Exam 51: Animal Behavior

A male stickleback fish will attack other male sticklebacks that invade its nesting territory. It will only attack male fish, which display the red belly characteristic of the species. Why has natural selection favored this behavior?

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

The proximate causes of behavior are interactions with the environment, but behavior is ultimately shaped by ________.

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

You observe a species of bird that, upon hatching, has contact with its parents only while being fed. You also never hear the parents sing during the feeding process. What would you propose about song learning in this species of bird?

Learning has the most influence on behavior when ________.

If a prairie dog had the opportunity to perform an altruistic act (that is, give an alarm call)to help its relatives, which combination of the following relatives would the prairie dog be most likely to help (base your answer solely on the genetic relationships)?

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 behavior?

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

Which of the following is true of innate behaviors?

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

You observe scrub jays hiding food and notice that one particular individual only pretends to hide food. Your experiments associate the presence of other individuals with the frequency of pretending to cache food. A colleague shows you animals of the same species that do not perform this pretend caching. How does this information affect your conclusions about this behavior?

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 behavior might frighten predators. Which statement best describes these explanations?

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 ________.

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

Feeding behavior with a high-energy intake-to-expenditure ratio is called ________.

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

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

Behaviors are diverse and important for survival and reproduction. Some behaviors are learned, such as the species-specific song of a yellow warbler that is different from the song of a blue-winged warbler. Other behaviors are innate, such as a female cat in heat urinating more often and in many places to attract a mate or the honeybees' "dance" that indicates the distance and direction of a food source when they return to their hive. Which of the following statements supports the idea that behaviors are important in survival and therefore affect natural selection?

Which of the following has a coefficient of relatedness of 0.25?