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PNB 2XC3 Midterm 1 Latest Update
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Animals (Kingdom Animalia) ✔✔organism that feeds on organic matter, typically having specialized sense organs and nervous system, and able to respond rapidly to stimuli - this is very hard to define as there is many exceptions
kingdoms of multicellular organisms ✔✔animalia, plants, fungi
why do we study animal behaviour? ✔✔we are animals, research for animal behaviour is relevant for understanding humans, we are surrounded by animals, we depend on animals, we love some animals, and we wish to avoid others
why do we enjoy having other species around ✔✔there is a strong innate satisfaction from "friendly" species and we socialize with them
whooping cranes species ✔✔was at the verge of extinction (n=15 in 1945), and because of conservation efforts it's up to n=600 now because of captive breeding and chick rearing by hand
Human rearing of whooping cranes ✔✔used a hand puppet to feed the chicks so they don't become humanized and imprint on humans instead of other cranes. This would cause them to be unable to mate with their own kind so it is to be avoided. Humans will also dress up and show the cranes how to flap their "wings" so they will learn how to fly. Humans also built birdlike planes to lead the birds along their migratory path so they can learn where they should go as they would from adult bird
learning for chicks ✔✔imprinting on caregivers and learning the migration route from adults
how animals affect fruit ✔✔pollination, seed dispersal, pests, hunters of pests as alternative pesticides
fruit flies and learning ✔✔flies put in a chamber lined with electrical coil and supplemented with a novel smell, when reintroduced to the odour and a new one they avoid the shocking smell in the short term - can work long term as well, but they need to "practice" with rest intervals (15min). They injected the extra krebb gene and a gene for red eyes injected, with krebb genes functioning to form long term memory, having the functional equivalent of photographic memory
behind acupuncture as it's not "traditional biology", and there is not much data/facts/experiences or concepts/theories that are consistent with scientific knowledge
acupuncture experiment ✔✔double blind with random assignment into acupuncture, sham acupuncture, or no acupuncture ("waiting list"), 51% reported a more than 50% reduction in days with headache, the sham 53%, and the waiting list at 15% - no difference between acupuncture treatment and the sham treatment, so there is a strong placebo effect indicated
scientific method ✔✔observation, hypothesis formulation, testable predictions, critical tests of the prediction using properly designed experiments by independent teams - everything is done following critical thinking and intellectual standards
Massage therapy example ✔✔Observation: many people like massage therapy, but it is not clear if it reduces pain
Question: does massage therapy reduce pain?
Hypothesis: massage is a prevalent practice because it makes people feel good, but it does not reduce their pain
Prediction: people with lower back pain who receive massage therapy will report similar change in pain to those who recieve placebo
blind experiment ✔✔person who collects data is blind to subjects assignment in treatment - relevant for all disciplines
double blind experiment ✔✔both the data collector and the subjects are blind to assignments - relevant for humans only
placebo effect ✔✔expectation and anticipation for clinical improvement
Rats intelligence study ✔✔were asked to score maze performance of (fake) artificially selected bright and dull rats, and they were found to score the bright rats higher than the dull rats even though there was no difference
meta-analysis ✔✔someone collects data from many experiments and analyses the results
subjective outcome ✔✔there were much stronger outcome effects in non-blind trials with subjective outcomes
factors affecting results ✔✔placebo effect, spontaneous improvement ("chance" improvement), statistical regression to the mean, biases, and co-interventions
afterwards), some reproduce, however all will age and die - focuses on survival, growth, aging, and reproduction
fitness ✔✔how well an organism can survive and reproduce in its environment - function of survival and reproduction
aggression ✔✔typically involves fighting for access to better quality or safer food sources, or access to females
turtles mortality ✔✔high mortality rate after hatching, predators are sea-birds, vultures, mammals, and crabs - very small proportion of hatchlings reach sexual maturity
Non-random mortality ✔✔fastest and strongest are more likely to survive
Grizzly bears ✔✔need around 100kg in fat for hibernation, eat roots, grass, dead animals, live mammals, fish, clams, and berries, there is then no weight gain for 4 months after hibernation (may not be enough food, and they need to stay agile) - when there is lots of food, the grizzlies discard the less rich food and consume the brain and eggs which are rich in fat and nutrients
flies courting ✔✔males go through a courtship ritual involving following them and singing, and the female may then accept the male as a mate
mechanisms that change behaviour over time ✔✔evolution and learning
mechanisms that change anatomical, morphological and physiological traits ✔✔Evolution, experienced based adaptation, and age related changes
Evolution ✔✔change over generations in the proportion of individual organisms differing genetically in one or more traits
evolution of bacteria experiment ✔✔very large dish (120x60 cm) where they placed antibiotics at different concentrations, overtime the bacteria evolved higher resistance to the antibiotic so they could live in the highest concentration areas
Galapagos island finches ✔✔group of finches arrived from the mainland and overtime split into many different species
dogs and may be selected for general activity, obedience training, concentration, affection demand, aggression towards other dogs, anxiety, and interest in targets
fruit flies aggression ✔✔fight for access to mates, researchers selected for increased aggression in two lines, and they had 2 control lines where nothing was selected for, results showed that there is a dramatic increase after only 10 generations for both aggression lines, and aggression continued to increase after 20. Control groups so no increase
heritibility ✔✔contribution of genes to the observed variation in a trait (Intelligence, athletic ability, shyness, food preference, aggression)
differences between natural and artificial selection ✔✔In natural selection, the variation in reproductive success (fitness) is determined naturally, while in artificial selection it is determined by humans
fitness is determined by ✔✔lifetime reproductive success, which is a product of reproductive rate and length of reproductive lifespan
frequency distribution for red deer ✔✔35% of females produce no babies, while just over 20% produce 8. For males, almost 50% produce no babies, while a small proportion of the males produce most of the offspring
guppies predation experiment ✔✔guppies could habituate for half a year, before small and large predators were introduced, and the number of spots per male fish were recorded, in low/no predation pools, the number of spots kept increasing, but in the high predation pool the number of spots decreased dramatically - Females like spots, but so do predators
guppies schooling experiment ✔✔Second gen lab-bred fish in high predation population were always much closer together, showing evidence for heritable variation - regardless of origin, fish formed tighter schools when the alarm pheremones were present
guppies pool switch experiment ✔✔Lab-born fish from populations evolving in high predation pools and lab-born fish from populations evolving in low predation pools were placed in a high predation environment - results showed that evolutionarily high predation fish had higher survival under high predation
polygenic ✔✔many traits are involved in the trait's expression
Bees age experiment ✔✔Old or young bees were added to different colonies, and they found that when old bees were added, the young bees did not become foragers. When young bees were added, the young bees had no choice but to become foragers. So, young bees have an innate tendency to be nurse bees, but the environment also plays a role (colony needs)
Bee gene analysis ✔✔2000 in 5500 genes showed different levels of expression in nurses and foragers, and once analyzed, the brain mRNA profiles could correctly predict the behaviour of 95% of bees
For gene ✔✔expressed more in forager bees than nurse bees, in fruit flies it is known to code for an enzyme (cGMP-dependent protein kinase), larvae with forR are rovers, while those homozygous for forS are sitters - similar gene is involved in feeding behaviour for mammals
Genes and environment ✔✔Networks of numerous genes interact with internal and external environments to determine behaviour
measures of variation ✔✔Variance (sigma squared), standard deviation (SD) and standard error (SE)
normal distribution (bell curve) ✔✔a symmetrical distribution with values clustered around a central, mean value - Higher variance means that individuals are more different
Genetic variance ✔✔average amount of variance among genotypes
environmental variance ✔✔average amount of variance among individuals within the same genotype
Phenotypic variance ✔✔genetic variance + environmental variance (Vp = Vg + Ve)
broad sense heritability ✔✔proportion of the phenotypic variance that can be attributed to genetic variance - h2b = Vg/(Vg + Ve)
narrow sense heritability ✔✔proportion of phenotypic variance due to additive genotypic variance alone - h2n = Va/Vp
additive genetic variance ✔✔Genetic variance associated with the average effect of substituting one allele for another - depends on both the magnitude of additive effects of alleles and allele frequency
House sparrow experiment ✔✔collected Mombasa birds and birds from 7 other areas of varying distance, exposing them to stressors and obtained blood samples before and after - they found that during breeding season the change in corticosterone increases with increasing distance from Mombassa and that the distribution of stress hormone receptors was also biased to facilitate strong hormone response in the most distant populations
hypothesis for cortisone in sparrows ✔✔at proximate level, increased corticosterone leads to better memory of stressors, at an ultimate level, payoffs for better memory in novel areas should be greatest in edge populations during invasions
Ultimate ✔✔based on evolutionary processes (why)
proximate ✔✔based on genetic-development relationship (how or what)
Misconceptions of proximate ✔✔not "not evolutionary in nature" as firstly is can be useful to understand the evolutionary (ultimate) forces when asking proximate questions so utility may be lost, and secondly this makes it seem proximate is less important
Proximate and ultimate causation factors ✔✔Proximate works with factors that operate within an organism's lifetime, ultimate requires some inferring adaptationist/phylogenetic arguments around evolutionary forces
Proximate and ultimate linked ✔✔knowing about evolution could help construct a better proximate hypothesis or a proximate analysis may provide info to better our understanding of how natural selection has shaped factors or by helping understand the raw material that natural selection may operate on in the future
House finches colouration ✔✔males have brighter plumage coloration than females due to carotenoid colour pigments (primarily red) that are ingested
finches plumage experiment ✔✔controlled feeling experiments where one group's diet was supplemented with canthaxathin, causing them to develop brighter plumage - found that female brightness differed among females from michigan, hawaii and new york, appearing as a function of the amount of carotenoid pigment foods available and that differences between males and females within a population seem to be due to differences in how they forage, (males are the only ones who forage)
Developmental differences ✔✔may also lead to different hormonal responses to stressors, as well as affecting various properties of neurons associated with behavioural responses
Endocrine system ✔✔communication network influencing many aspects of animal behaviour - composed of a group of ductless glands that secrete hormones directly to the bloodstream (vertabrates) or into fluid surrounding tissue (invertabrates)
glands in vertabrates ✔✔adrenal, pituitary, thyroid, pancreas, gonads, and hypothalamus, which are endocrine cells which synthesize and secrete hormones
neurohormones ✔✔can be released into the bloodstream by neurons
hormones ✔✔act as chemical messengers affecting target cells some distance from the gland
Protein hormones ✔✔made of amino acid strings, can be stored in endocrine cells and do not need to be released immediately, hydrophilic and do not require "carriers", larger proteins have larger half-lives
peptide hormones ✔✔small protein hormones made of only a few amino acids
steroid hormones ✔✔lag time between sensation and production is larger than protein hormones, cannot be stored in cells and must be secreted right away, fat soluble and require a chemical "chaperone" to transport them
Hormones affect on behavioural traits ✔✔directly and indirectly (changes to cell metabolism or DNA expression), or may affect intracellular processes that can cause the release of other hormones. Endocrine malfunction through either diminished secretion (hyposecretion) or excessive secretion (hypersecretion) affects functions such as growth, metabolism, stress reactions, aggression and reproduction
Hormones secreted by one gland ✔✔can stimulate the production of another gland, such as the case of the Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis that leads to changes in behaviour
When a subordinate animal interacts with a dominant animal ✔✔anterior pituitary secretes asrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) in response to the production and secretion of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), which in turn stimulates the adrenal glands to produces glucocorticoidhormones such as cortisol, which play a role in behaviours and reduced aggression
target cells ✔✔Hormones only affect cells if they have the correct receptors
