Chapter 1 – An Evolutionary Approach to Animal Behavior

1) Monogamy in voles can be studied from different levels of analysis

Young and coworkers studied the role of the V1aR gene in affecting pair bonding in voles. Describe their studies. What basic question does their research address (causation, development, function, or evolutionary history)?

2) Darwin described his theory of natural selection knowing little about heredity. How do we think about natural selection today, now that we know much about genes and their actions?

Chapter 13 (453-465) – The Evolution of Social Behavior

1) What is Hamilton’s rule and how does it relate to inclusive fitness?

Chapter 3 – The Development of Behavior

1) Worker honey bees go through various developmental stages in which their worker roles change.

2) Learning itself can be shaped through natural selection. Review the study that compared learning ability in 4 species of corvids. What did the study show and what is the relevance of the findings?

3) Examine the study by Gaulin and FitzGerald on voles. What was the nature of the task? How did the sexes differ? What explanation did the authors provide? What brain structure is associated with this effect?

4) Review Alcock's description of the Garcia Effect (taste aversion learning). What prediction does he make about this ability in generalists and specialists and how does this explain what you see in the vampire bat?

5). What is artificial selection? How did Carol Lynch use this process to examine nest building in mice? To what did she attribute the differences in nest building behavior in the original population?

6) What is a polyphenism and explain how it pertains to the tiger salamander?

Chapter 13 (446-447) - The Evolution of Social Behavior

1. What is the reciprocity hypothesis and does it explain sentinel behavior in meerkats? If not, what is the explanation for sentinel behavior in this species?

Chapter 4 (98-130) - The Development of Behavior: A Focus on the Environment

1. What is a code breaker? How does this concept apply to the bolas spider, Mastophora hutchinsoni?

2. The moth has two receptors, A1 and A2. How do these receptors work and to what stimuli do they respond?

3. Roeder hypothesized that the firing of the A2 cell led to erratic flight behavior on the part of the moth. What is the current view about this connection?

4. Some song birds have the ability to see UV light. Scientists tested the function of this capability in bluethroats. What hypothesis did they test? What were the predictions?

Chapter 2 - Proximate and Ultimate Causes of Bird Song

1. Groups of white crown sparrows from different regions sing slightly different songs. How did Marler show that these differences were due to environmental factors?

2. How does the zenk gene affect song learning and song production?

3. What is HVC and how does it affect song learning and song production

4. What is type matching and repertoire matching and under what situations might they occur?

Chapter 6 (175-186) - Behavioral Adaptations for Survival

1. What is an adaptation?

2. What is the comparative method and how does it relate to testing adaptationist hypotheses? Be sure to understand the difference between divergent and convergent evolution.