Summary: Animal Behavior

Read the summary and the most important questions on Animal behavior

• 1 Introduction to animal behavior

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• What is the defenition of EVOLUTION?

  = results from individuals passing on traits to their offspring, which in generations results in a change of those traits
  --> can lead to the formation of new species = diversity

• What are the 3 main processes that drive evolution?

  1. Mutation -> random changes in genetic material
  2. Genetic drift -> influence of chance on whether an individual reproduces
  3. Natural selection -> acts on the fact that some individuals are better adapted to the environment than others 
  -> Better adapted - advantage - producing more offspring - higher fitness
  -> If the adaptive traits are heritable this will lead to a higher frequency of these traits in the population

• What is the definition of the LEVEL OF ANALYSIS (Tinbergen's 4 whys)?

  The sett of overlapping and interacting questions about behavior that span different types of approaches

• What can you tell me about NATURAL SELECTION?

  -> not guided by anything
  -> evolution ≠ natural selection
  - variation
  - differential reproductive success
  - heredity

• What can you tell me about HERITABILITY (H^2)?

  = the proportion of phenotypic variation in a population that is due to genetic influences
  - adaptive effects + dominance effects + epistatic effects
  -> The potential for modifying a trait through selection is assessed by measuring its heritability, which is estimated by measuring genetic + phenotypic variation

• What are the 5 key concepts of heritability?

  1. Calculating heritability is done by estimating the genetic + environmental contributions to the phenotypic variation at the population level
  2. Heritability is a population-level measure
  3. Heritability can differ among environments
  4. The behavior in question must vary among individuals in the population
  5. Strong selection on a behavioral trait reduces the heritability of that trait

• What is the defenition of UMWELT?

  = overall context in which an animal behaves including its sensory environment + its behavioral capabilities

• What is the defenition of CLADOGRAM?

  = represents a hypothesis of evolution with a treelike drawing that is developed using an analysis of characteristics held in common among species or population + characteristics that are unique to given species or populations

• What are the 2 significant concepts within the drive theory?

  1. Displacement behavior 
  2. Redirected behavior

• What can you tell me about ontogeny (4 tinbergens why's)

  2. Development (ontogeny) -> the behavioral responses of animals change throughout their lives as a result of the interactions between genes + environmental factors
  -> how did an individual develop the ability to show this behavior
  -> how does a behavior change over an animals lifetime (metamorphosis)