Behavioral Ecology Concepts Flashcards
7 cards from real Ecology practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Behavioral Ecology Concepts flashcards as text
Hamilton's rule states that altruism evolves when rB > C. What does 'r' represent in this inequality?
Answer: Relatedness between actor and recipient
In Hamilton's rule, r is the coefficient of relatedness, quantifying the probability that actor and recipient share a given allele by common descent.
When a vervet monkey gives an alarm call that attracts a predator's attention toward the caller, this behavior is paradoxically maintained by:
Answer: Kin selection because group members are typically relatives
Alarm calling in vervets is best explained by kin selection: callers warn closely related group members, thereby passing copies of alarm-call alleles into the next generation.
What is the primary distinction between proximate and ultimate explanations for behavior?
Answer: Proximate explains immediate mechanisms; ultimate explains adaptive significance
Proximate causes address the immediate physiological and developmental mechanisms triggering behavior, while ultimate causes address why the behavior evolved and its fitness consequences.
A bird that joins a communal roost during winter gains warmth but also competes for food. This trade-off is best analyzed using:
Answer: Cost-benefit analysis within behavioral ecology
Behavioral ecologists use cost-benefit analysis to evaluate whether the thermoregulatory benefits of roosting outweigh the increased food competition.
Which parental investment pattern most commonly leads to sex-role reversal, where females compete for males?
Answer: Females invest less than males in offspring
Sex-role reversal arises when males provide greater parental investment than females, making males the limiting resource and causing females to compete for access to them.
A honeybee worker that stings an intruder dies shortly afterward. This sacrifice is explained evolutionarily because:
Answer: Workers and the queen share 75% of their genes under haplodiploidy
Haplodiploidy in Hymenoptera means sisters share 75% of genes, so helping a sister reproduce can yield higher inclusive fitness than direct reproduction.
The concept of 'honest signaling' in animal communication requires that signals:
Answer: Carry a cost that prevents low-quality individuals from faking them
Honest signals are maintained by costs (handicap principle) or constraints that make it too expensive for low-quality individuals to produce the same signal as high-quality ones.