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Chapter 51: Behavioral Ecology
 
Chapter Quiz
 

Chapter Quiz


1 .       Pheasants do not feed their chicks. Immediately after hatching, a pheasant chick starts pecking at seeds and insects on the ground. How might a behavioral ecologist explain the ultimate cause of this behavior? (Concept 51.1E-Book) [Hint]

 Pecking is a fixed action pattern (FAP).
 Pheasants learned to peck, and their offspring inherited this behavior.
 Pheasants that pecked survived and reproduced best.
 Pecking is the result of imprinting during a critical period.
 Pecking is an example of habituation.
2 .       Ants carry dead ants out of an anthill and dump them on a "trash" pile. If a chemical from a dead ant is applied to a live ant, other ants will carry it, kicking and struggling, from the anthill, until the substance wears off. Which of the following explains this behavior? (Concept 51.1E-Book) [Hint]

 The chemical is a sign stimulus for a fixed action pattern.
 The ants have become imprinted on the chemical.
 The ants continue the behavior until they become habituated.
 The ants can only learn by operant conditioning.
 The chemical triggers a negative taxis.
3 .       Which of the following is a fixed action pattern? (Concept 51.1E-Book) [Hint]

 A stickleback fish attacks a wood block with a red bottom.
 A hamster becomes active at the same time each evening.
 A wolf tracks its prey.
 A robin eats a distasteful bug, spits it out, and never eats a bug that looks like that again.
 A blackback gull returns to the same island breeding grounds each year.
4 .       Graylag geese learn to follow their mothers. This is an example of _____. (Concept 51.1E-Book) [Hint]

 habituation
 operant conditioning
 altruism
 imprinting
 agonistic behavior
5 .       An aquaculture facility hatched salmon eggs and released young fish into a river leading to the ocean. The fish fed and grew in the ocean, and in a few years they returned to the facility. Because the number of returning fish was low, a scientist suggested adding a chemical to the river that would _____. (Concept 51.1E-Book) [Hint]

 decrease their agonistic behavior
 enable them to imprint on the facility
 stimulate habituation in the fish
 improve the search image of the salmon
 promote optimal foraging
6 .       A kinesis differs from a taxis in that a kinesis is _____ whereas a taxis is _____. (Concept 51.1E-Book) [Hint]

 innate ... learned
 a change in activity ... a directional response to stimulus
 a response to chemicals ... a response to light
 proximate ... ultimate
 stimulus dependent ... stimulus independent
7 .       A blackcap warbler from a captive migratory population is mated with another blackcap warbler from a captive nonmigratory population. The lab-reared offspring exhibit a modest amount of migratory restlessness. This behavior, which is intermediate between that of the two parents, could be interpreted as evidence that _____. (Concept 51.2E-Book) [Hint]

 migratory behavior is determined exclusively by environmental factors
 the differences in migratory behavior between populations are influenced by genetic differences among the populations
 birds must learn how to migrate
 migratory behavior cannot evolve by natural selection
 sexual selection is important in the evolution of migratory behavior
8 .       What signals might be best employed by a nocturnal forest animal seeking to identify its territory? (Concept 51.2E-Book) [Hint]

 visual and olfactory
 auditory and olfactory
 tactile and olfactory
 visual and auditory
 tactile and auditory
9 .       Pheromones are examples of _____. (Concept 51.2E-Book) [Hint]

 hormones
 chemical signals
 visual signals
 instinctive behavior
 developmental homeostasis
10 .       Male prairie voles are monogamous. They are attentive to young, and aggressive toward intruders. This appears to be related to _____. (Concept 51.2E-Book) [Hint]

 the prevalence of monogamy among rodent species
 the heavy investment most male mammals place in parental care
 an unusual tendency for prairie voles to produce litters of same-sex offspring. In the case of males, this promotes monogamy and aggression.
 special chemicals in female vole urine that promote such behavior in males
 the distribution of certain neuropeptide receptors in the brain of the voles
11 .       In cross-fostering experiments, offspring of two species are switched early in development and reared by the opposite species. They are then compared to similar offspring reared by their own species. What is the point of this experimental design? (Concept 51.3E-Book) [Hint]

 This experimental design demonstrates that maternal care is universal, no matter what offspring are receiving care.
 This experimental design separates the effects of genetics and environment.
 This experimental design reveals the source of aggression.
 Animals that are cross-fostered will be easier to tame because they will have been exposed to a wide variety of species.
 This method can generate animals that behave as if they were a different species, the parental one.


12 .       When Drosophila were exposed to a particular odor and electric shock at the same time, they started to avoid the odor. This is an example of _____. (Concept 51.3E-Book) [Hint]

 classical conditioning
 operant conditioning
 reasoning
 imprinting
 habituation
13 .       In _____, an animal learns to associate one of its behaviors with reward or punishment. (Concept 51.3E-Book) [Hint]

 classical conditioning
 operant conditioning
 fixed-action-pattern (FAP) learning
 habituation
 imprinting
14 .       One way to determine whether or not food preferences have a genetic basis is to _____. (Concept 51.4E-Book) [Hint]

 compare food preferences of two different wild populations
 give animals from two different populations the same food and see if they eat it
 rear the offspring of animals from two different populations with different food preferences under identical conditions in the lab, and see whether or not their food preferences reflect parental ones
 bring animals from two populations into the lab and observe whether they have different food preferences
 demonstrate that there is no variation in food preference within a wild population
15 .       Which of the following best illustrates optimal foraging? (Concept 51.5E-Book) [Hint]

 A robin will repeatedly attack any red object near its territory.
 Musk oxen will form a circle to fend off a wolf attack.
 Bats emerge to feed at about the same time each night.
 A blackbird will warn others in the flock if it senses danger.
 A sunbird will defend more fiercely flowers that produce more food.
16 .       Animals that exhibit which type of mating behavior are often so morphologically similar that it is difficult to distinguish the sexes based on external characteristics? (Concept 51.5E-Book) [Hint]

 agnostic
 promiscuous
 monogamous
 polygamous
 polygynous


17 .       When animals engage in _____, they often perform displays that make them look as large and dangerous as possible. (Concept 51.5E-Book) [Hint]

 courtship rituals
 altruism
 kin selection
 kineses
 agonistic behavior
18 .       Which problem below could be explained by applying game theory? (Concept 51.5E-Book) [Hint]

 the reason that animals practice play behavior
 the reason that some species are monogamous and others are polygamous
 how a species with three different phenotypes of various aggression levels can survive in the same population
 how females choose their mates
 all of the above
19 .       Altruistic behavior _____. (Concept 51.6E-Book) [Hint]

 never occurs in natural populations
 is expected when the species as a whole benefits from it
 occurs only when closely related individuals benefit from it
 is expected when it increases the long-term inclusive fitness of the altruists
 is expected when there are plentiful resources to share
20 .       Which one of the following statements best defines an altruistic act? (Concept 51.6E-Book) [Hint]

 It immediately benefits both the performer and another individual.
 It immediately benefits another individual at some cost to the performer.
 It immediately benefits the performer and imposes a cost on another individual.
 It imposes a cost on the performer and the other individual.
 It imposes a cost on the performer without benefiting another individual.
21 .       The coefficient of relatedness between two brothers _____. (Concept 51.6E-Book) [Hint]

 is 0.75
 is the same as the coefficient of relatedness between mother and daughter
 is 0.25
 is less than the coefficient of relatedness between father and son
 is 1.5
22 .       Altruistic behaviors can be understood, in part, by considering the coefficient of relatedness (r) between the individuals involved. Assume that an individual mammal has the option to raise its own offspring, other genetic relatives, or a combination of offspring and other genetic relatives. From a genetic point of view, which one of the following represents the least successful option? (Concept 51.6E-Book) [Hint]

 two offspring
 two offspring and two first cousins
 four grandchildren
 one sibling and three nephews
 seven first cousins
23 .       The survival, through apparently altruistic behavior, of related individuals with common alleles is referred to as _____. (Concept 51.6E-Book) [Hint]

 founder effect
 kin selection
 competitive exclusion
 adaptive radiation
 convergent evolution
24 .       Imagine a population of birds in which first-year birds can either (1) find a mate and raise an average of three offspring or (2) stay in their parents' territory and help the parents raise two more offspring than the parents would have been able to raise without any help. Based on the theory of kin selection, we would expect that _____. (Concept 51.6E-Book) [Hint]

 most territories would have young birds helping at the nest
 altruistic behavior would be common in this population
 the behavior of helping at the nest would not evolve in this population
 most first-year birds would choose to forgo breeding
 nutrient cycles would be disrupted
25 .       Which of the following sayings best summarizes the idea of reciprocal altruism? (Concept 51.6E-Book) [Hint]

 A rolling stone gathers no moss.
 You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours.
 A penny saved is a penny earned.
 A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.





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