Animal Behavior (BIOL 408) Dr. Gene Sattler
Liberty University
Study Guide – Exam II Definitions
Chapter 5 – The Organization of Behavior
neural command center: a neural cluster(s) with primary responsibility for the control of a particular behavioral
activity. Neural clusters can communicate with each other and suppress one another in hierarchal fashion to
prioritize behavior.
Biological clock/biorhythm: an internal physiological mechanism that enables an organism to time its biological
processes and activities.
Circadian rhythm: a daily rhythm (human sleep/activity, body temperature)
Circannual rhythm: yearly rhythms (reproduction, migration/hibernation, molting/shedding)
Ultradian rhythm/epicycle: short rhythms, such as feeding activity in Euglena or vole activity. Usually it lasts
minutes/hours.
Exogenous control: external control of behavior timing
Endogenous control: internal control of behavior timing
Entrainment: a process in which a biological clock is set or reset by synchronization with the period of an
exogenous, environmental stimulus (fireflies synchronizing their flashing)
Hormone: chemical messenger that travels through the body to control how cells and organs function.
Organizational effect:
Activational effect:
Associated reproductive pattern: gamete production and mating are associated (sex hormones that trigger gamete
production typically also regular reproductive behavior like territoriality and mating, adaptive in synchronizing
reproductive behavior and physiology)
Disassociated reproductive pattern: gamete production and mating are not associated (a lack of synchronization
between reproductive physiology and behavior)
Chapter 6 – The Adaptationist Approach
Adaptation: a hereditary trait favored by natural selection.
Fitness: a measure of the reproductive or genetic success of an individual.
Comparative method: a procedure for testing evolutionary hypotheses based on disciplined comparisons among
species of known evolutionary relationships.
Game theory: costs/benefits vary depending on the actions of other individuals in competitive situations.
Darwinian Puzzle: a trait that appears to reduce the fitness of individuals who possess it; traits of this sort attract
the attention of evolutionary biologists.
Pleiotropy: the capacity of a gene to have multiple developmental effects on individuals.
Chapter 7 – Feeding Behavior
Search image: learning mechanism that improves a predator’s efficiency in recognizing desirable prey. Resource
partitioning: dividing resources to avoid competition.
Territoriality: defense of a resource.
Disruptive coloration: patterns that break up animals’ outline, which makes detection more difficult
Countershading: white below/dark above (less contrast, less visible from above and from below)
Risk-sensitive behavior: the adjustment of behavior to take into account variable levels of predation (or other)
risk.
Distraction display: parental display to lure predator from young.
Aposmatic coloration: (warning) coloration, warns predators that the animal is toxic.
Mullerian mimicry: several undesirable species converge in coloration for protection.
Batesian mimicry: a desirable species mimics an undesirable species for protection.
Stotting: solitary Thomson’s gazelle jumps stiffly prior to cheetah attach.
Vigilance behavior: a predator is detected sooner in a larger group (more eyes)
Him-first effect: the odds of being targeted decrease with group size, and dominants can take advantage of safer
foraging/nesting sites.
Dilution effect: predators restricted to taking advantage of a smaller proportion of prey as group size increases
Confusion effect: prey’s rush for safety confuses the predator.
Chapter 5 – Organization of Behavior
1. Understand that there are three primary systems that organize the behavior that is produced by the
nervous system as its sensory receptors collect information, the central nervous system processes it, and the
motor system executes a response. Neural command centers, biorhythms, and the endocrine or hormonal
system each helps organize and prioritize behaviors so that they occur at the proper time and do not conflict.
2. Be able to describe what a neural command center is and how it operates, using either the praying mantis
or the blowfly and experiments performed on them as an example.
A neural command center is a neural cluster with the primary responsibility for the control of a particular
neural activity.
For the blowfly, sensors on the legs activate a feeding response when stimulated by sugar. When the crop is
full, the feeding stops. Cutting a nerve between the foregut and brain causes the fly to feed until its gut explodes.
Food in the full crop backs up to the foregut, stretch receptors in the full foregut send signals to the brain
inhibiting the feeding response.
For the praying mantis, cutting a link between the brain and body affected walking and grasping, and
cutting the link between suboesophageal ganglion and the rest of the body resulted in no movement. Thus, the
suboesophageal ganglion sends out commands for various behaviors, and the protocerebral ganglion inhibits most
of these behaviors so that the appropriate behavior for the moment is permitted.
3. Be able to identify the five types of biorhythms that biologists recognize, specifying the period or length of
each.
Also be able to provide an example of an organism and its behavior that is recognized by that type of
biorhythm.
5 types of rhythms:
1. Circadian – daily (human sleep)
2. Circannual – yearly (migration and hibernation)
3. Tidal – every 12 hours (crabs feeding in tidal zone, not stranded out of burrows when tide comes in)
4. Lunar/semilunar – 29.4/14.7 days (kangaroo rat activity, do not forage when there is a full moon)
5. Ultradian – short duration, like minutes/hours (euglena feeding activity)
4. The grunion and a species of midge each relies on a semilunar biorhythm to successfully complete its
reproductive cycle. Be able to describe how this is accomplished for each.
Grunion spawn every 14 days, the eggs are laid right after a high spring tide at the highest spot on the
beach, for 3-4 nights. Then the eggs have a full 10 days before the next spring tide triggers their
hatch.
The midge eggs are laid at the lowest tide, they hatch, grow, and pupate under sand in water. Then two
weeks later they emerge, mate, and lay eggs during two hours of next low
tide.
5. Are biorhythms under exogenous or endogenous control? Be prepared to identify four different types
of
experiments that demonstrate this, describing a specific experiment for each and its results as
evidence.
Biorhythms are under endogenous control.
1.Constant
environment
- Crickets still call
when it should
be night, even
if its light out.
- Ground squirrel
hibernation (they
still hibernate
despite constant
temperature, not
being able to see,
food sources constant, etc.)
2. Translocating animals to
different environmental cues
- Honeybee foraging (the bees were moved from
Paris to New York, they maintained foraging
schedule
and gradually shifted to local time)
3
.
Natural
variatio
n
- Rattlesnakes vs.
humans (23
hours and 10
minutes
schedule vs. 24
hours and 33
minutes
schedule)
4
.
Genetic
mutation
s in
individua
ls
- Drosophila per
gene, 19-hour vs
28-hour vs
arrhythmic, can
influence by
artificial
selection
6. Be able to
identify the five
classes of
environmental cues
that are responsible
for entraining
behaviors and be
able to
give an
illustratio
n of each.
1.Photo
period
(migra
tion)
2.Temper
ature
(ectoth
erm’s
activity
)
3.Food
(winter
finch
migrati
on)
4.Tidal and
lunar
cycles
(kangaroo
rat
activity)
5.Social
cues
(ring
dove
breedin
g, light
testost
erone,
courtsh
ip)
7. In some organisms, both unicellular and multicellular, individual cells are under the control of a biological clock.
However, in many multicellular organisms, a master clock synchronizes these individual cellular clocks. Also,
where light acts to entrain the master clock, the photoreceptors involved are not always necessarily in the eyes.
Be able to describe one experiment that demonstrates that the location of both the master clock and the
photoreceptors are in the brain. Also be able to describe another experiment that demonstrates that the
location of the master clock is in the brain while the photoreceptors are in the eyes.
Both in brain: in silkworms, they switched the brains of two different species, their rhythms switched. Then
they moved the brain to the abdomen, and they still emerged at the proper
time.
Clock in brain and receptors in eyes: cockroach and cricket, if optic lobe of brain is destroyed, arrhythmic.
If optic nerve from eye to optic lobe of brain is cut, also
arrhythmic.
8. Be able to identify three advantages that an endogenous clock gives an animal, providing an example for each.
1. Allows for anticipation of environmental change that can be prepared for (winter hibernation, migration)
2. Allows for behavior to be synchronized with an environmental factor that cannot be directly sensed by
animal (moths emerge when air = moist)
3. Provides a continuous measure of time that allows orientation that compensates for the passage of time
(bees communicating the location of a food source, taking into account sun movement)
9. Be able to describe and illustrate the difference between organizational and activational effects of hormones.
Organizational effects: hormone effect during a critical developmental period produce permanent changes
(androgens present in male embryos, absent in female
embryos)
Activational effects: hormones act as a trigger of behaviors (testosterone causing aggression + courtship)
10. Be able to describe and illustrate the difference between an associated and a disassociated reproductive
pattern.
Which is more typical, and under what conditions does each
occur?
Associated reproductive pattern: gamete reproduction and mating are associated (more typical)
Disassociated reproductive pattern: gamete reproductive and mating are NOT associated (occurs when mating
season is so short and temperature is a
factor)
Chapter 6 – The Adaptationist Approach
1. Both the word “adaptation” and its definition as given in our textbook imply something about the origin of an
adaptation. What is that? How would we disagree, even though we would still be able to test the hypothesis
that it has a function by increasing fitness?
Adaption occurs because of evolution and natural selection. We would agree that this is microevolution to
increase
the fitness of an animal because God gave animals the ability to change to best fit
them.
2. Adaptations are not necessarily 100% effective or perfect. Our textbook gave three reasons (constraints) why
this might not be so. Be able to describe what these three constraints are; that is how they could prevent an
“adaptation” from being 100 % effective. Also be able to describe the fourth constraint that can be
recognized from a biblical/creationist perspective.
1. Failure of appropriate mutations to occur
- When appropriate mutations fail to occur, this prevents natural selection from keeping up with
environmental change
- Maladaptive or nonadaptive traits persist
- Man-made changes in the environment are especially likely to lead to inappropriate expression of
previously adapted traits
-Might not occur as needed, selection has to “wait”
2. Pleiotropy
- Pleiotropy is the multiple developmental effects that most genes have
- As a result of this, developmental constraints on adaptive perfection can occur
- If the negative consequences of a gene outweigh the positive ones, then it will be selected against.
- But if the positive effects outweigh the negative effects, then some less significant/mild side effects
may be allowed to persist.
3. Coevolution
- This is the kind of evolution that occurs when different species interact in ways that affect the fitness of
each other’s members
- Means that evolutionary stability may never be reached
- Instead, species change in response to selection pressure imposed by the other, so first one and then
the other species gain the upper hand, “arms race” between predator and prey.
- The inability of selective processes to generate an immediate effective solution to an environmental
problem means that less than perfect traits can persist within a species.
4. The Fall
- The biological world is not perfect.
3. We discussed four methods for testing the hypothesis that a particular behavior is an adaptation, using a
handout as a basis for our discussion. Be able to describe these four different methods, and to give an example of
each.
Confirmation of benefit predictions (mobbing).
Comparative method (divergent evolution – mobbing and kittiwakes, and convergent evolution –mobbing and
bank swallows).
Optimality theory – comparisons of costs to benefits (foraging decisions).
Game theory – cost and benefits rely on the actions of other individuals in competitive situations (owners of a
territory have an advantage because of their familiarity to the area and environment).
Chapter 7 – Feeding Behavior
1. Be able to give an example of an animal using an indirect cue to find food.
Honeybees dance to show where the flowers are, and how far they are from the hive, based on the position
of the
sun.
2. Be familiar with some examples of animals that use either traps or deceit in order to increase their efficiency
in
finding food.
Angler fish use a special extension on their head to lure food, such as shrimp, because they think its
something they can
eat.
Lion ants dig holes in the sand and burrow themselves at the bottom. When another ant or bug falls in, they
throw sand at them to keep them from getting out and then they eat
them.
3. Be familiar with some examples of animals that increase their efficiency in capturing or collecting food by
hunting socially and be able to give three advantages of social hunting.
Examples of animals that use social hunting: social spiders, social carnivores like lions, hyenas, and wolves,
army ants, killer whales, Harris’ hawks, and chimpanzees.
Advantages of social hunting:
1. More success/efficiency
2. Larger prey taken
3. Prey more easily captured
So basically, the overall effect is that there is MORE EFFICIENCY WITH SOCIAL HUNTING, and this means that there
are two effects: 1. LARGER PREY TAKEN and 2. PREY MORE EASILY CAPTURED
4. Presented with data on either crows dropping clams or chickadees feeding on sunflower seeds at different
feeders, be able to explain from the data how they are acting in an adaptive way in their consumption of food.
Crows drop the optimal size (large) from the optimal height (5 meters) so that they don’t expend too much
energy to crack them
open.
Chickadees may choose seeds that are higher in calories if they are harder to break, and from feeders in
optimal
locations.
5. Be able to give several examples of different ways that animals decrease the ability of predators to detect
them.
1. Camouflage
2. Disruptive color patterns
3. Countershading
4. Remaining motionless/freezing
5. Distraction displays
6. Risk-sensitive behavior (gerbils forage less when there is a full moon)
6. Be able to give a few examples of different ways that animals decrease the chances that they will be captured if
a predator does attack them.
1. Aposematic coloring (Mullerian and Batesian mimicry)
2. Rapid escape
3. Eye spots (cause a startle reaction)
4. Misdirected attack (lizard tails, hairstreak butterflies)
5. Vigilance effect
6. Him-first effect
7. Dilution effect
8. Confusion effect
9. Mobbing
7. Be familiar with three ways an animal might make it harder for a predator to consume it once captured.
1. Adhesives (salamanders and banana slugs)
2. Toxins (advertised by aposematic coloring)
3. Attraction of another predator (rabbits alarm scream)
8. Be able to describe a hypothetical scenario that has been suggested for the evolution of the honeybee dance
and
be able to offer a couple of counter arguments as to why this is not necessarily how this behavior
originated.
First it began with no direction/distance and just arousal of hive by running and buzzing and flower odor
providing the only clue to the food source.
Then the location evolved to be indicated by a pheromone trail and arousal of hive with buzz.
Next evolved more complex direction and distance, through distance = duration of waggle dance, and
direction = deviation from vertical based on the angle of the
sun.
But the honeybee dance is well suited for each particular environment. Each communication system is a
complex trait programmed into the species. This could not have been the result of a random mutation and natural
selection—therefore this is evidence of design, not evolution.
9. Be familiar with the major concepts from the video “Hunting and Escaping”
