Study Questions 2012 Quinn Section: Distinguish proximate from ultimate causation of behavior. ! !

Proximate - immediate sequence of physiological events - how? Ultimate - evolutionary origins - why?

What evidence is there to show that behavior has a genetic component? ! 1. Deprivation Experiments - prevent learning ! ! : i.e. a spider can still spin a web without parental teaching, squirrels can still bury, kangaroo rats still respond to snake predator ! 2. Selection Experiments - keep the environment constant and breed the extreme phenotypes. ! 3. Crossing of genetic strains ! ! : i.e. Hymenoptera - crossing the genetic bees with non-genetic bees. Results of the genotype happen in a close 1:1:1:1 ratio indicating a genetic basis ! 4. Molecular Genetic ! ! : i.e. Monoamine oxidase mutation - neurotransmitter is not broken down properly and results in hyperactive disorder. ! ! : i.e. Between patch foraging What type of behavior is initiated by sign stimuli or releasers? ! cue. ! ! A Fixed Action Pattern - behavior that is performed once activated by sensory ! ! : Sign Stimulus - an external stimulus that triggers a xed action pattern : Releaser - stimulus that is sent from one individual to another

What are the key features of imprinting? ! Imprinting refers to the idea of structured learning. It is a type of rapid, irreversible learning in which a young animal learns to recognize the individual caring for it. It can inuence mate choice in some scenarios. Why is habituation important? ! Habituation is the decreased response to a stimulus. It is important because it allows one to discriminate between two different stimuli which can serve as an important cue for survival. What conditions must be met in order for male white-crowned sparrows to learn their species song?

! A young male learns the basics of the song it will sing as an adult during the rst two or three months of its life. It does not learn directly from its father, but learns from the generalized song environment of its neighborhood. Differentiate classical conditioning from operant conditioning. ! Classical conditioning and operant conditioning are forms of associative learning. Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which an animal learns to associate two stimuli, so that a response originally given to just one stimulus can be evoked by the second stimulus as well. Operant conditioning refers to a trial and error approach where an individual will modify its behavior due to the consequences of it. What is the adaptive signicance of play? ! Play is a form of learning that allows individuals to develop skills through practice. Give examples of insight learning. ! Insight learning is the result of using reasoning instead of instinct ! ! : i.e. A bird is able to take out the seed by making a tool (from video shown in lecture) What does a waggle dance on a vertical honeycomb mean if the straight portion of the dance is horizontal moving from left to right? ! Straight runs to the right indicate that food is 90 degrees to the right of the Sun.

How does inclusive tness account for altruistic behavior? Inclusive tness accounts for altruistic behavior through the concept of indirect tness and direct tness. ! i.e. Sterile workers give up their life to take care of their siblings. According to hamiltons rule, an individual should help another if rB>c (r= coefcient of relatedness, B= benet to recipient, C= cost to actor). Reciprocal altruism also accounts for altruistic behavior. This occurs when both participants gain at a later date. It includes recognition, detection & punishment of cheaters. ! : i.e. Vampire bats feed on blood. They cant survive more than 3 days without it and thus if they have found food they will regurgitate to kin and non-kin in the hopes that they will be rewarded with food by other bats if they are unable to nd any. Why do some of us give spare change to beggars in big cities even though we will almost certainly never derive any tness benets from doing so we will be

unlikely to encounter them or their kin again (assume a genetic component and consider evolutionary history) ! I am not too sure about this one, but here I go. It is not a very large cost at all to give spare change, but it does result in a large benet for the recipient. Why do female black-tailed prairie dogs give alarm calls while males tend not to? ! These mammals live in large communities. When a predator approaches, some dogs give alarm calls to alert other prairie dogs to run to mounds and scan for the threat. They draw attention to themselves by calling and are in much greater danger of being attacked than non-callers are. The females are usually the ones who stay and live with their extended and immediate family. By giving the alarm calls one may conclude that they increase their inclusive tness. What is your coefcient of relatedness to your genetic uncle? 0.25 Why is group selection unlikely to prevail when opposed by individual selection? In group selection, alleles are likely to be held on a population-wide level, leaving nothing for group selection to select for. Also, generation time is longer for groups than for individuals. If there are conicting selection pressures, individual selection will occur much faster, getting rid of any changes potentially favored by group selection. How does one perform a selection experiment? ! Migrating/Nesting/Breeding colonies - perform using aerial counts ! Active Nest Counts - used for colonial nesting birds ! Quadrant Survey Estimates - plants, usually more than one species at a time is measured ! Mark and Recapture - assume non-migrating and mixing population (procedure is outlined in questions below). *I am not sure of this section, it wasnt made clear in lecture. ! Contrast instinct and learning. ! Instinctive behavior develops once given adequate nutrition, in which the performance is adequate the rst time. Instinctive behavior may change over time which is why it is said to involve learning. Provide evidence for learning inuencing instinctive behaviors. How does evolutionary history constrain learning?

! The Galah + Cockatoo might take over the nests and take care of offspring from both species. Galah raised by pink cockatoo show that they still have begging calls (asking parents for food) that matches their own species. I am not too sure about what exactly he wants for the second part but perhaps species must have certain qualities that inuence their ability to learn? Also there are genetic constraints such as inbreeding avoidance, sexual selection, sexual jealousy, and culture that can limit or shape learning. Inbreeding avoidance results in an increase of recessive alleles. In terms of sexual selection - males are evolutionarily competitive and indiscriminent and females are coy and choosy. Even when more than gametes are invested there are limits to reproduction based on parental investments. In terms of sexual jealousy, males are most concerned about sexual indelity while females are concerned about emotional indelity. Describe experiments which show biased associative learning and provide an adaptive explanation. ! There is a predisposition for associative learning that has been shaped by evolution based on genetic constraints. In one experiment, stimuli were paired (taste with nausea, sound with pain) and measured on species to see if they could learn taste aversion. Each species was fed with a novel avor and then an injection that made them sick and an injection that would do nothing. The species were then tested to see how much they would eat after the injection. When presented with the sound stimulus they associated it more with pain then they did for food. It was found that taste association is easily learned in species that might encounter toxic foods (this explains why Vampire bats took a long time to learn taste aversion because they feed on blood) and sound association is more easily learned in animals who need to protect themselves from predators - adaptive explanation. (Im not too clear on the sound vs. pain experiment) Why should prey density inuence optimal foraging by bluegill sunsh? The prey density is a density-dependent factor for the bluegill sunsh. It selects prey on the basis of size. Evidence shows that size selection is related to the optimal allocation of time for searching and handing the prey. What are advantages and disadvantages of group living? ! Group living allows for the increased success when foraging for food and protection from predators. It does have its density dependent factors however. Food or shelter may be limited, as well as sunlight that is limited by shading of other plants. If there is no shelter than predation risks are increased and the growth rate is reduced. What is Hamiltons rule (for kin selection)? *Refer to above question

Why is it unnecessary for animals to calculate Hamiltons inequality? *Dont know what he means by this What is meant by inclusive tness? Indirect tness? Individual or direct tness? Inclusive Fitness is the combination of direct tness and indirect tness. Indirect tness is the increase in ones own tness due to the survival and reproduction of their own offspring. Indirect tness is the increase in ones own tness through the survival and reproduction of their genetic kin. How can altruism evolve without group selection? *Again not too sure what he means by this What are necessary preconditions for reciprocal altruism? An exchange of tness benets that are separated in time. Helpful and cooperative behavior between NON-RELATED individuals. Flexible and condition dependent. Provide an example which illustrates high male variance (variability among males) in reproductive success. Elephant seals illustrate high male variance. Males will compete for the female harem with other males and if they win they will copulate with the herem. Usually, the winning males will produce between 80-100 offspring and over 90% of the other male seals will die without reproducing. Provide examples of adaptations due to intrasexual selection and intersexual selection. Intrasexual selection: male-male competition - males have exaggerated tratist that are used in ghting (male elephant seals weight much more than the female elephant seals) Intersexual selection: Male zebra nches have orange beaks with is favored by the females. What major factors caused the increase in brain size between Homo habilis and H. erectus and between H. erectus and H. sapiens? ! The increase in brain size corresponded to the increased food/meat consumption. The greater brains also resulted in a smaller stomach and skillful hunting. Cooking with re decreased digestive costs. How did complex foraging facilitate the evolution of human social skills and attention to fairness? (part of the answer harkens back to Dr. Stones section)

! Complex foraging resulted in the development of the hunting skill. Hunting allowed large amounts of food to be caught and shared with others if they were unsuccessful. This promoted pair bonding in humans. Despite the long developmental period of humans, interbirth intervals are rather short. How do you explain this conundrum? ! This is because natural selection for larger brain size favored cooperative breeding as described in the question. Our ancestors were cooperative breeders which can help explain the reason for menopause (i.e. helpful grandmothers) What does cooperative breeding mean? Cooperative breeding is a social system in which individuals contribute care to offspring that are not their own at the expense of their own reproduction. This can explain the example of menopause above where grandmothers assist in the raising of their kin, obviously during this period they cant reproduce. How does cooking with re help maintain the high metabolic cost of the brain? Cooking with re decreases the digestive costs to help maintain the high metabolic cost of the brain. How much affect does natural selection have on synonymous substitutions in a gene? Genes with a high ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous change indicates directional selection. Genetic drift acts on synonymous and non-synonymous substitutions but directional selection favors changes that are have positive effect on protein function and known as non-synonymous. What explains the great difference in phenotype (especially the brain) between humans and chimps when so much of our DNA sequence is shared in common? The human sequence has a much faster rate of change. There are two changes between chicken and chimp and eighteen changes between chimps and humans. There is an HARI gene that codes for an RNA molecule that folds into a stable structure. Such RNA molecules are specic proteins that regulate gene expression that is only expressed in the brain. It is associated with the reelin protein which plays a role in developing layered structural characteristics of the HUMAN BRAIN. Why is the allele for sickle cell anemia at high frequency in some parts of the world?

Sickle cell anemia selects for resistance to malaria, especially in Africa. Thus, if people live in this area, where malaria is abundant, they are most likely to survive and reproduce. Why is dark skin colour associated with the tropics and light skin colour, the higher latitudes? In the tropics there is higher average of UVMED which is the minimum does of UVR to cause redimming of pigmented skin. UVMED correlates with latitude and varies according to precipitation levels. What selective pressures have lead to the high frequencies of lactase persistence in some human populations Three SNPs have been associated with lactose persistance and have derived alleles that signicantly enhance transcription for the LCT promoter. These SNPs originated from the population of Northern Europe where milk was kept for the production of cheese and yogurt. The Vitamin D facilitated the uptake of Calcium. This demonstrates haplotype homozygosity which is consistent with a selective sweep (see question below). This data provides a marked example of convergent evolution due to a strong selecting pressure resulting from shared cultural traits - animal domestication and adult milk consumption. How can haplotypes indicative of a selective sweep inform us about a recently selected benecial mutation? A selective sweep is a benecial mutation that is favored by natural selection. If there were no crossing over and recombination then the whole chromosome would spread. When a new favorable mutation initially spreads it, it is surrounded by a large chunk of the same sequence known as the haplotype. Under neutral evolution, genetic recombination will result in the reshufing of different alleles within a haplotype and no single haplotype will dominate the population. During a selective sweep, selection for a positively selected gene variant will also result in selection of neighboring alleles and less opportunity for recombination. How have conditions affecting the range of dairying cattle shaped lactase persistence in humans? Lactose malabsorption is found in high frequencies in low latitudes, high temperature areas with a high number of cattle diseases. Why do contours of skin colour genotypes fail to match contours of other types of genetic similarity? I am not sure if this is what he wants. There are many factors that favor dark skin. Human skin is almost hairless and allows to cool through sweating. Melanin in skin

protects it from UVA/UVB rays. The UVA breaks down folic acid which is necessary for DNA regulation. What are the precepts of evolutionary psychology? Most of our evolutionary history was probably spent as hunters and gatherers. Food sharing was essential and likely favored adaptations that facilitated attention to fairness in social exchange and breaking of social contracts. What is an environment of evolutionary adaptedness? ! Human behavior shaped during long evolutionary timeline. The modern human environment is strikingly different from that which we emerged. Why do animals avoid inbreeding? ! Inbreeding increases homozygosity and thus increases the amount of deleterious recessive alleles. What aspect of polyandry that is practiced by Nyinba of Nepal makes it more palatable to the husbands? I dont have anything on this, but let me know if any of you do! What is sexual selection and why are the sexes so different? Identify the two components of sexual selection. Sexual selection is a pattern of natural selection that favors individuals with traits that increase their ability to obtain mates. There is intrasexual and intersexual competition which was expanded in questions above. The sexes are so different because they differ in what they look for in a mate. How does anisogamy explain the typical patterns of female choice and male-male competition in species without parental care? How does variance in reproductive success t into this puzzle? Anisogamy refers to morphologically dissimilar gametes that explains the patterns we see in nature. It explains why females are coy and choosy (it is energetically expensive to produce the eggs) and males are indiscriminant as they produce lots of sperm and are usually not involved with the parental care. Males are generally limited by mate acquisition. What is parental investment? Parental investment is parental time that benets the offspring at a cost to the parents ability to invest in other offspring.

Why do men seem to desire more partners than women? This is because men are generally only limited by mate acquisition. Identify an important factor that inuences parental care by Hadza men? When mens mating opportunities were low, they invested more time caring for their genetic offspring. When eligible women were abundant, less time was spent caring for genetic offspring. Why do maternal grandmothers provide so much care to their grandchildren? * Refer to questions above Why is cultural evolution so much faster than organic evolution? Cultural evolution is acquired by imitation and teaching and thus travels throughout a population much faster. How much variation is there in terms of productivity among different wetlands? Why? Bogs - acidic, not very productive Marshes - nonwoody plants, productive, emergent vegetation, no trees Swamps - productive, trees and shrubs Estuaries are highly productive marine systems. What special challenges do estuarine species face? Estuaries are the salt water equivalent of wetlands. Water ows out of wetlands into the sea which allows for a very productive marine environment. The special challenges that I have found are due to sediments that end up in the wetlands because of human impact. I am not sure if this is what he wants though. Why should one not listen to weathermen (particularly climate change deniers) who claim to be experts about climate change? They are only able to predict short term weather conditions. What main features differentiate the major terrestrial biomes? How are they characterized? Tropical Wet Forest - biodiverse, not lots of any one plant. Average temperature is high with low variation. Annual temperature is high with high variation. Temperate Forest - precipitation moderate with low variation, enough rainfall to support trees Subtropical Desert - Fairly high temperatures, low variation, and little precipitation.

Temperate Grasslands - grasses dominant life form, no trees, moderate temperature, low annual amount of rainfall, can get very cold/hot Boreal Forest - less diverse, white and black spruce, average low temp, low rainfall, most of the moisture comes from the ground, the variation in temp is high Arctic Tundra - low line trees, take strong winds. There are owering plants, permafrost, cold climate, low rainfall with low variation and high variation in temp. What is an invasive species and how do they affect native species? An invasive species has a negative affect on our environment. Invasive species can affect biodiversity by either out-competing or hybridizing native species. If a species sometimes it has the capacity to breed with natives in its new habitat. It may even pass along a genetic edge to the resulting hybrid offspring. Then both of the genetically amped-up species -- the invasive and the hybrid -- can gang up on the original native, displacing the species or forcing it into extinction. What is the general growth equation for populations? dN/dt = (B-D)*N. B = average birth rate/individual*year D = average death rate/individual*year N = # of individuals at current time Reformulate that equation using rmax to show dN/dt for exponential population growth. How would one determine the intrinsic rate of increase for a species? dN/dt = rmaxN Each species has a characteristic rate of increase (a j-shaped exponential curve). This happens under ideal conditions where a population will grow at the intrinsic rate of increase (rarely happens). A population of schooling sh was netted and 700 were marked. A few days later they were netted again and 35 out of the 350 captured the second time were marked. Estimate the total population size. m2/n2 = n1/N m2 = total marked in the second capture n2 = total caught in second capture n1 = total marked and caught in second capture N = 7000

Is exponential growth a realistic expectation over a prolonged period? What happens in real life (give two possibilities)? No, because conditions do not remain constant. In real life the actual growth with often be interrupted by catastrophic reductions in population size (not density dependent). At high population density, the fecundity will decrease. In a real life situation there is a carrying capacity which is given by dN/dt = roN * ((K-N)/K) - K represents carrying capacity. As N approaches K the term approaches 0. As N approaches 0 the term approaches 1. How does one calculate an expected population size in the future (Nt) given r? How well do data t the logistic growth curve? Nt = N0e^rt Given rmax = 0.5 per year; K = 1000 and N =900. How many individuals will be added to the population in the next year? Use the logistic equation dN/dt = r0N*((K-N)/K) Dene carrying capacity. Carrying capacity is the maximum population that an environment can sustain. What are the important features of a metapopulation? If individuals from a species occupy many small patches of habitat, so that they form many independent populations, they are said to form metapopulations. Because humans are reducing large, contiguous areas of forest and grasslands to isolated patches or reserves, more and more species are being forced into a metapopulation structure. Given enough time, each population within the larger metapopulation is expected to go extinct. The cause could be a catastrophe, such as a storm or oil spill or a disease outbreak and a sudden inux of predators. Migration from nearby populations can reestablish populations in these empty habitats. In this way, there is a balance between extinction and recolonization. Even though subpopulations blink on and off over time, the overall population is maintained at a stable number of individuals. What is the law of the minimum? Of all the possible resources, one in particular will limit the population. State the principle of competitive exclusion. No two species can occupy the same niche.

Describe three possible outcomes if two species are forced to share a niche. Species divide resources to occupy separate niches. When asymmetric competition occurs, one species suffers a much greater tness decline than the other species does. Under symmetric competition, each of the interacting species experiences a roughly equal decrease in tness. When competition is asymmetric and niches do not overlap completely, weaker competitors use nonoverlapping resources (Refer to pages 1258 for visuals) How might increased density of a population lead to increased pressure on that population by predators? When predators are abundant protective shelters are limiting. The predator to prey ratio may increase with increase of prey density. Also, predator performance may increase with practice when prey density is high. Describe three survivorship curves. Type 1 - convex (i.e. humans) : as long as we survive at birth we live a good long life and then die at a fast stage Type 2 - constant (i.e. song birds) : equal likelihood of dying at any point in life Type 3 - concave (i.e. plants, sea turtles) : once they reach adulthood survivorship is high Compare and contrast r-strategists to K-strategists. K Selection: live in stable environment with density dependent interactions and are usually large. R Selection: have to nd resources and reproduce, unstable, density independent, high fecundity, low quality young, little parental investment, reproduce early. *Humans tend toward K-selected growth but look like r What is a fundamental niche? Range of resources that a species would like to use What is succession? What types of relationships exist among members of a community undergoing succession? Succession are communities that are non-static and follow a non-seasonal and directional pattern of colonization and extinction on a site by different species. Primary succession begins with a virtually lifeless environment. Isostatic rebound - the whole area was pressed down by a glacier (the beach). Once the glacier melts, the crust starts to rise and is exposed to the terrestrial community.

Succession stages ! Pioneer Stage - not competitive, rst species that can deal with these conditions (i.e. lichen on piece of granite starts to break down the rock and make soil) ! Faciliation - one species alters the environment that benets other species, allowing them to enter into the community. ! Inhibition - if there is a species that is a good competitor, it if enters the community it will inhibit its counterpart ! Tolerance - species are equally capable of entering, it depends on the establishment time of which specie will enter. ! Climax stage - not necessarily permanent but is stable. Give an example of a Keystone predator. What effect does the predator have on the community? Why? A keystone predator is important to maintaining the community. For example, seastars feed on prey (blue muscles). As a number of seastars increases the number of blue muscles increases as well because they are outcompeting the predators. Why is human CO2 release more important to global warming than water vapour even though water vapour has more heat holding potential? CO2 release is more important to global warming than water vapour for many reasons. First off, plants intake CO2 and obviously this uptake will decline in the winter and more is trapped in the earths atmosphere. It is also a greenhouse gas that traps infrared radiation increasing the average temperature of the earth. What changes in plants or animals have been noted as a result of global climate change? Organisms are stressed by the heat and acidic increase in oceans as a result of climate change. Rising sea levels have also decreased productivity. (There are many that were mentioned in the second guest lecture) Why do rates of extinction and rates of immigration differ between small and large habitat islands? Describe the differences in rates as a function of the number of species on a large and small island Rates of extinction and rates of immigration differ between small and large habitat islands because of the balance that needs to be maintained. In small islands catastrophes would wipe out a whole population and there would be lots of competitive species that cant be maintained. Larger areas can maintain a larger number of species. Suggested a balance of immigration and extinction leading to equilibrium levels of species richness on islands

Review the question above considering the effect of distance from the mainland. Why are extinction rates generally higher, while immigration rates are lower on small islands? On nearshore islands immigration rate is very high and the extinction rate is low. Remotes island immigration is low and once a population goes extinct it is very difcult for new species to to migrate to the community. After a catastrophic event, the strong dispersers crowd an area which increases the competition and species began to go extinct. On smaller islands as mentioned earlier, catastrophic events will wipe out the whole population and strong dispersers will crowd the island very quickly leading to decreased immigration levels. Over 99 percent of all species that existed are now extinct. What factors are currently contributing to extinctions? There are many factors and most are a result of human impact. Global warming causes an increase in the average temperature of the earth which is harming many species. Many plants are forced to change their owering patterns. Also, cold loving species with range restrictions are unable to survive with this temperature rise. An increase in the acidity and temperature of the lake has also cause a decrease in coral reef species. Species that cannot change their geographical range due to global warming have gone extinct as well. Humans also have an addiction to cheap and abundant oil, coal, or gas! Humans have also impacted biogeochemical cycles affecting the water, carbon, nitrogen and nutrient cycle. What patterns of species diversity or richness are most obvious across the globe? I dont know exactly what he is referring to for this. Perhaps that there is a net increase in productivity?. This is not necessarily good because there is a decrease in productivity in the oceans. What lessons about designing nature reserves for interior forest dwelling species can be learned from island biogeography and the relative proportion of edge habitat? Devastation of deforestation results when a road or other industrial site causes the land to be cleared and forests to be lost. This causes biodiversity to decrease by breaking the habitats into little fragments. An experiment was conducted on how fragmentation

affects the quality of tropical wet forest habitats and it was predicted that fragmentation affects quality of tropical wet forest habitats. Plots of forests of different sizes were left. It was found that after cutting the edge of the forests, the trees would blow down and the edges would break off. Even after only two years there was an incredible rate of loss. Humans are aware of the global environmental crisis. What is the problem? Why are we not yet engaging in self restraint? The problem is that humans need direct experience with the problems to make a change.