Deck 35: Behavioral Adaptations to the Environment

Question 1

Organisms that are nocturnal are more likely to communicate using

A)smell and sound.
B)touch and taste.
C)sight and smell.
D)sight and sound.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

When you successfully study with the stereo on in the background,you are demonstrating

A)conditioning.
B)associative learning.
C)imprinting.
D)habituation.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The modification of behavior based upon specific experiences defines

A)imprinting.
B)conditioning.
C)learning.
D)habituation.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

The baby bobcats watched as their mother stalked a rabbit and pounced,catching a meal that was shared by all.The next day,two of the young bobcats were seen stalking a field mouse,which quickly escaped from the inexperienced hunters.The young bobcats were learning how to hunt by the process of

A)social learning.
B)habituation.
C)associative learning.
D)imprinting.

Question 5

Which of the following would be an example of agonistic behavior?

A)A dog raises its hackles,bares its teeth,and stands high to appear threatening.
B)A male ruffed grouse spreads its tail and beats its wings to attract a female.
C)A honeybee does a waggle dance to indicate the direction of food.
D)Ants mark their trails by releasing pheromones.

Question 6

Which of the following statements regarding behavior is true?

A)Fixed action patterns are learned behavior sequences.
B)Innate behaviors are performed the same way in all members of a genus.
C)A fixed action pattern is under strong genetic control.
D)A learned behavior triggers a fixed action pattern.

Question 7

A male turkey that imprinted onto a human at hatching is transferred as an older juvenile to a flock of "normal" turkeys.When this turkey reaches sexual maturity,he will probably try to court

A)mature female turkeys.
B)male,female,or immature turkeys indiscriminately.
C)immature male turkeys.
D)humans.

Question 8

The evolutionary explanations for behavior are called the

A)ultimate causes.
B)selected advantage.
C)proximal causes.
D)evolutionary schematic.

Question 9

The need for intense parental care of offspring favors mating systems that are

A)lifelong.
B)promiscuous.
C)polygamous.
D)monogamous.

Question 10

Several primates have been taught to communicate with humans using sign language.This supports the view that animals other than humans can learn through the process of

A)social learning.
B)imprinting.
C)trial and error learning.
D)cognition.

Question 11

Human social behavior appears to be

A)a product of our genes,external influences,and environment.
B)determined by the environment.
C)exclusively a product of our genes.
D)unrelated to genetics.

Question 12

Many rats were tested for their ability to learn a maze.The average number of errors for a total of 14 trials was 64 per rat.The rats that made the fewest errors were bred to each other,and the offspring were tested in a similar way.This process was repeated for seven generations,at which point the average number of errors for 14 trials was 36.This experiment demonstrates that

A)learned behavior cannot be inherited.
B)natural selection has a role in the evolution of fixed action patterns but not in the evolution of behavior involving learning.
C)maze- learning ability has a genetic basis.
D)maze- learning ability depends mainly on early contact with adept parents.

Question 13

The sending of,reception of,and response to signals constitute animal

A)associative learning.
B)problem- solving.
C)communication.
D)cost- benefit analysis.

Question 14

Squirrels on a bird feeder seem to be able to figure out how to steal seeds no matter what people do to prevent it.Yesterday,Jeremy hung out a new bird feeder design,and sure enough,by the end of the day the squirrels found a way to get to the seeds.The squirrels most likely figured out how to get the seeds through

A)the use of cognitive maps.
B)spatial learning.
C)imprinting.
D)trial- and- error learning.

Question 15

Cross- fostering experiments with Norway rat pups showed that in their response to stress

A)cross- fostered pups resembled their biological mothers more than their foster mothers.
B)environment was the critical factor,not genetics.
C)genetics was the only important factor.
D)both genetics and the environment played a clear role.

Question 16

You lose track of your friend in a store and start looking for her.Which of the following things that you could do represents the use of a search image?

A)You ask a woman if she has seen anyone around this part of the store.
B)You return to the last place you saw your friend.
C)You go to the department in the store where your friend most likes to shop.
D)You think about what color clothing she wore and look for that color.

Question 17

From a sociobiological perspective,altruism is a behavior that

A)has the potential to enhance the altruist's fitness at a later point in time.
B)occurs only in the social insects.
C)will always be selected against.
D)does not have a genetic basis.

Question 18

When a nipple is placed in a newborn baby's mouth,the infant will immediately begin to suckle.This is an example of

A)classical conditioning.
B)imprinted behavior.
C)imitation.
D)innate behavior.

Question 19

Which of the following is communicated by courtship displays?

A)The individuals are of different species.
B)The male represents a threat to other males.
C)The individuals are of the same species and of the opposite sex.
D)The individuals intend to hurt each other.

Question 20

Which of the following statements about chimpanzee behavior is true?

A)Alpha males assert their status by making plant stems into tools for food extraction.
B)Social primates do not show reconciliation or pacification- type behaviors.
C)Grooming behavior is crucial to maintaining relationships within chimpanzee groups.
D)Only female chimpanzees are organized in a dominance hierarchy.

Question 21

Agonistic behavior

A)increases the number of individuals who mate.
B)usually causes serious injury to one or both of the combatants.
C)is typically used to determine access to food,mates,or territories.
D)is rare among vertebrates.

Question 22

Answers to questions about the immediate mechanisms for a behavior are called

A)proximate causes.
B)conclusions.
C)cognitive mapping.
D)ultimate causes.

Question 23

A big difference between social learning and imprinting is that

A)imprinting does not involve a reward.
B)social learning has a primarily genetic basis.
C)imprinting can only take place among members of the same species.
D)social learning is not limited to a sensitive period.

Question 24

Based on von Frisch's work on honeybee communication,which of the following types of information will be communicated to other workers by a honeybee's "dance"?

A)the color of the flowers producing the nectar
B)the quality of the nectar
C)the direction of the nectar source
D)the distance of the nectar source from the nearest water

Question 25

A grayling butterfly will normally fly toward the sun.This is an example of

A)migration.
B)kinesis.
C)taxis.
D)phototropism.

Question 26

The certainty of paternity is greatest in organisms that

A)mate and lay eggs at the same time.
B)have extensive parental care.
C)are promiscuous.
D)use internal fertilization.

Question 27

An insectivorous bird has the choice of eating (1)meadow beetles,which are abundant and large but expose the bird to hawk predation; (2)under- a- rock beetles,which are large and fatty but hard to obtain; and (3)under- a- leaf beetles,which are easy to obtain but small.The bird has nestlings to feed.As an optimal forager,it will

A)concentrate on under- a- leaf beetles because they are easy and safe.
B)eat all three kinds of beetles,balancing the energy spent and the risks incurred against the energy gained.
C)eat one kind of beetle at a time (first under- a- leaf,then meadow,then under- a- rock),switching to a new kind when the old kind becomes scarce.
D)concentrate on under- a- rock beetles because they are energy- rich.

Question 28

Territories are typically used for activities such as

A)identification of kin and rearing young.
B)migration and feeding.
C)feeding and identification of kin.
D)feeding,mating,and rearing young.

Question 29

Which of the following conclusions is supported by this graph?

A)Prey size does not affect the number of calories gained per second of handling time by wagtails.
B)Wagtails get more calories per second of handling time with larger flies than with smaller ones.
C)Wagtails get more calories per second of handling with 7- mm flies than with either larger or smaller ones.
D)Wagtails get more calories per second of handling time with smaller flies than with larger ones.

Question 30

A blue jay hides hundreds of nuts throughout the fall and finds them throughout the winter and spring.The blue jay is most likely finding the stored food by using

A)kinesis.
B)a cognitive map.
C)social learning.
D)imprinting.

Question 31

After many hours of observation,Jennifer noticed that a squirrel in her backyard seemed to retreat up a certain tree every time it was frightened.At the base of that tree was a wheelbarrow.Jennifer wondered how the squirrel found the same tree each time.Perhaps it simply knew to use the tree with the wheelbarrow.That night,Jennifer moved the wheelbarrow a few feet over and placed it against another tree.The next day,the squirrel retreated up the new tree,with the wheelbarrow resting at its base.This experiment suggests that the squirrel was using

A)imprinting.
B)spatial learning.
C)habituation.
D)social learning.

Question 32

During the spring,male sage grouse gather in an open area and strut about,erecting their feathers in a fanlike display.They also make booming sounds using their inflated air sacs.The function of this dance is to

A)imprint the younger male birds.
B)frighten off smaller birds from the territory.
C)select the showiest females and mate.
D)attract the attention of females.

Question 33

Which of the following situations represents an example of territorial behavior?

A)Digger wasps are able to recognize the pattern of landmarks around their nests.
B)Troops of monkey species use well- defined,widely overlapping ranges.Troops avoid encountering each other and are aggressive if they meet.
C)Sow bugs become more active and move around randomly if they find themselves in a dry area.
D)Gannets breed in dense colonies.Each gannet defends the area within the beak's reach of its nest,but gannets feeding at sea are indifferent to each other.

Question 34

What type of behavior is illustrated by the bird in this figure?

A)territoriality
B)foraging
C)fixed action pattern
D)mating behavior

Question 35

You are told that the song of males among a particular songbird species has an innate component but is also largely learned.Nestling males imprint on their father's song and then sing it themselves when they reach sexual maturity.Which of the following observations would lead you to doubt this information?

A)A male chick who is reared in isolation but hears tape recordings of a different species' song grows up to sing that species' song.
B)A male chick reared in isolation but introduced as an older juvenile into an aviary containing normal males of his species sings his species' song.
C)A male chick fostered in the nest of a different species grows up to sing the song of its foster species.
D)A male chick who is reared in isolation but hears tape recordings of his species' song grows up to sing normally.

Question 36

The most extensive study of cognitive maps has involved animals that

A)burrow extensive tunnels into the ground.
B)hibernate.
C)build nests.
D)migrate.

Question 37

Pecking order in chickens is an example of

A)dominance hierarchy.
B)agonistic behavior.
C)alpha order.
D)mating behavior.

Question 38

In England,at a time when milk was still delivered to doorsteps each morning in foil- capped glass bottles,a songbird called the great tit started pecking through the caps and drinking the cream in the necks of the bottles.This behavior spread through the great tit population in a matter of years.The emergence and spread of this behavior probably depended on

A)trial and error learning plus habituation.
B)habituation plus social learning.
C)trial and error learning plus imprinting.
D)trial and error learning plus social learning.

Question 39

Which of the following situations could represent kin selection in action?

A)You help your friend with linguistics,and your friend helps you with biology.
B)When your mother gets old,you help her pay her property taxes.
C)You inexplicably forget to use birth control,and a child results.
D)You help your brother pay for his children's college tuition,even though he may not be able to pay you back.

Question 40

Which of the following terms broadly describes any kind of interaction between two or more animals?

A)foraging behavior
B)social behavior
C)dominance hierarchy
D)competition

Question 41

Which of the following behaviors would be unlikely to involve imprinting?

A)A songbird that engages in solitary migration using star navigation returns each year to the district where it was hatched.
B)A nestling male songbird raised in the nest of a different species grows up to sing the song of his foster species.
C)A nestling male sparrow learns the "dialect" of song that is used in his native district.
D)A migrating mother gazelle leaves her calf hidden in grass while she feeds and always returns to the correct patch of grass.

Question 42

Endocrine disruptors on reproductive behavior affect behavior by

A)mimicking a hormone or enhancing hormone activity.
B)reinforcing mating rituals.
C)increasing social behavior.
D)impairing the immune system.

Question 43

When building a nest,a female Fisher's lovebird cuts long strips of vegetation and carries them to the nest site one at a time in her beak.The female peach- faced lovebird cuts short strips and carries them to the nest tucked under back feathers.Hybrid female offspring cut intermediate- sized strips and attempt to tuck them under back feathers before carrying them in their beak.What does this demonstrate about behavior?

A)There is a genetic basis to behavior.
B)Environment is important in forming behaviors.
C)Lovebirds can be trained easily.
D)Behavior can be learned from parents.

Question 44

Which of the following is an example of a fixed action pattern?

A)the way female digger wasps find their nests
B)the imprinting of baby goslings on their mother
C)the way a graylag goose retrieves an egg that has rolled out of the nest
D)habituation in the cnidarian Hydra