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
Which of the following is the best definition of 'reciprocal altruism'?
Answer: Providing benefits to unrelated individuals with an expectation of future return
Reciprocal altruism (Trivers 1971) describes cooperation between unrelated individuals where current helpers are likely to receive return benefits from those they helped.
Why do subordinate male salmon that adopt a 'sneaker' tactic fail to displace dominant males even when sneakers are more numerous?
Answer: Sneakers gain fitness only near dominant males and cannot monopolize females alone
Sneaker tactics are parasitic on the dominant male's mate-attraction effort; without dominant males attracting females, sneakers have no opportunities to intercept matings.
The 'eavesdropping' phenomenon in animal communication refers to:
Answer: Females overhearing male-male contests to assess male quality
Eavesdropping allows females to assess male quality by observing male-male contests without directly interacting, reducing their own assessment costs and risks.
A population of animals that defends individual feeding territories in winter but not in summer is demonstrating that territoriality is favored when:
Answer: Resources are economically defensible relative to defense costs
Territories are maintained only when the benefits of exclusive resource access exceed the time and energy costs of defense—a calculation that changes with resource density and distribution.
Which feature of eusocial insect colonies most directly satisfies Hamilton's kin selection conditions for altruism?
Answer: High relatedness among colony members sharing the same queen
High relatedness (r) among colony members means helping siblings reproduce can yield greater inclusive fitness returns than personal reproduction, satisfying rB > C.
Intersexual selection differs from intrasexual selection in that intersexual selection involves:
Answer: Mate choice by one sex influencing trait evolution in the other
Intersexual selection (mate choice) occurs when one sex (typically females) preferentially chooses mates with certain traits, driving the evolution of those traits in the other sex.
An animal that increases its intake rate during predation risk to compensate for reduced foraging time is demonstrating:
Answer: State-dependent behavioral decisions
State-dependent behavior recognizes that an animal's current energy reserves (state) influence whether it should accept greater foraging risk or temporarily increase intake rate to reach a survival threshold.