Ecology Packet Essay

Chapter 51
Part 1 1) Proximate questions about behavior focus on environmental stimuli that trigger a behavior. Ultimate questions address the evolutionary significance of a behavior. Proximate questions are “how” questions and ultimate questions are “why” questions. 2) FAP stands for fixed action pattern. It is a sequence of unlearned behavioral acts that is essentially unchangeable and is usually carried to completion. A sign stimulus causes it. 3) Generalists are adapted to a wider range of environments and foods while specialist animals are adapted to one or a few different foods. Generalists are inefficient at catching one certain type of food, but have a variety, and specialists are extremely efficient foragers for a certain food. 4) It is meant that natural selection should favor foraging behavior that minimizes the costs of foraging and maximizes the benefits. 5) Learning is the impact of certain experiences upon behavior and maturation is the developmental changes in the neural and muscular system of animals. An example of an animal learning would be a bird learning a song, and an example of maturation is a bird gains the ability to fly. 6) Kinesis is induced changes in rates of chemical or behavioral activity in response to stimuli and taxis is an automatic movement in the direction of or away from another stimulus. They can easily be confused because they both are affected by stimuli. Taxis is the movement to the stimuli and kinesis is the effect of the stimuli. 7) Polyandry is a type of mating relationship in which there is one female and several males. Females are also generally more ornamented than males. An example would be the Wilson’s phalaropes. 8) It is the time and resources required to produce an offspring. 9) Agnostic behavior is often a ritualized contest that determines which competitor gains access to a resource, such as food or a mate. 10) Pheromones are odors emitted by animals to communicate with. An example of their useful is how many moths emit pheromones that can attract males from several kilometers away.

Part 2 1) d 2) d 3) d 4) a 5) c 6) a 7) d 8) c 9) b 10) c Part 3 1) A. Tinbergen discovered that there are fixed action patterns that are triggered by sign stimulus. He discovered the sign stimuli that triggered a FAP in male three-spined stickleback fish. When the male fish saw any fish with a red belly it would attack it. The stimulus was the red underside of the intruder.
B. Lorenz revealed that imprinting is caused by the first object offspring encounter that has certain key characteristics. In Lorenz’s experiment, he showed that the most important imprinting stimulus in graylag geese is movement of an object away from the young. Lorenz spent a few hours with incubator-hatched goslings and they imprinted on Lorenz and would follow him around. Learning was limited to a sensitive period.
C. Pavlov discovered classical conditioning while experimenting with dogs. Classical conditioning is a type of associative learning in which an arbitrary stimulus is associated with a reward or punishment. Pavlov would play a metronome before feeding the dogs. So when the dogs would hear the metronome they started to salivate because they know they would be fed.
D. Von Frisch observed that when a bee finds a food source many others also arrive. This is because the bees communicate with different dances to communicate how far away the food is from the hive and the direction it is in. 2) The principle of altruism is risking one life in order to save others or someone else more important. It is selflessness. If a squirrel saw a hawk first, it would make a loud shrieking noise to alert unaware individuals. The squirrel that alerted the others now has a higher chance of dying. This practice can lean to the genetic viability of the individual because when parent sacrifice their own

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