
D)emanating minute amounts of stimulus pheromone.
E)varying wing vibration frequency.

Question 5

What type of signal is brief and can work among obstructions at night?

A)olfactory
B)visual
C)auditory
D)tactile
E)magnetic

Question 6

Upon returning to its hive, a European honeybee communicates to other worker bees the location of a nearby food source it has discovered by

A)vibrating its wings at varying frequencies.
B)performing a round dance.
C)performing a waggle dance.
D)visual cues.
E)All options are correct.

Question 7

Circannual rhythms in birds are influenced by

A)periods of food availability.
B)reproductive readiness.
C)periods of daylight and darkness.
D)magnetic fields.
E)lunar cycles.

Question 8

Listed below are several examples of types of animal behaviour. Match the letter of the correct term (A-E) to each example in the following questions.
A. operant conditioning
B. agonistic behaviour
C innate behaviour
D. imprinting
E. altruistic behaviour
A human baby performs a sucking behaviour perfectly when it is put in the presence of the nipple of its mother's breast.

A)A
B)B
C)C
D)D
E)E

Question 9

A chemical produced by an animal that serves as a communication to another animal of the same species is called

A)a sign stimulus.
B)an inducer.
C)a pheromone.
D)an imprinter.
E)an agonistic promoter.

Question 10

Research has shown that nocturnal animals navigate using

A)olfactory cues.
B)the North Star.
C)the moon.
D)landmarks.
E)gravity.

Question 11

Listed below are several examples of types of animal behaviour. Match the letter of the correct term (A-E) to each example in the following questions.
A. operant conditioning
B. agonistic behaviour
C innate behaviour
D. imprinting
E. altruistic behaviour
A mother goat can recognize its own kid by smell.

A)A
B)B
C)C
D)D
E)E

Question 12

What type of signal is fast and requires daylight with no obstructions?

A)olfactory
B)visual
C)auditory
D)tactile
E)electrical

Question 13

What type of signal is long-lasting and works at night?

A)olfactory
B)visual
C)auditory
D)tactile
E)electrical

Question 14

The difference between pheromones and alarm signals is that

A)alarm signals are secreted.
B)pheromones elicit a response in conspecifics.
C)pheromones are secreted.
D)alarm signals are released into the environment.
E)alarm signals elicit a response in heterospecifics.

Question 15

Which of the following is not an example of a fixed action pattern?

A)honey-bee waggle dance
B)aggressive response to the colour red in the threespine stickleback
C)courtship behaviour of the fruit fly
D)a dog begging for food
E)the mating dance of the male bird of paradise

Question 16

Listed below are several examples of types of animal behaviour. Match the letter of the correct term (A-E) to each example in the following questions.
A. operant conditioning
B. agonistic behaviour
C innate behaviour
D. imprinting
E. altruistic behaviour
Through trial and error, a rat learns to run a maze without mistakes to receive a food reward.

A)A
B)B
C)C
D)D
E)E

Question 17

The proximate causes of behaviour are interactions with the environment, but behaviour is ultimately shaped by

A)hormones.
B)evolution.
C)sexuality.
D)pheromones.
E)the nervous system.

Question 18

Which of the following examples describes a behavioural pattern that results from a proximate cause?

A)A cat kills a mouse to obtain nutrition.
B)A male sheep fights with another male because it helps to improve its social position.
C)A female bird lays its eggs because the amount of daylight is decreasing slightly each day.
D)A goose squats and freezes motionless to escape a predator.
E)A cockroach runs into a crack in the wall and avoids being stepped on.

Question 19

Displays of nocturnal mammals are usually

A)visual and auditory.
B)tactile and visual.
C)olfactory and auditory.
D)visual and olfactory.
E)tactile and auditory.

Question 20

A female cat in heat urinates more often and in many places. Male cats congregate near the urine deposits and fight with each other. Which of the following would be an ultimate cause of the male cats' response to the female's urinating behaviour?

A)The males have learned to recognize the specific odour of the urine of a female in heat.
B)When the males smelled the odour, various neurons in their brains were stimulated.
C)Responding to the odour means locating reproductively receptive females.
D)Male cats' hormones are triggered by the odour released by the female.
E)The odour serves as a releaser for the instinctive behaviour of the males.

Question 21

Which of the following is true about imprinting?

A)It may be triggered by visual or chemical stimuli.
B)It happens to many adult animals, but not to their young.
C)It is a type of learning that does not involve innate behaviour.
D)It occurs only in birds.
E)It causes behaviours that last for only a short time (the sensitive period).

Question 22

Scientists have tried raising endangered whooping cranes in captivity by using sandhill cranes as foster parents. This strategy is no longer used because

A)fostered whooping crane chicks did not develop the necessary cues for migration.
B)the fostered whooping cranes' critical period was variable such that different chicks imprinted on different "mothers."
C)sandhill crane parents rejected their fostered whooping crane chicks soon after incubation.
D)none of the fostered whooping cranes formed a mating pair-bond with another whooping crane.
E)sandhill crane parents did not properly incubate whooping crane eggs.

Question 23

A type of bird similar to a chickadee learns to peck through the cardboard tops of milk bottles left on doorsteps to obtain the desired cream from the top. What term best applies to this behaviour?

A)sign stimulus
B)cognition
C)imprinting
D)classical conditioning
E)operant conditioning

Question 24

A salmon returns to its home stream to spawn. What term best applies to this behaviour?

A)sign stimulus
B)cognition
C)imprinting
D)classical conditioning
E)operant conditioning

Question 25

A type of learning that can occur only during a brief period of early life and results in a behaviour that is difficult to modify through later experiences is called

A)insight.
B)imprinting.
C)habituation.
D)operant conditioning.
E)trial-and-error learning.

Question 26

What is the normal imprinting stimulus to a hatchling graylag goose?

A)an image of a model of an adult graylag goose
B)a nearby object that is moving away
C)recognition of its biological mother
D)any other adult of its own species
E)any human

Question 27

Learning in which an associated stimulus may be used to elicit the same behavioural response as the original sign stimulus is called

A)concept formation.
B)trial and error.
C)classical conditioning.
D)operant conditioning.
E)cognition.

Question 28

Infant vervet monkeys give indiscriminate alarm calls after sighting a potential predator; however, this skill becomes fine-tuned after social learning takes place. The response elicited by the infants before learning takes place indicates that

A)alarm calls are enhanced by spatial learning.
B)the infants cannot see very well.
C)alarm calls are an innate behaviour.
D)the infants have passed the sensitive period.
E)they do not depend on social learning.

Question 29

Parental protective behaviour in turkeys is triggered by the cheeping sound of young chicks. What term best applies to this behaviour?

A)sign stimulus
B)cognition
C)imprinting
D)classical conditioning
E)operant conditioning

Question 30

Some dogs love attention, and Frodo the beagle learns that if he barks, he gets attention. Which of the following might you use to describe this behaviour?

A)The dog is displaying an instinctive fixed action pattern.
B)The dog is performing a social behaviour.
C)The dog is trying to protect its territory.
D)The dog has been classically conditioned.
E)The dog's behaviour is a result of operant conditioning.

Question 31

After eating a brightly coloured frog for the first time and subsequently vomiting, a bird learns not to eat brightly coloured frogs. This avoidance is due to

A)associative learning.
B)cognitive learning.
C)spatial learning.
D)imprinting.
E)social learning.

Question 32

Every morning at the same time, John went into the den to feed his new tropical fish. After a few weeks, he noticed that the fish swam to the top of the tank when he entered the room. This is an example of

A)cognition.
B)imprinting.
C)classical conditioning.
D)operant conditioning.
E)maturation.

Question 33

A cage containing male mosquitoes has a small earphone placed on top, through which the sound of a female mosquito is played. All the males immediately fly to the earphone and go through all of the steps of copulation. What is the best explanation for this behaviour?

A)The males learn to associate the sound with females.
B)Copulation is a fixed action pattern, and the female flight sound is a sign stimulus that initiates it.
C)The sound from the earphone irritates the male mosquitoes, causing them to attempt to sting it.
D)The reproductive drive is so strong that when males are deprived of females, they will attempt to mate with anything that has even the slightest female characteristic.
E)Through classical conditioning, the male mosquitoes have associated the inappropriate stimulus from the earphone with the normal response of copulation.

Question 34

Classical conditioning and operant conditioning differ in that

A)classical conditioning takes longer.
B)operant conditioning usually involves more intelligence.
C)operant conditioning involves consequences for the animal's behaviour.
D)classical conditioning is restricted to mammals and birds.
E)classical conditioning is much more useful for training domestic animals.

Question 35

Among songbirds, a "crystallized" song is one that

A)is beyond the range of human hearing.
B)is perfected by juveniles.
C)extremely young chicks sing.
D)is a perfected species-specific song.
E)warns of predators.

Question 36

Listed below are several examples of types of animal behaviour. Match the letter of the correct term (A-E) to each example in the following questions.
A. operant conditioning
B. agonistic behaviour
C innate behaviour
D. imprinting
E. altruistic behaviour
Upon observing a golden eagle flying overhead, a sentry prairie dog gives a warning call to other foraging members of the prairie dog community.

A)A
B)B
C)C
D)D
E)E

Question 37

A guinea pig loves the lettuce kept in the refrigerator and squeals each time the refrigerator door opens. What term best applies to this behaviour?

A)sign stimulus
B)cognition
C)imprinting
D)classical conditioning
E)operant conditioning

Question 38

Which of the following shows the adaptive significance of cognitive mapping to animals that employ this type of learning?

A)It increases the ability to visually recognize landmarks.
B)Cognitive maps reduce the amount of detail required to remember the location of an object in the animal's environment.
C)Animals can locate essential locations in their environment, such as nests, hazards, and feeding areas.
D)Animals can outmanoeuvre predators by planning and memorizing getaway routes.
E)Animals can determine their position relative to landmarks by a triangulation process.

Question 39

A stickleback fish will attack a fish model as long as the model has red colouring. What animal behaviour idea is manifested by this observation?

A)sign stimulus
B)cognition
C)imprinting
D)classical conditioning
E)operant conditioning

Question 40

If mayflies lay eggs on roads instead of in water, it would indicate which of the following?

A)a defective gene
B)trial-and-error learning
C)a misdirected response to a sign stimulus
D)a natural behavioural variation in the mayfly population
E)aberrant behaviour due to insecticide poisoning

Question 41

The mating system in which females are more ornamented than males is

A)monogamy.
B)promiscuity.
C)polygamy.
D)polygyny.
E)polyandry.

Question 42

You discover a rare new bird species, but you are unable to observe its mating behaviour. You see that the male is large and ornamental compared with the female. On this basis, you can probably conclude that the species is

A)polygamous.
B)monogamous.
C)polyandrous.
D)promiscuous.
E)agonistic.

Question 43

Feeding behaviour with a high energy intake-to-expenditure ratio is called

A)herbivory.
B)autotrophy.
C)heterotrophy.
D)search scavenging.
E)optimal foraging.

Question 44

In the evolution of whelk-eating behaviour in crows, which of the following was optimized through natural selection?

A)the average number of drops required to break the shell
B)the average height a bird flew to drop a shell
C)the average total energy used to break shells
D)the average size of the shells dropped by the birds
E)the average thickness of the shells dropped by the birds

Question 45

Imagine that you are designing an experiment aimed at determining whether the initiation of migratory behaviour is largely under genetic control. Of the following options, the best way to proceed is to

A)observe genetically distinct populations in the field and see if they have different migratory habits.
B)perform within-population matings with birds from different populations that have different migratory habits. Do this in the laboratory and see if offspring display parental migratory behaviour.
C)bring animals into the laboratory and determine the conditions under which they become restless and attempt to migrate.
D)perform within-population matings with birds from different populations that have different migratory habits. Rear the offspring in the absence of their parents and observe the migratory behaviour of offspring.
E)All of the options are equally productive ways to approach the question.

Question 46

Which of the following best describes "game theory" as it applies to animal behaviour?

A)The fitness of a particular behaviour is influenced by other behavioural phenotypes in a population.
B)The total of all of the behavioural displays, both male and female, is related to courtship.
C)An individual in a population changes a behavioural phenotype to gain a competitive advantage.
D)The play behaviour performed by juveniles allows them to perfect adult behaviours that are needed for survival, such as hunting, courtship, and so on.
E)The evolutionary "game" is played between predator and prey, wherein the prey develops a behaviour through natural selection that enables it to be less vulnerable to predation, and the predator counters with a new reciprocal predatory behaviour.

Question 47

The colour of throats of males in a population of side-blotched lizards is determined by

A)the frequency of homozygous recessive genotype.
B)ambient temperature-blue = cold; orange = normal; yellow = hot.
C)stage of development/maturity.
D)their receptiveness to mate.
E)the success of the mating behaviour of each of the throat colour phenotypes.

Question 48

What is the fitness benefit of polygamy in birds that rear precocious young?

A)Females will copulate with many males to ensure that all of their eggs are fertilized.
B)Females don't have to decide on one mate, and can copulate with as many males as each female deems worthy to share her genes with in reproduction.
C)Fit males don't have to help feed and rear young and can spend this time seeking and mating with many females.
D)Females don't have to spend time rearing young and can mate and rear additional broods during a breeding season.
E)Both males and females spend little time with courtship and brood-rearing, and don't tax their own physiology so they can breed again in subsequent breeding seasons.

Question 49

Which of the following does not have a coefficient of relatedness of 0.5?

A)a father to his daughter
B)a mother to her son
C)an uncle to his nephew
D)a brother to his brother
E)a sister to her brother

Question 50

Which of the following statements is true about certainty of paternity?

A)Young or eggs laid by a female are likely to contain the same genes as another female's eggs in a population of birds.
B)Certainty of paternity is high in most species with internal fertilization because the acts of mating and birth are separated by time.
C)Males that guard females they have mated with are certain of their paternity.
D)Certainty of paternity is low when egg laying and mating occur together, as in external fertilization.
E)Paternal behaviour exists because it has been reinforced over generations by natural selection.

Question 51

The evolution of mating systems is most likely affected by

A)population density.
B)territoriality.
C)certainty of paternity.
D)sexual dimorphism.
E)None of the options is correct.

Question 52

How do altruistic behaviours arise through natural selection?

A)By his/her actions, the altruist increases the likelihood that some of its genes will be passed on to the next generation.
B)The altruist is appreciated by other members of the population because their survivability has been enhanced by virtue of his/her risky behaviour.
C)Animals that perform altruistic acts are allowed by their population to breed more, thereby passing on their behaviour genes to future generations.
D)Altruistic behaviours lower stress in populations, which increases the survivability of all the members of the population.
E)All of the options are correct.

Question 53

The fru gene in fruit flies

A)controls sex-specific development in the fruit fly.
B)is a master regulatory gene that directs expression of many other genes.
C)can be genetically manipulated in females so that they will perform male sex behaviours.
D)programs males for appropriate courtship behaviours.
E)All of the options are correct.

Question 54

Which of the following might affect the foraging behaviour of an animal in the context of optimal foraging?

A)risk of predation
B)prey size
C)prey defences
D)prey density
E)All of the options are correct.

Question 55

Which of the following is not a display of altrustic behaviour?

A)Richardson's ground squirrel emitting an alarm call to unaware neighbours
B)worker honeybee stinging an intruder and subsequently dying
C)non-reproductive naked mole rat protecting the queen from predation
D)vervet monkey alarm calling when spotting an eagle
E)green lacewing producing a hybrid courtship song

Question 56

Pair-bonding in a population of prairie voles can be prevented by

A)the ensuing confusion caused by introducing meadow voles.
B)administering a drug that inhibits the brain receptor for vasopressin in the CNS of males.
C)administering a drug that turns on ADH receptor sites in male voles.
D)dying the coat colour from brown to blond in either male or female prairie voles.
E)allowing the population size to reach critically low levels.

Question 57

Which of the following statements about evolution of behaviour is correct?

A)Natural selection will favour behaviour that enhances survival and reproduction.
B)An animal may show behaviour that minimizes reproductive fitness.
C)If a behaviour is less than optimal, it will eventually become optimal through natural selection.
D)Innate behaviours can never be altered by natural selection.
E)All of the statements are correct.

Question 58

What probably explains why coastal and inland garter snakes react differently to banana slug prey?

A)Ancestors of coastal snakes that could eat the abundant banana slugs had increased fitness. No such selection occurred inland, where banana slugs were absent.
B)Banana slugs are camouflaged, and inland snakes, which have poorer vision than coastal snakes, are less able to see them.
C)Garter snakes learn about prey from other garter snakes. Inland garter snakes have fewer types of prey because they are less social.
D)Inland banana slugs are distasteful, so inland snakes learn to avoid them. Coastal banana slugs are palatable to garter snakes.
E)Garter snakes learn to eat what their mother eats. Coastal snake mothers happened to prefer slugs.

Question 59

In guppies, females may copy the mate choice of conspecifics even if it means choosing a male with less extensive orange colouration than would be chosen with no female present. This decision may increase

A)the number of resulting offspring.
B)paternal care of offspring.
C)ornamentation of offspring.
D)the probability of fitness of male offspring.
E)male competition for mates.

Question 60

White-crowned sparrows can only learn the "crystallized" song for their species by

A)listening to adult sparrow songs during a sensitive period as a fledgling, followed by a practice period until the juvenile matches its melody to its memorized fledgling song.
B)listening to the song of its own species during a critical period so that it will imprint to its own species song and not the songs of other songbird species.
C)practicing as a fledgling until the innate species-specific song becomes perfected.
D)performing the crystallized song as adults when they become sexually mature, as the song is programmed into the innate behaviour for the species.
E)observing and practising after receiving social confirmation from other adults at a critical period during their first episode of courtship behaviour.

Question 61

Use the following information to answer the next few questions.
Two populations of the highly ornamented white-crested sparrow species are spatially separated by a mountain range. Males from the two populations exhibit differing elaborate courtship displays. When a female appears, the males from the eastern population approach the female while bobbing their heads and spreading their wings, while the western population approaches a female by hopping and flapping their wings. Individuals from each population reared in isolation exhibited the same courtship displays as those in the wild.
Which of the following is true of innate behaviours?

A)Their expression is only weakly influenced by genes.
B)They occur with or without environmental stimuli.
C)They are limited to invertebrate animals.
D)They are expressed in most individuals in a population.
E)They occur in invertebrates and some vertebrates but not mammals.

Question 62

Use the following information to answer the next few questions.
Two populations of the highly ornamented white-crested sparrow species are spatially separated by a mountain range. Males from the two populations exhibit differing elaborate courtship displays. When a female appears, the males from the eastern population approach the female while bobbing their heads and spreading their wings, while the western population approaches a female by hopping and flapping their wings. Individuals from each population reared in isolation exhibited the same courtship displays as those in the wild.
According to Hamilton's rule

A)natural selection does not favour altruistic behaviour that causes the death of the altruist.
B)natural selection favours altruistic acts when the resulting benefit to the beneficiary, corrected for relatedness, exceeds the cost to the altruist.
C)natural selection is more likely to favour altruistic behaviour that benefits an offspring than altruistic behaviour that benefits a sibling.
D)the effects of kin selection are larger than the effects of direct natural selection on individuals.
E)altruism is always reciprocal.

Question 63

In the territorial behaviour of the stickleback fish, the red belly of one male that elicits attack from another male is functioning as

A)a pheromone.
B)a sign stimulus.
C)a fixed action pattern.
D)a search image.
E)an imprint stimulus.

Question 64

During a field trip, an instructor touched a moth resting on a tree trunk. The moth raised its forewings to reveal large eyespots on its hind wings. The instructor asked why the moth lifted its wings. One student answered that sensory receptors had fired and triggered a neuronal reflex culminating in the contraction of certain muscles. A second student responded that the behaviour might frighten predators. Which statement best describes these explanations?

A)The first explanation is correct, but the second is incorrect.
B)The first explanation refers to proximate causation, whereas the second refers to ultimate causation.
C)The first explanation is biological, whereas the second is philosophical.
D)The first explanation is testable as a scientific hypothesis, whereas the second is not.
E)Both explanations are reasonable and simply represent a difference of opinion.

Question 65

A region of the canary forebrain shrinks during the nonbreeding season and enlarges when breeding season begins. This change is probably associated with the annual

A)addition of new syllables to a canary's song repertoire.
B)crystallization of subsong into adult songs.
C)sensitive period in which canary parents imprint on new offspring.
D)renewal of mating and nest-building behaviours.
E)elimination of the memorized template for songs sung the previous year.

Question 66

Fred and Joe, two unrelated, mature male gorillas, encounter one another. Fred is courting a female. Fred grunts as Joe comes near. As Joe continues to advance, Fred begins drumming (pounding his chest)and bares his teeth. Joe then rolls on the ground on his back, gets up, and quickly leaves. This behavioural pattern is repeated several times during the mating season. Choose the most specific behaviour described by this example.

A)agonistic behaviour
B)territorial behaviour
C)learned behaviour
D)social behaviour
E)fixed action pattern

Question 67

In Belding's ground squirrels, it is mostly the females that behave altruistically by sounding alarm calls. What is the likely reason for this distinction?

A)Males have smaller vocal cords and are less likely to make sounds.
B)Females invest more in foraging and food stores, so they are more defensive.
C)Females settle in the area in which they were born, so the alarm is warning kin.
D)The sex ratio is biased.
E)Males forage in areas separate from females; therefore, alarm calls are useless.

Question 68

Use the following information to answer the next few questions.
Imagine that your house has caught fire. It is only yourself and your full-sibling brother in the house since your parents are gone on vacation. After escaping the house, you cannot find your brother and decide he must still be inside. There is a 25% chance that you will not survive the fire, and you each will produce two offspring each should you survive.
This scenario best exemplifies

A)cheating.
B)sociobiology.
C)reciprocal altruism.
D)inclusive fitness.
E)the tit-for-tat strategy.

Question 69

Use the following information to answer the next few questions.
Imagine that your house has caught fire. It is only yourself and your full-sibling brother in the house since your parents are gone on vacation. After escaping the house, you cannot find your brother and decide he must still be inside. There is a 25% chance that you will not survive the fire, and you each will produce two offspring each should you survive.
Hamilton's Rule predicts that

A)C = 1.
B)rB = 2.
C)the cost of saving your brother outweighs the benefit.
D)rB = 0.5.
E)the benefits outweigh the cost and you attempt to save your brother.

Question 70

Animals that help other animals of the same species

A)have excess energy reserves.
B)are bigger and stronger than the other animals.
C)are usually related to the other animals.
D)are always male.
E)have defective genes controlling their behaviour.

Question 71

Use the following information to answer the next few questions.
Two populations of the highly ornamented white-crested sparrow species are spatially separated by a mountain range. Males from the two populations exhibit differing elaborate courtship displays. When a female appears, the males from the eastern population approach the female while bobbing their heads and spreading their wings, while the western population approaches a female by hopping and flapping their wings. Individuals from each population reared in isolation exhibited the same courtship displays as those in the wild.
After mating a female from the eastern population to a male from the western population, the resulting male offspring exhibited a hybrid courtship display, bobbing their heads and flapping their wings. This indicates that

A)courtship displays are a result of environmental pressures.
B)the elicited courtship display depends on female response.
C)courtship displays are under the control of more than one gene.
D)courtship displays are a learned behaviour.
E)associative learning is involved in courtship displays.

Question 72

Which of the following is not required for a behavioural trait to evolve by natural selection?

A)In each individual, the form of the behaviour is determined entirely by genes.
B)The behaviour varies among individuals.
C)An individual's reproductive success depends in part on how the behaviour is performed.
D)Some component of the behaviour is genetically inherited.
E)An individual's genotype influences its behavioural phenotype.

Question 73

The behaviour of most animals is influenced by the periods of daylight and darkness in the environment. Fiddler crabs' courtship behaviours are instead synchronized by the 29 1/2-day cycle of the moon. What is the adaptive significance of using lunar cues?

A)The fiddler crab courtship ritual is highly visual so individuals need the light of the full moon to be able to observe courtship displays.
B)Egg maturation in fiddler crab females takes 29 1/2 days.
C)By courting at full and new moon, fiddler crabs link their reproduction to times of highest tides that disperse larvae to safer, deeper waters.
D)The algae that larval fiddler crabs consume for energy and metabolism blooms on a monthly cycle, so recently hatched larvae have plenty to eat during a crucial time of their life.
E)It takes about 29 days for a fiddler crab to reach sexual maturity.

Question 74

Use the following information to answer the next few questions.
Two populations of the highly ornamented white-crested sparrow species are spatially separated by a mountain range. Males from the two populations exhibit differing elaborate courtship displays. When a female appears, the males from the eastern population approach the female while bobbing their heads and spreading their wings, while the western population approaches a female by hopping and flapping their wings. Individuals from each population reared in isolation exhibited the same courtship displays as those in the wild.
Female spotted sandpipers aggressively court males and, after mating, leave the clutch of young for the male to incubate. This sequence may be repeated several times with different males until no available males remain, forcing the female to incubate her last clutch. Which of the following terms best describes this behaviour?

A)monogamy
B)polygyny
C)polyandry
D)promiscuity
E)certainty of paternity

Question 75

Use the following information to answer the next few questions.
Two populations of the highly ornamented white-crested sparrow species are spatially separated by a mountain range. Males from the two populations exhibit differing elaborate courtship displays. When a female appears, the males from the eastern population approach the female while bobbing their heads and spreading their wings, while the western population approaches a female by hopping and flapping their wings. Individuals from each population reared in isolation exhibited the same courtship displays as those in the wild.
When presented with a model of a female, a male from the eastern population will perform the courtship display to completion, regardless of a eliciting a response from the "female." This is an example of

A)a fixed action pattern.
B)agonistic behaviour.
C)territorial behaviour.
D)social behaviour.
E)associative learning.

Question 76

The presence of altruistic behaviour is most likely due to kin selection, a theory maintaining that

A)aggression between sexes promotes the survival of the fittest individuals.
B)genes enhance survival of copies of themselves by directing organisms to assist others who share those genes.
C)companionship is advantageous to animals because in the future they can help each other.
D)critical thinking abilities are normal traits for animals and they have arisen, like other traits, through natural selection.
E)natural selection has generally favoured the evolution of exaggerated aggressive and submissive behaviours to resolve conflict without grave harm to participants.

Question 77

The centralConcept of sociobiology is that

A)human behaviour is rigidly predetermined.
B)the behaviour of an individual cannot be modified.
C)human behaviour consists mainly of fixed action patterns.
D)most aspects of our social behaviour have an evolutionary basis.
E)the social behaviour of humans is homologous to the social behaviour of other social animals.

Question 78

One way to understand how early environment influences differing behaviours in similar species is through the "cross-fostering" experimental technique. Suppose that the curly-whiskered mud rat differs from the bald mud rat in several ways, including being much more aggressive. How would you set up a cross-fostering experiment to determine if environment plays a role in the curly-whiskered mud rats' aggression?

A)You would cross curly-whiskered mud rats and bald mud rats and hand-rear the offspring to see if any grew up to be aggressive.
B)You would place newborn curly-whiskered mud rats with bald mud rat parents, place newborn bald mud rats with curly-whiskered mud rat parents, and let some mud rats of both species be raised by their own species. Then you would compare the outcomes.
C)You would remove the offspring of curly-whiskered mud rats and bald mud rats from their parents, raise them in the same environment, and then compare the outcomes.
D)You would see if curly-whiskered mud rats bred true for aggression.
E)You would replace normal newborn mud rats with deformed newborn mud rats to see if it triggered an altruistic response.

Question 79

Although many chimpanzees live in environments containing oil palm nuts, members of only a few populations use stones to crack open the nuts. The likely explanation is that

A)the behavioural difference is caused by genetic differences between populations.
B)members of different populations have different nutritional requirements.
C)the cultural tradition of using stones to crack nuts has arisen in only some populations.
D)members of different populations differ in learning ability.
E)members of different populations differ in manual dexterity.