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Animal Behavior
Biology 550
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Description
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| Class Notes
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Resources | Makeups/Grade Raise |
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STUDY QUESTIONS FOR THE FIRST EXAM
Chapter 1
1. Xenophobia or fear of strangers is predicted to be stronger in areas where resources are severely limited in comparison to areas where resources are more abundant. How was this prediction tested in common mole rats? Was the level of xenophobia sensitive to the sex of the stranger? Why or why not?
2. Dukas and Bernay examined the role of learning in feeding preferences in grasshoppers. Describe the random and the learning conditions. What happened to grasshopper feeding behavior under these conditions?
3. What is the information center hypothesis and how well does it explain the development of new food preferences in rats?
4. What is kin selection and how does it affect reproductive success?
5. What is the difference between theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of animal behavior?
Chapter 2
1. What is the difference between artificial selection and natural selection?
2. Explain what the two distinct mating strategies of the ruff are and how they are controlled genetically.
3. What is the relationship between predation risk in guppies and two antipredator behaviors - shoaling and predator inspection? What happened when guppies from a high risk site were moved to a low risk site and examined years later? Did the later generations of offspring retain the behaviors of the parents that had been moved?
4. What is an adaptation? According to the work by Semel and Sherman on wood ducks nesting in man-made boxes in Missouri, is egg dumping adaptive?
5. Describe the difference between homology and homoplasy? Which is important for the construction of phylogenetic trees?
6. A proposed stepping stone model of the evolution of parental care in ray-finned fishes goes from no care, to paternal care, to bi-parental care, to maternal care (through male desertion). Was the stepping stone model confirmed for ray finned fishes? If not, what model was confirmed?
Chapter 4
1. What is the difference between sensitization and habituation?
2. How does group living vs. territorial living in doves affect the learning of a complex skill. What are 2 possible explanations of this effect. How would one need to study this problem in order to conclude an effect of natural selection.
3. Domjan and Hollis have hypothesized that differences in parental investment may be related to sex differences in memory. What evidence supports their hypothesis?
4. What are winner and loser effects and is learning involved? How did Hollis create winners in her study of blue gouramis?
Chapter 5
1. What is stone play and what contribution did Glance-6476 make to this cultural tradition?
2. What is mate-choice copying and how was it studied in guppies?
3. What is the difference between vertical, horizontal, and oblique transmission?
4. How does cultural transmission, speciation, and song production interact in Grant's finches?
5. What is the relationship between cultural transmission and brain size in nonhuman primates?
Chapter 3
1. What causes differences in plumage color in female house finches? How does this differ from males?
2. How do 2M and 2F gerbil males differ? What does 2M and 2F stand for and how is it related to hormone levels?
3. What is the relationship between home social organization (monogamy vs. polygamy), home range size, and sex differences in spatial memory in voles? Are differences related to hippocampal size or the number of dendritic spines?
4. What is unihemispheric sleep? In what species groups is it found and what are possible functions?
Description
| Text | Syllabus
| Class Notes
| Internet
Resources | Makeups/Grade Raise
|
Produced and maintained by Melinda Novak
(mnovak@psych.umass.edu)
University of
Massachusetts, Amherst.
last updated - 1/07/05