Terms for Quiz #2

Play Behavior (5 reasons why play helps an animal)

1. Physical Conditioning
2. Learn to hunt (forage)
3. Hierarchies
4. Gender roles
5. Mating

Habituation: when an animal reacts less intensely to a stimulus that it has encountered
repeatedly within its environment
Ex: an animal that hears drumming less freaked out as time goes on
Pavlovian or Classical Conditioning (main components) animal examples as discussed in class: a
type of learning whereby a neutral stimulus is paired with a true stimulus to cause a response,
salvation; reflex
Ex: dog with meat powder and bell, after many repeats, the dog will give a response when the
netrual stimulus is given; activates an involuntary response in animals body
Operant Conditioning (main components) animal examples as discussed in class: an animal
actively interacts with its environment for a favorable outcome; does a physical task and gets a
reward; works with aversion stimulus (electric shocks, bad taste)
Plasticity in the hippocampus: excellent mapping ability
Ex: London cab driver has to know routes and hippocampus became bigger.
Ex: insect eating bat versus fruit eating bat (fruit eating bat has better hippocampus)
Niche Rule: no two animal species can live in the same habitat, using the same resources at the
same time
Marginal Value Theorem: how an animal forages when food resources are patchy, cost/benefit
Area Restricted Search Hypothesis: when an animal is in a food rich area, it reduces its speed
and/or exhibits sharp turns which allow it to stay in the food area (facilitates exploitation of
food)
Territorial Behavior: a behavior whereby an individual or group will defend an area against
intruders, usually conspecifics (same species) (protect food, mates, sleep sites)
Interspecific competition: competition between animals of different species
Intraspecific competition: competition between animals of the same species (within a species)
Life Dinner Principle
Two Graphs: Body Weight to Total amount of food consumed & Body Weight to calories needed
to maintain unit area

Selfish Herd Principle (and also pros and cons to life in a herd, flock, or school): The selfish
avoidance of a predator can lead to an aggregate.
Ex: Sheep are fitted with GPS units in small backpacks with data loggers. When a sheep dog was
introduced, the sheep swarmed together, each trying to move to the center of the group, and
these movements created a closely packed flock. And animals spread out when there is no
predator threat to lessen feeding competition.
Not for the good of the species but for the good of oneself
Selfish Gene = use another animal as a shield
A large social group provides more eyes and ears to detect predators.
Ex: Flock of blackbirds. Difficult for predator to track any one bird and they keep precise
distance from nearest neighbors. The presence of a peregrine falcon makes flock tighter, more
dense Individual birds in larger flocks spent less time scanning for predators
Ex: Sharks exploiting the schooling behavior in fish. If predator pressure becomes too great, fish
will break away. Dolphins exploit the fish schooling behavior and actively herd fish into a dense
fish ball. The dolphins then take turns swimming through the ball and feasting on the fish.
Although there is feeding competition in a group, the close contact of a feeding group member
causes others to start feeding as well (feeding enhancement).
Pros:
safety in numbers-predators
one animal can lead others to food

Cons:
feeding competition

Dilution Effect: penguins wait for a whole crowd before jumping into the water when there is a
leopard seal there is a greater chance of not getting eaten because larger quantity of
penguins