Question 1

During their lifetime, many female birds establish a pair bond with a single male with whom they build a nest and rear young. Many of those females, however, also copulate with other males outside the pair bond; the young they raise are fathered by more than one male. If we want to understand the role of genes and the environment in shaping this behavior, we want to understand its:

Accepted Answer

B

Question 2

Many female birds establish a pair bond with a single male with whom they build a nest and rear young. Many of those females, however, also copulate with other males outside the pair bond; the young they raise are fathered by more than one male. If we want to understand how this behavior originated and how it may have changed over time, we want to understand its:

Accepted Answer

To understand how this behavior originated and changed over time, we need to understand its evolutionary history.

Question 3

Stimulus recognition is carried out by _____, specialized sensory receptors or groups of sensory receptors.

Accepted Answer

Stimulus recognition is carried out by feature detectors, which are specialized sensory receptors or groups of sensory receptors. These detectors respond to specific features of a stimulus, such as its shape, color, or movement, and help the brain to process and interpret the information received from the environment. Hormone receptors, key stimuli, supernormal stimuli, and fixed action patterns are not directly involved in stimulus recognition.

Question 4

Male Australian bowerbirds build and decorate elaborate structures, called bowers, out of grasses and other vegetation. If we want to understand the physiological mechanism behind this behavior, we want to understand its:

Accepted Answer

Causation refers to the physiological mechanisms that trigger a behavior, such as hormonal or neural processes.

Question 5

Male peacocks have tail feathers that make up about 60% of their body length. During the mating season they contract muscles to shake these feathers in front of females; females evaluate the feather rustling as part of selecting their mate. The _____ is the mechanistic cause of this behavior; the _____ is the adaptive function of this behavior.

Accepted Answer

The ability to shake the tail is the mechanistic cause of this behavior, as it describes how the behavior occurs physically. Mate choice is the adaptive function, explaining why the behavior has evolved or what purpose it serves in terms of reproductive success.

Question 6

A researcher is trying to determine the role that genes play in social grooming in apes (where one individual will pick insects or parasites off another). This researcher is asking a question under which of Tinbergen's classifications?

Accepted Answer

The answer of A researcher is trying to determine the...

Question 7

From the moment that a behavior appears in a population, that behavior is always used for a certain function or purpose.

Accepted Answer

A behavior can evolve and change in function or purpose over time as environmental and social conditions change.

Question 8

If bird song promotes an individual's ability to attract a mate and reproduce, then the song has a(n) _____ function.

Accepted Answer

The function of bird song is adaptive because it helps the individual attract a mate and reproduce, thus increasing its chances of passing its genes on to the next generation.

Question 9

When studying animal behavior, the mechanistic approaches that are used to evaluate causation and development are more useful than using an analysis of adaptive functions and evolutionary history.

Accepted Answer

Both mechanistic approaches and analysis of adaptive functions and evolutionary history are important for studying animal behavior. While mechanistic approaches can help identify the underlying physiological and neurological mechanisms that cause certain behaviors, understanding the adaptive functions and evolutionary history of those behaviors can provide insight into their purpose and how they have evolved over time.

Question 10

Male peacocks have tail feathers that make up about 60% of their body length. During the mating season they shake these feathers in front of females. Longer feathers produce a larger volume of rustling sound for a given shaking rate, but they are also heavier, and thus require more energy to shake at a given rate than shorter feathers. This suggests that:

Accepted Answer

There are conflicting selective pressures on peacock tail feather length - longer feathers produce a larger volume of rustling sound but require more energy to shake, while shorter feathers require less energy to shake but produce a smaller volume of sound. This suggests that there is a balance or compromise between these two selective pressures, resulting in an intermediate feather length that is optimal for attracting mates while minimizing energy expenditure. Therefore, selective pressures will not always result in longer or shorter tails, but rather a balance between the two pressures.

Question 11

Imagine that you have a cat that is purring on your lap. Which of the following questions would Niko Tinbergen ask about this behavior?

Accepted Answer

Niko Tinbergen, a founder of ethology, proposed four questions to understand animal behavior: causation (mechanism), development (ontogeny), evolution (phylogeny), and function (adaptive significance). The options A, B, C, and D each correspond to one of these questions, indicating Tinbergen would consider all aspects of purring in cats.

Question 12

Male Australian bowerbirds build and decorate elaborate structures, called bowers, out of grasses and other vegetation. If we want to understand how this behavior promotes a male bowerbird's ability to survive and reproduce, we want to understand its:

Accepted Answer

The adaptive function of a behavior refers to how it increases an organism's chances of survival and reproduction. In this case, understanding how building and decorating bowers helps male bowerbirds attract mates and reproduce would be exploring its adaptive function.

Question 13

Which of the answers below best describes the class of questions that Insel and Young were addressing when they studied the effect of antidiuretic hormone on monogamous voles by experimentally increasing the number of receptors in the brain?

Accepted Answer

Insel and Young's study focused on the immediate, physiological mechanisms (how antidiuretic hormone affects vole behavior by increasing receptor numbers in the brain) that underlie monogamous behavior in voles, making it a proximate, mechanistic question.

Question 14

Male peacocks have tail feathers that make up 60% of their body length. During the mating season they fan their tails and shake these feathers in front of females. Females evaluate the tail-shaking behavior as part of selecting their mate. Which of the behaviors below is most likely to have been the original behavior that, through natural selection, resulted in this mate choice behavior of tail shaking?

Accepted Answer

The original behavior that likely evolved into the mate choice behavior of tail shaking in peacocks is involuntary muscle contraction like shivering. This is because the shaking of the tail feathers during mating displays is a physical action that could have evolved from basic muscle movements, such as shivering, which then became exaggerated and specialized for communication and mate selection.

Question 15

Questions of causation and development are _____ explanations of behavior.

Accepted Answer

Mechanistic explanations of behavior focus on the physical and environmental factors that lead to behavior, such as neural processes or external stimuli. This is in contrast to other types of explanations that focus on innate or learned factors.

Question 16

Some types of fish have specialized cells called electrocytes that generate an electric field around their body, with which they can communicate with other individuals of their own species. The electrocytes become functional when specialized Na⁺ channels are inserted into their plasma membrane. Because sodium channels are proteins, we can conclude that the behavior of generating an electrical field for communication:

Accepted Answer

The fact that specialized channels are inserted into the plasma membrane implies that this behavior has a genetic basis. Proteins, including ion channels, are produced through gene expression, so the presence of these channels indicates that the ability to generate an electric field is an inherited trait.

Question 17

Which of the following is one of Tinbergen's questions?

Accepted Answer

All of these choices are part of Tinbergen's questions, which are the ultimate (evolutionary) and proximate (mechanistic) explanations for the behavior of animals.

Question 18

Golden-collared manakin birds perform an elaborate mating dance that includes jumping on perches and repeatedly hitting their wings together to make a popping noise. Data suggest that females select the fastest jumpers and those that make the popping noise more rapidly for mating. The _____ is the mechanistic explanation of this behavior; the _____ is the adaptive function of this behavior.

Accepted Answer

The mechanistic explanation is the ability to jump and make noise, while the adaptive function is mate choice by females.

Question 19

Which of the following mechanisms is a causal explanation for bird song?

Accepted Answer

Air passing through a bird's specialized singing organ, the syrinx, vibrates the surrounding organs.

Question 20

According to Niko Tinbergen, which of the following defines-and helps researchers understand-an animal's behavior?

Accepted Answer

All of the choices listed (adaptive function, causation, development, and evolutionary history) are important in understanding an animal's behavior, according to Niko Tinbergen.

Quiz 45: Animal Behavior