Animal Behavior Study Guide
Biology 2993- A. Keddy-Hector
Spring 2004
Introduction
Animal behavior is a fascinating subject. All of us have watched some animal
show about birds migrating, lions hunting in packs, or insects foraging. Most of
these shows are rather flamboyant, and use spectacular imagines of animals
doing nifty things to get their point across. While these shows are fun to watch
and excite a broad interest in animal behavior, they do not depict the hundreds of
tedious, less glamorous studies of anatomy, genetics, physiology etc., that often
form the basis of our understanding of behavior as a whole.
Alcock’s book Animal Behavior is a meticulous book that ties together the flashy
fun experiments with the painstaking decades of research that it takes to
understand why animals- including humans act as they do. His attempt to explain
the real mechanisms behind behavior can make the reading difficult and slow
going at times. If you are not careful you can get bogged down in the hundreds of
studies that have been included in the book. Thus I advise that you follow my
suggestions when you are preparing for each unit.
Before you begin a new chapter, read the study guide. It will summarize the main
points of each chapter and/or give a list of objectives for you to complete as you
read the chapter. Please note you want more than a 1 or 2-sentence description
when answering the questions- they will serve as the basis for my exam essays.
Thus the more detail you put into them when studying, the better you will do on
the unit exams. The study guide will also list important key terms that you should
understand by the end of each chapter. A selection of the key terms will appear
in each multiple-choice section of the unit exam.
Next make your own outline of each chapter that summaries the main points and
the research that supports the points. For example, on page 65 in Chapter 3 the
book discusses experiments that investigate the natural variation that exists in
populations of organisms. Investigators use artificial selection experiments to
alter the behavior of 3 types of organisms: mice, fruit flies and crickets. Lynch, for
example, looked at the nesting behavior of mice to create strains of mice that
collected 2.5 times the amount of nesting material, while Cade altered natural
calling frequencies of crickets to create one strain of crickets that calls
continuously and another strain that rarely calls at all.
The point of your outline is NOT to list every last experiment in the chapter.
Instead you want to highlight the main experiments that support the themes of
the chapter. Once your outline is complete, compare it to the book’s chapter
summaries to make sure you have not omitted anything. If you have, go back
and rework that section of the material. Finally answer the specific discussion
questions (found after Alcock’s summaries) that I have designated at the
beginning of each study guide section, Alcock’s discussion questions are
excellent and ask you to apply your understanding to the themes of the chapters.
A selection of these discussion questions will serve as the basis a series of
essay questions on each unit exam to make sure you can apply the knowledge
from the book. So please! Go over them in some detail, and call or email me if
you have specific questions.
CHAPTER I
Alcock’s Discussion Questions: 2, 3, & 5
Study Terms: Proximate versus Ultimate Causes, Homing Behavior, causal
questions, hypotheses, predictions, scientific method, ethology, variation,
heredity, differential reproduction, natural selection, group selection, alleles,
infanticide
Study Questions
1. What is the difference between proximate and ultimate explanations of
behavior.
2. What are the different subtypes of proximate mechanisms? Be able to give an
example of each.
3. Be able to use the Automeris moths, Beewolves and gulls to describe specific
experiments that use proximate and ultimate explanations of behavior.
4. Who are the “fathers” of modern ethology and what did each individual
contribute to the filed of animal behavior.
5. Explain the 5 steps of the scientific method.
6. Describe the 3 observations that led to Darwin’s theory of evolution.
7. Explain the theory of evolution using the process of natural selection.
8. Compare and contrast natural selection and group selection and how there
two ideas affect the types of explanations scientists use to describe animal
behavior such as infanticide.
9. Be able to describe infanticide in detail using the different studies in the
chapter.
CHAPTER 2
Alcock’s Discussion Questions: 1, 3, & 5
Study Terms: song recognition, song practice, song development. photoperiod,
adaptationist hypothesis, byproduct hypothesis, song dialects
This chapter tries to dispel the notion that animal behavior studies are nothing
more that documentaries of cute and fuzzy animals, The amount of work that has
gone into avian song learning is immense- and Alcock has done his best to pare
the information down for you. Even then this chapter can be a bit daunting. But is
it an essential chapter to show you that the behavior of animals is as tied to
genes and proteins and the turning on and off of brain structures as your ability to
digest a bagel or to breathe. So my advice is to give your self plenty of time on
this chapter and go through it slowly. I will not be grilling you over each and every
brain nuclei to see if you know the difference between the archistiatum and
hypoglossal nucleus (nor do I expect you to memorize the names of each brain
structure). But I do expect you to understand that there are 5 brain nuclei (RA,
HVC, etc,) and each one has a slightly different function – some for sound
recognition and others for sound production) and that they interact with one
another in a precise fashion to produce song. And I expect you to be able to
discuss the experiments researchers have done on the different nuclei and the
affect it has on song learning or production.
Study Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
What proximate mechanisms can explain dialects in a species of bird.
How did Marler test these competing hypotheses.
What conclusions did he make from his research.
What did Baptista find in his research that agreed or modified Marler’s
conclusions?
5. What does that basis brain research on song learning tell us about the
proximate mechanisms of song learning.
6. How do male and female hormones affect male and female’s “song brain”.
7. Explain how bird song is both genetically and environmentally determined.
8. What does phylogeny tell us about the ultimate mechanisms of song
learning?
9. Compare and contrast the adaptationist and by-product views of variation in
bird songs.
10. How can use test the different hypotheses including the non-adaptation
hypotheses.
CHAPTER 3
Alcock’s Discussion Questions: 1 ,3, & 5
Study Terms: genotype,phenotype, coefficient of relatedness, knockout genes,
genomic imprinting,
The next two chapters take the two main forces that affect behavior: genes and
environment and examine them in great detail. Chapter 3 shows that a wide
variety of behaviors, from migration patterns in birds to feeding preferences in
garter snakes, can be altered by genes. Studies have shown that in some cases
a single gene can affect behavior such as foraging in round worms and fruit fly
courtship behavior. Furthermore these single gene differences (causing
behavioral differences) can lead to significant differences in reproductive
success- such as the gathering of babies to keep warm and nurse by lab mice.
Finally artificial selection experiments on the natural variation in organisms such
as garter snakes indicate that natural selection has had an effect on wild
populations of organisms by subjecting them to different selective pressures.
Study Questions
1.How does an allele specifically exert its affect on an organism (see pg. 61) and
give 3 examples.
2. How do studies of fraternal and identical twins increase our understanding of
the genetics behind behavior?
3. Black capped warblers typically migrate from Britain in the winter. Explain the
proximate and ultimate reason why more and more warblers have been migrating
to Britain since the 1950’s. Use the various studies discussed in the book to
support you answer.
4. Discuss the studies in crickets, fruit flies and mice that indicate that natural
variation of behavior exists in populations, and that this behavior can be selected
for.
5. Given the research in #4, give an ultimate explanation why we see the
behaviors that we do in natural populations instead of the extreme behaviors
produced by the researchers.
6. What do the studies by Arnold on inland and coastal garter snakes tell us
about the genetics of garter snake feeding behavior.