Lewis/Life - Review of Key Concepts

Review of Key Concepts - Chapter 40

Ethology considers innate behavior in the wild. The field was founded on observational studies, but today it includes several experimental approaches.
Genes and the environment (learning) shape behavior, which is usually adaptive. Innate (genetic) influences dominate when it is essential for a behavior to occur correctly the first time. Learning is important in mastering certain complex behaviors. Anatomy and physiology limit possible behaviors for a species.
A fixed action pattern is an innate, stereotyped response that continues without feedback. A releaser is a stimulus that triggers a FAP, and it may be visual, auditory, chemical, or tactile. A supernormal releaser is more effective than the natural stimulus in triggering the response. Reaction chains can form from a sequence of FAPs. Individuals can exchange releasers.
Different types of learning overlap. In habituation, an animal ignores a highly repeated stimulus. In classical conditioning, an animal gives an old response to a new, conditioned stimulus instead of the older, unconditioned stimulus. In operant conditioning, a behavior increases in frequency because it is positively or negatively reinforced. Imprinting occurs during a critical period and doesn't require reinforcement. Insight learning applies prior learning to new situations without trial-and-error activity. Latent learning uses past observations to perform a new activity.
Orientation and navigation rely on responses to environmental cues. The simplest form of navigation recognizes landmarks. Birds use the sun or stars as a compass and possibly the earth's magnetic field. Homing depends on a compass sense to set direction and a map sense to direct the navigator to a particular place. The map sense may detect magnetic fluctuations or odors.
A eusocial group has cooperative care of young, overlapping generations, and division of labor. Insect societies have temporal castes, in which age determines role in the colony.
Advantages of group living include ability to alter the environment, defense, improved reproductive success, more effective foraging, and opportunity to learn. Group living is disadvantageous because of increased competition for resources and ease of spreading infection.
A species' social structure reflects physiology as well as the environment. Many behaviors are based on communication, which may be chemical, auditory, tactile, or visual.
Altruism toward a relative increases one's inclusive fitness, thereby ensuring that some of an individual's genes persist, if not the individual.
Animals are most likely to fight with members of their own species because they compete for resources. Territoriality and dominance hierarchies minimize aggression. Threats and appeasement, diversion, or displacement responses often prevent combat; if combat occurs, it is usually restrained. Overcrowding may trigger cannibalism, which improves the habitat for survivors.
Courtship rituals calm aggression so that physiologically ready individuals of the same species can mate. Mating systems include devoted pairs (monogamy), a male with multiple partners (polygyny), a female with several partners (polyandry), and group mating (polygynandry). Polygamy is a general term for mating involving multiple partners.
Parental investment is effort to ensure survival of one's offspring and increases in proportion to how frequently a particular male mates with the mother of his offspring. Polygamous species are highly sexually dimorphic---the sexes appear different. Primates have diverse mating systems.