Download Animal Behavior Final Review Sheet

Animal Behavior Final Review Sheet
Name _________________________
Period _____ Date ______________
Introduction to Animal Behavior, and Methods
1) What is the working definition of “behavior?”
2) What is a stimulus?
3) Contrast ethology and comparative psychology.
4) Why study animal behavior?
5) What is an ethogram?
6) Four approaches to animal behavior studies (ethology) follow. Describe them.
causation
development
evolution
function
7) A dog sits at command and is then praised. What are the proximate and ultimate causes of the dog’s
sitting behavior?
8) What problems do field experiments have that lab experiments don’t?
9) What problems do lab experiments have that field experiments don’t?
10) What are some problems with designing either lab or field experiments?
Aggression
11) What IS aggression?
12) What are some benefits of being aggressive?
13) What are the costs?
14) What are some internal factors that influence aggression, and how do they do so?
15) What are some external factors that influence aggression?
Provide examples of the following types of aggressive behaviors:
16) Territorial
17) Dominance
18) Sexual
19) Parental
20) Parent-offspring
21) Anti-predatory
Classify the following. Identify the type of aggression.
22) At a major corporation, everyone knows his or her place and to whom he or she must always be
respectful as well as whom he or she can boss around. A person who errs is severely reprimanded.
23) Blue jays attack a cat that nears a tree containing their nest.
24) A wolf pack howls at night, scent marks along its territorial boundaries, and chases off wolves that
don’t belong to the pack.
25) Crows mob a hawk
26) A cheer leader’s mother kills a rival cheer leader’s mother so the victim’s daughter will miss an
important competition.
27) At a football game, Sara shoves Sue when she sees Sue talking to Sara’s new boyfriend.
28) A crowd of senior citizens storm out of a community center to harass a known drug dealer walking
into the neighborhood.
29) A street gang hangs out menacingly at street corners and spray paints graffiti on fences to ward off
other gangs.
30) A couple force their 28 year old son out of the house and change the locks.
31) Among a pride of lions, the top male eats first, followed by the next most dominant, and so on until
the least dominant gets remnants.
32) Male goats fight over who gets to mate with a receptive female.
33) A female dog growls at one of its puppies that wants to nurse well beyond the time it should be
weaned.
Nervous and Endocrine Systems
34) What are the main functions of the nervous system?
35) What does a sensory neuron do?
36) What does a motor neuron do?
37) What does an interneuron do?
38) Describe what type of stimuli the following are sensitive to:

chemoreceptor

mechanoreceptor

electroreceptor

thermoreceptor

photoreceptor
39) How does one neuron communicate with another?
40) What is a reflex?
41) Are reflexes faster or slower than other nervous reactions?
42) What does the endocrine system produce?
43) What is a hormone?
44) How do endocrine system responses compare to nervous system responses?
45) Endocrine system or nervous system?

faster

more general behavioral response

responsible for secondary sex characteristics (facial hair, body shape, etc.)

responsible for learning

reacts to pain

involves neurotransmitters

involves hormones
46) Paramecium have very a very limited nervous system. Are most of the behaviors of Paramecium
learned or innate?
Communication
47) Describe the characteristics and advantages of the following types of communication.
a) odors, chemicals:
b) vision:
c) touch:
d) sound:
e) electric fields:
48) Define communication.
49) What are signals?
50) What are the two types of signals and how are they different?
51) Describe the two characteristics of signals.
52) Describe the adaptiveness of communicating for the following:
a) Group spacing:
b) Recognition:
c) Reproduction:
d) Social status:
e) Alarm:
f) Hunting:
g) Care:
h) Soliciting play:
53) What is “true language?”
Genetics and Evolution
54) How are identical twins created?
55) How have studies of identical twins aided in our understanding of the genetics of behavior?
56) What is selective breeding? Give an example.
57) How do studies involving selective breeding aid in our understanding of the genetics of behavior?
58) What is the term for the type of behavior studied described in the previous question?
59) What is the relationship between genes and proteins?
60) What is the relationship between proteins and behavior?
61) What is a chromosome?
62) What are chromosomes made of?
63) What is a gene?
64) What is an allele?
65) What are some methods of studying the evolution of behavior?
66) What is evolution in terms of populations?
67) What is evolution in terms of alleles?
68) What do the terms “nature” and “nurture” refer to in the term “nature or nurture?”
69) What is epigenesis?
70) What is phylogeny?
71) How does phylogeny help scientists understand the evolution of behaviors?
72) How does studying how behavior evolved by examining fossils differ from studying how behavior
evolved by examining a comparative series?
Learning
73) What is learning, and what good is it?
Define and give an example of the following types of learning:
74) classical conditioning
75) habituation
76) imitation
77) imprinting
78) observational learning
79) operant conditioning
80) sensitization
81) How is play behavior important to learning?
82) What is adaptive behavior?
83) Give examples of three types of adaptive behavior.
Mating, Sex, and Parenting
84) How do sexual and asexual reproduction differ …
a. in terms of gametes?
b. in terms of passing on genes?
c. in terms of evolutionary success in stable or changing environments?
d. in terms of energy expended?
e. in terms of harmful mutations?
85) Describe the male and female genders …
f. in terms of fertility being limited by the number of mates
g. in terms of the expense of producing gametes
h. in terms of certainty of being the parent
86) What are some climate cues that may initiate mating behavior?
87) What are some social cues that may initiate mating behavior?
88) What do the climate and social cues actually prompt?
89) How does sexual selection differ from natural selection?
90) What are the two types of sexual selection and how do they differ?
91) Describe monogamy.
92) Describe polygyny.
93) Describe polyandry.
94) Which of these mating systems …
i. is rarest?
j. is common in birds?
k. is common in mammals?
l. involves males caring for offspring?
m. involves the sharing of parental duties?
95) Describe the reproductive strategy of k-selected species?
96) Describe the reproductive strategy of r-selected species?
97) Under what environmental situation do K-selected species thrive?
98) Under what environmental situation do R-selected species thrive?