Advanced Animal Behavior and Ecology

1. What is "island biogeography theory" and who developed it?

• A. A theory about marine island formation
• B. MacArthur and Wilson's theory that island species diversity reflects immigration and extinction rates in equilibrium ✓
• C. A theory about animal distribution on islands
• D. A biogeographic study of specific islands only

💡 MacArthur and Wilson's (1967) island biogeography theory predicts species richness on islands from the balance between immigration (from mainland) and extinction — larger, closer islands have more species.

2. What is "optimal foraging theory" in animal behavior?

• A. Animals eating only the best tasting food
• B. Animals maximize energy intake while minimizing time and energy spent foraging ✓
• C. Animals selecting food based on color
• D. A theory about territory selection

💡 Optimal foraging theory predicts animals make foraging decisions to maximize net energy gain — balancing food quality, search time, handling time, and predation risk to optimize caloric efficiency.

3. What is "interspecific competition" in ecology?

• A. Competition within the same species
• B. Competition for resources between different species living in the same habitat ✓
• C. A predator-prey relationship
• D. Competition between males for mates

💡 Interspecific competition occurs between different species competing for the same limited resources (food, space, light) — the competitive exclusion principle states two species with identical niches cannot coexist.

4. What is "theory of mind" in animal cognition?

• A. Understanding how minds work generally
• B. The ability to attribute mental states to others — understanding that others have beliefs different from one's own ✓
• C. A theory about animal consciousness
• D. A measure of animal intelligence

💡 Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states to others — great apes pass false belief tasks, suggesting they understand others have different knowledge than themselves.

5. What is "sentinel behavior" in animal groups?

• A. Animals protecting their territory boundaries
• B. Individuals standing guard to watch for predators while others forage — meerkats and babblers do this ✓
• C. A type of dominance display
• D. Animals marking their territory with scent

💡 Sentinel behavior involves individuals standing guard (at cost to their own foraging) while others feed — meerkats give specific alarm calls for different predator types (aerial vs terrestrial), allowing appropriate escape responses.

6. What is "alarm pheromone" signaling in social insects?

• A. A scent marking territory boundaries
• B. Chemicals released to warn colony members of danger — triggering coordinated defensive responses ✓
• C. A chemical used for mating
• D. A scent left along food trails

💡 Alarm pheromones are chemicals released by threatened colony members — ant alarm pheromones spread rapidly through the colony triggering defensive behaviors, recruiting soldiers, and directing attack toward the threat.

7. What is the "waggle dance" of honeybees?

• A. A mating display dance
• B. A communication dance encoding direction and distance to food sources ✓
• C. A territorial warning behavior
• D. A dance performed only by queen bees

💡 The waggle dance (Karl von Frisch, Nobel Prize 1973) encodes direction (angle from vertical = angle from sun) and distance (duration = distance) to food sources — one of nature's most complex animal communication systems.

8. What is "play behavior" in young animals and why is it important?

• A. Wasted energy in young animals
• B. Practicing skills needed in adulthood — developing neural connections, social bonds, and hunting or escape techniques ✓
• C. Entertainment behavior with no function
• D. A type of aggressive display

💡 Play behavior in young animals serves critical developmental functions — predator play (stalking, pouncing) develops hunting skills, social play builds relationships and dominance hierarchies, physical play develops motor skills.

9. What is the "keystone species" concept in ecology?

• A. The most abundant species in an ecosystem
• B. A species with disproportionately large impact on ecosystem structure relative to its abundance ✓
• C. The largest predator in a food web
• D. A species that controls other species through predation only

💡 Keystone species (Robert Paine, 1966) have far greater impact than abundance suggests — sea otters controlling sea urchin populations (maintaining kelp forests) is the classic example.

10. What is "surplus killing" in predator behavior?

• A. A predator eating more than it needs
• B. Killing far more prey than immediately consumed — wolves, foxes, and leopards occasionally do this ✓
• C. A territorial behavior in large predators
• D. A type of play behavior in young predators

💡 Surplus killing occurs when predators kill many more animals than they immediately eat — wolves killing entire sheep flocks, foxes in henhouses. Thought to occur when prey are unusually vulnerable or abundant.

11. What is "reciprocal altruism" in animal behavior?

• A. Animals always helping relatives
• B. Helping non-relatives now with expectation of future return — vampire bats sharing blood meals with unrelated bats who will reciprocate ✓
• C. A type of social grooming exchange
• D. Animals competing for limited resources

💡 Reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971) explains cooperation with non-relatives — vampire bats share blood meals with unrelated colony members who reciprocate later. Requires repeated interactions and cheater detection.

12. What is "allogrooming" and what functions does it serve?

• A. Animals cleaning their own fur
• B. Social grooming between individuals — reinforcing social bonds, removing parasites, and building alliances ✓
• C. A type of territorial marking behavior
• D. Animals grooming their young offspring only

💡 Allogrooming (grooming between individuals) serves multiple functions — parasite removal, wound care, stress reduction, and critically, social bonding and alliance building in primates and other social animals.

13. What is "biomagnification" and how does it affect predators?

• A. Increasing body size up the food chain
• B. Concentration of toxins increasing at each trophic level — top predators accumulate the most toxic chemicals ✓
• C. Animals growing larger in enriched environments
• D. Magnifying vision to detect prey

💡 Biomagnification concentrates fat-soluble toxins (DDT, mercury, PCBs) up food chains — phytoplankton absorb trace amounts, small fish concentrate it, large fish accumulate more, top predators (eagles, orcas) reach dangerous levels.

14. What is "niche partitioning" in ecology?

• A. A species claiming a territory
• B. Different species dividing resources to reduce competition and coexist in the same habitat ✓
• C. Animals partitioning their time between activities
• D. A type of predator territory division

💡 Niche partitioning allows coexistence through resource subdivision — five warbler species in the same spruce trees partition different branches and foraging heights, reducing direct competition (MacArthur's warblers, 1958).

15. What is "eusociality" and which mammals are known to exhibit it?

• A. Insects only exhibiting colonial behavior
• B. Highly organized social structure with reproductive division — the naked mole-rat is the only known eusocial mammal ✓
• C. All colony-forming mammals
• D. Primates with complex social hierarchies

💡 The naked mole-rat is the only known eusocial mammal — with a breeding queen, non-reproductive workers, and soldiers. The Damaraland mole-rat is also considered eusocial.

16. What is "operant conditioning" and which animals have demonstrated it?

• A. An instinctive behavior pattern
• B. Learning through consequences of actions — Skinner demonstrated it with rats and pigeons ✓
• C. A type of imprinting in birds
• D. Social learning from other animals

💡 Operant conditioning (B.F. Skinner) is learning through rewards and punishments — rats pressing levers for food, pigeons pecking for rewards. Widely used to understand animal intelligence and train animals.

17. What is the "paradox of the plankton" in ecology?

• A. Why plankton sink instead of float
• B. Hutchinson's paradox: how can many plankton species coexist in seemingly homogeneous water despite the competitive exclusion principle? ✓
• C. Why plankton are so abundant
• D. The unusual diversity of plankton sizes

💡 Hutchinson (1961) noted hundreds of phytoplankton species coexist in seemingly uniform water — paradoxical since competitive exclusion should allow only the fittest. Explained by fluctuating conditions preventing competitive equilibrium.

18. What is "character displacement" in evolution?

• A. A species changing habitat after competition
• B. When competing species evolve greater differences in sympatry to reduce competition — Darwin's finches beak sizes ✓
• C. When a species loses a characteristic over time
• D. A type of behavioral adaptation to predators

💡 Character displacement occurs when competing species in the same area (sympatry) evolve greater differences to reduce resource overlap — beak size differences between Darwin's finches on islands with competitors vs without.

19. What is "trophic cascade" in ecology?

• A. A waterfall in an ecosystem
• B. Indirect effects rippling through food webs when top predators are added or removed ✓
• C. A type of food chain
• D. A cascade of species going extinct

💡 Trophic cascades show top predators' indirect effects — reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone reduced elk grazing, allowing riverside vegetation recovery, which stabilized riverbanks and changed river courses.

20. What is "natal homing" in animal migration?

• A. Animals born in captivity returning home
• B. Returning to birthplace to breed — Pacific salmon and sea turtles navigate thousands of miles to their exact birth site ✓
• C. A type of homing pigeon behavior
• D. Animals following parents to breeding grounds

💡 Natal homing involves animals returning to their exact birthplace to reproduce — Pacific salmon use magnetic imprinting and olfactory memory to navigate thousands of miles back to their specific natal stream.