Practice Questions for the Final Exam EEB 100

The final exam will cover all lecture material covered in the behavior half of the course (Grether) and no material from the ecology half of the course. The questions on the actual exam will be similar in format and level of difficulty to these practice questions (most of which are from past exams). Many of the questions require you to apply your understanding of the underlying concepts to novel situations. This is not a comprehensive study guide; only a subset of the possible questions that could be asked on the exam are included here. An answer key is available on the course website, but you are strongly encouraged to attempt to answer the questions before reading the key. TRUE/FALSE 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) It would make sense to say that the difference in how two species of spiders make their webs is genetic. Instincts are hardwired and cannot be modified by experience. Imprinting is a type of learning in which an animal learns to associate a behavior with the consequences of that behavior. The heritability of a trait can be estimated from the results of an artificial selection experiment using this equation: h2 = VG/VP Functional explanations do NOT imply that animals know why they do what they do. Although your offspring may inherit your good looks, it would be inaccurate to say that your good looks are heritable. The development of all behaviors requires both genes and the environment. If the amount of environmental variation in a trait increases, the heritability of the trait should decrease. The relative abundance of less profitable prey is the main factor determining whether a species foraging on two types of prey should specialize on one type or consume both types.

10) Predators can influence the costs and benefits of sociality in prey species.

11) Knowledge of the proximate causes of a behavior is essential for understanding the behaviors evolved function. 12) Animals are born with innate predispositions that affect what they are capable of learning. 13) If the heritability of territorial aggression in purple-bellied newts is 0.8, then identical twins of this species should develop the same level of territorial aggression whether they are raised in the same environment or not. 14) Classical conditioning is a simple form of learning that enables animals to prepare for events that are usually preceded by some sort of environmental cue. 15) In Fishers Runaway process, female preferences evolve because the offspring of choosy females have higher survival than the offspring of unchoosy females. 16) Sexual selection is a subset of survival selection. 17) The term female choice implies that females understand which traits are indicators of mate quality. 18) According to Trivers, female-biased parental investment overrides the anisogamy effect while male-biased parental investment augments it. 19) In species with variable mating systems, in which males alternate between harem polygyny and lekking in response to changes in population density, lekking occurs at relatively high population densities. 20) We expect the sensory systems of parasitoids to evolve to be most sensitive to signals produced by their prey. 21) Sperm competition refers to competition between the sperm of different males inside a females reproductive tract. 22) Males are expected to guard their mates when the probability of the female mating again (without guarding) is negligible. 23) When female Drosophila were experimentally prevented from coevolving with males, the toxicity of the males seminal products decreased. 24) Behavioral ecologists assume that animals consciously evaluate the fitness consequences of alternative behaviors. 25) Lekking is a type of resource defense polygyny.

MULTIPLE CHOICE (choose one letter) 26) Which of the following equations provides the correct relationship between phenotypic, genetic, and environmental variation (VP, VG, and VE respectively)? a) VG = VP + VE b) VP = VG + VE c) VP = VG - VE d) VG = VE - VP e) VP = VE - VG 27) What kinds of experiments have demonstrated genetic variation in behavior? a) mate choice experiments b) operant conditioning experiments c) common garden experiments d) phenotype manipulation experiments e) none of the above 28) The statement that lemmings disperse at high population densities in order to reduce their population and bring it in line with available resources. a) has proven to be true. b) is consistent with Darwinian evolutionary theory. c) is based on group selection reasoning. d) is supported by the finding that all animals disperse at some time during their lives. e) must be false because lemmings do not disperse.

29) Imagine a squirrel that can either eat nuts (which are high in energy), or grass (which is low in energy. Assuming the squirrel must acquire a minimum amount of energy each day, which of the following curves illustrates a hypothetical energy constraint. Intake of nuts (g) b

Intake of nuts (g)

Intake of grass (g) Intake of grass (g)

Intake of nuts (g)

Intake of nuts (g)

Intake of grass (g) 30)

Intake of grass (g)

Which of the following statements about behavior genetics and learning is false? a) The differences in the behavior of identical twins reared apart are purely environmental. b) The development of all behaviors is influenced by both genes and the environment. c) What animals are capable of learning is affected by their genes. d) Most animals can be trained to do anything they are physically capable of doing. e) None of the above.

31) Which of the following statements about evolution is true? a) Natural selection cannot change the phenotype of existing individuals. b) Individuals, not populations, are what actually evolve. c) Natural selection is a consequence, not a cause, of evolutionary change. d) Natural selection leads to steady progress toward increasingly advanced life forms. e) None of the above.

32) To which of the following situations might the polygyny threshold model be applicable? a) Male baboons dispersing from their natal troop into a neighboring troop and challenging the resident alpha male. b) Female dunnocks copulating with two different males and obtaining parental help from both of them. c) Female jacanas competing for male parental investment by destroying each others nests. d) Female frogs arriving at a breeding pond to lay eggs, in a species in which males provide no parental care. e) None of the above. 33) Which of the following is an example of parental investment? a) The time and energy expended by a male sage grouse while displaying on the lek. b) The risk to a male song sparrow of being killed by a predator while incubating eggs he has fertilized. c) Multiple mating by female ground squirrels. d) Sperm storage by female dragonflies. e) None of the above. 34) The pygmy elf shrew is an undiscovered species of mammal in which males produce milk and are the sole providers of post-natal care for the offspring. Females defend territories containing harems of up to four males and their young. Males rarely mate with more than one female per season. Based on this information, how would you classify the mating system of this species? a) b) c) d) e) polygyny promiscuity eusociality polyandry monogamy

35) Hermit crabs protect themselves with gastropod (snail) shells. Before a crab outgrows its shell, it needs to find a larger one. To predict whether a crab should stay or go when it finds a vacant shell of a particular size, a researcher constructed an optimality model. When the shell preferences of hermit crabs were tested, their decisions did not match the predictions of the model. Which of the following are possible reasons for the mismatch? a) The optimality model is incorrect. b) The behavior of the crabs is not optimal.

c) The methods used in the shell preference study disrupted the behavior of the crabs and caused them to behave sub-optimally. d) All of the above. e) A and C only 36) Male blackwinged damselflies remain clasped to their mates during oviposition (egglaying). This is an example of: a) Sperm competition b) Sexual harassment c) Mate choice d) Mate guarding e) Territoriality 37) Which of the following is NOT a plausible reason for the behavior of an animal to be suboptimal for survival? a) Evolutionary time lag. b) Sexual selection. c) Developmental constraints. d) The environment recently changed. e) Evolution has stopped. 38) Darwin developed the theory of sexual selection to explain why: a) species with costly traits have not gone extinct. b) females prefer males with particular traits. c) males usually compete for females instead of the other way around. d) secondary sexual characters exist. e) all of the above. 39) In the fly Anastrepha suspensa, males sing while trying to thread their long aedeagus (penis) into the females long genital tract. Males that produce less intense song are more often rejected by the female before they reach full intromission. This is a clear example of: a) Crypsis b) Intrasexual competition c) Fisherian runaway d) Cryptic female choice e) Good genes process

40) Which of the following phenomena is NOT likely to be a consequence of competition for mates and sexual conflict? a) Male ducks forcing females to copulate. b) Dominance hierarchies in female baboons. c) Toxic seminal products in fruitflies. d) Infant killing by male gorillas. e) Female giant water bugs stabbing the eggs on the backs of males.

Short Answer/Essay (write clearly; use full sentences except where stated otherwise) 41) Describe the two broadly different ways that antipredator adaptations may work and the logic underlying them. Explain an example (from either the lecture or the book) to illustrate each way.

42) Using Hamiltons Rule, demonstrate why it is relatively easy to explain the evolution of older offspring helping to raise their younger full siblings.

43) List and provide examples from lecture or the text of three costs of sociality:

44) The graph below shows the gain curve for a central place forager loading up on prey before returning to feed its nestlings. Label the left and right sides of the horizontal axis, as done in lecture, and show graphically how you would determine the optimal load for a given travel time. (Full sentences are not required for this question.)

Load

Time
45) Define evolutionary altruism. What, specifically, is the problem that true altruism poses to evolutionary theory. What was Hamiltons solution to this problem? 46) List four questions you might use when critiquing the methods of a scientific paper. 47) In the 1950s and 60s, behaviorist psychologists maintained that each animal entered the world as a tabula rasa (blank slate) and could be trained to do anything it was physically capable of doing. What kinds of experiments have demonstrated that this is not the case? 48) Suppose we wanted to know whether spelling ability was genetically heritable, so we went out and tested a large number of children and their parents and calculated mean offspring and parent spelling scores for each family. Lets say the slope of the parent-offspring regression line was 0.8. Would you feel confident in concluding that variation in spelling ability is 80% genetic and 20% environmental? Why or why not? Keeping in mind that these are humans, what sort of study would have to be done to determine whether variation in spelling ability is partially genetic? Explain how you would interpret the results.

49) What is wrong with the claim that natural selection favors individuals that can survive the best? 50) Natural selection causes individuals to change when they need to adapt to changes in the environment. What is wrong with this statement? Reword the statement in a way that does makes sense. 51) People have bred European bees for hundreds of years for their honey and, more recently, to help pollinate agricultural crops. Beekeepers can handle the nests of these bees with little risk of being stung. African (killer) bees, on the other hand, come straight from the wild. They are prone to attack large animals that approach their hives and have actually killed people. Even experienced beekeepers have trouble working with these bees safely. Someone foolishly introduced African bees to South America and they are rapidly spreading northward. As they spread, they are hybridizing with the domesticated European bees. The Africanized hybrids are almost as aggressive as the fully wild African version. (Write short answers to each part; full sentences please.) a) Propose a proximate explanation for the difference in behavior between European and African bees. b) Propose an ultimate explanation for the difference that incorporates both artificial and natural selection. c) Explain why it would be impossible to devise an experiment to distinguish between your proximate and ultimate hypotheses. d) Describe an experiment that would demonstrate whether the behavioral difference between European and African bees is due, in part, to genetic differences between them. 52) What are dominance hierarchies? Why do they change over time? What kinds of species typically have dominance hierarchies?

53) Darwin used the theory of sexual selection to explain, among other things, the elaborate plumage of male birds of paradise. Briefly explain how, according to Darwin, sexual selection caused elaborate male plumage to evolve in these species. Also, name two other kinds of traits that sexual selection may have produced (i.e., other than elaborate plumage).

54) Describe as completely as possible three different mechanisms through which female preferences for male secondary sexual characters could evolve.

55) What predictions would you make regarding sexual dimorphism in pygmy elf shrews (see multiple choice question above)? Make at least two behavioral and two morphological (size, color, etc.) predictions. Explain the logic behind your predictions.

56) Why are the females of most species more selective about their mating partners than are the males? Under what circumstances would you expect the reverse to be true?