Animal Behavior (Bio 450)

Exam 1 Fall 2017

Read each question carefully before answering

Answer ALL parts of the question
Write legibly
If you have a question, raise your hand, do not leave your
seat

This exam contains 20 multiple choice questions and 4 short answer

questions

For each multiple choice question, circle the letter answer. Each
question is worth 3 points.
1. Which of the following is the definition of animal behavior that we are
using? Animal
behavior is
a. any externally coordinated, internally visible pattern of activity
that responds to
changing external or internal conditions.
b. the scientific study of that wild and wonderful ways that animals
interact with
each other.
c. The organized, goal oriented movement of animals.
d. any internally coordinated, externally visible pattern of
activity that responds to
changing external or internal conditions.
2. Jason Praw and James Grant (1999) examined how territory size affected
fitness in cichlids. Which of the following from their results best
demonstrates stabilizing selection?
a. Chase rate increased with territory size
b. Chase rate decreased with territory size
c. Fish on intermediate sized territories had the highest
growth rates
d. Defense behavior increased as territory size increased
3.

Which of the following would be a measure of direct fitness?

a. The number of viable, fertile offspring.
b. The number of matings
c. The amount of variation in the population

d. The amount of food eaten

e. The number of mates

4.

Which of the following is NOT an outcome of natural selection?

a. All individuals in a population have high fitness
b. Individuals in a population will differ in their traits
c. For a heritable trait, offspring will tend to resemble their parents
d. The traits of an individual can affect its fitness
e. Allele frequencies can change each generation in a population

5. A researcher uses a computer model to examine how variation in territory

size might affect the movement of an animal. Which of the following
applies to this research with respect to the 3 rs of ethical standards in
research?
a. It is an example of replacement
b. It is an example of refinement
c. It is an example of reduction
d. It is an example of regression
e. It is an example of redundancy
6. What would best describe the comparative method of animal behavior
research?
a. Researchers compare the behavior of different individuals within
a population to understand the evolution of behavior
b. Researchers compare the behavior of conspecific individuals from
distinct populations understand the evolution of behavior
c. Researchers compare the behavior of different species to
understand the evolution of behavior
d. Researchers compare the behavior of offspring and their parents
to understand the evolution of behavior
7. A researcher conducts an experiment and examines the effect of
increased predation risk on the foraging behavior of birds at a feeder. They
manipulate predation risk by playing the calls of hawk species that prey
upon local birds. These birds calls are
a. The dependent variable
b. The independent variable
c. The control

d. The treatment group

8.

Which of the following is an assumption of the Optimal Diet Model?

a. Food items have the same amount of energy
b. All food items are found in the same abundance
c. All food items have the same handling time

d. Food items are encountered one at a time and in

proportion to their abundance
9. In the Ideal Free Distribution model, which assumption does the word
Free represent?
a. Individuals experience no predation risk when choosing a habitat
b. Individuals experience no cost when moving between
habitats
c. Individuals experience no cost when assessing the quality of a
habitat
d. Individuals experience no competition for resources within a
habitat
10. Imagine you are conducting a project examining the feeding behavior of
ducks at a local pond. At Patch A you toss out pieces of bread at a rate of
one piece every 10 seconds. At the same time, 5 meters away at a Patch
B, your colleague tosses out pieces of bread at a rate of two pieces of
bread every 20 seconds. All the pieces of bread are the same size. If the
ducks are distributing themselves according to the Ideal Free Distribution
Model and there are 60 total ducks in the pond how many ducks would
you expect to observe at each patch?
a. There will 20 ducks at Patch A and 40 ducks at Patch B
b. There will be 40 ducks at Patch A and 20 ducks at Patch B
c. There will be 30 ducks at each Patch
d. There 60 ducks at Patch B
11. Which of the following is NOT true of the optimal diet model and the
optimal patch use model?
a. Both predict the behavior that maximizes fitness
b. Both assume fitness is a function of energy intake rate
c. Both assume there are no competitors in the environment

d. Both assume all food patches contain the same food type
e. Both assume that there is no risk of predation
12. You have studied predation mortality on a population of small birds and
notice that individuals in groups of less than 5 individuals suffer higher
mortality than those in groups larger than 5 individuals. This observation
is consistent with which of the following?
a. The dilution effect
b. An Allee effect
c. The selfish herd hypothesis
d. Conspecific cueing
13. A researcher studied tail flagging behavior in mule deer. She finds that in
response to observing a predator, individuals wagged their tail 90% of the
time when close kin are nearby but only 10% of the time when only
unrelated individuals are nearby. Which of the following explains these
observations?
a. Flash disappearance hypothesis
b. Selfish herd hypothesis
c. Alarm signal hypothesis
d. Pursuit-deterrence hypothesis
e. Move-on hypothesis
14. Roberts, et al. 2006 examined how male wolf spiders find unmated
females. In the results of their first experiment they found that there was
no difference between the experimental treatments of visual cues, seismic
cues or multimodal cues on male behavior for either the mean number of
chemoexplore bouts before, during or after the stimulus exposure. This is
an example of:
a. Negative frequency dependent selection
b. Negative results
c. Positive results
d. Poor experimental design
15. Which of the following was used by Dingemanse and colleagues (2002) to
measure exploratory behavior in great tits?
a. The total number of flights and hops within the first 2
minutes.
b. The time of arrival of the bird on the fourth tree
c. The time of arrival of the bird on the fifth tree
d. The degree of relatedness to their parents

e. How often the bird spent scanning rather than foraging

16. Use the graph below of the fitness of a trait to predict what mode of
selection you would expect to see acting on this population. The X axis is
trait value.

a. Direct selection
b. Stabilizing selection
c. Disruptive selection
d. Directional Selection

17. What is the zero-one rule?

a. A prediction of the optimal diet model; a food type is
either always eaten or always rejected
b. A prediction of the optimal patch model: a patch should either be
completed exploited or ignored
c. A prediction of OFT models: GUDs should always be zero or one.
d. An assumption of the optimal diet model: diminishing returns
begin at one and decline to zero
e. An assumption of OFT models: energy intake rate is either zero or
one.

18.

You collect giving up density data from 3 identical patches that are
spaced 5 m apart in the environment at locations A, B, and C. Patch A is
harvested to the lowest GUD while patch B and C are harvested to the
same higher GUD. What can you conclude from these data?
a. Foraging costs are highest at location A
b. Foraging costs are lowest at location A
c. Foraging costs are highest at location B
d. Foraging costs are highest at location C
e. Foraging costs are the same at all locations

19. In the sequential assessment model, which individual has the highest
probability of winning an aggressive contest?
a. The one that plays the hawk strategy
b. The one with the highest resource holding power
c. The one that plays the dove strategy
d. The one that plays both hawk and dove strategy
e. The one with the greatest behavioral flexibility.
20.

Carson Murray and her colleagues (2009) asked whether pregnant and
lactating chimpanzees alter their feeding behavior to compensate for the
increased energy demands of reproduction. Which research method did
they use?
a. Experimental method
b. Comparative method
c. Observational method
d. Control group method

21. Provide a brief definition of the term hypothesis (10 points)

22. Briefly describe the criteria for determining if a trait is an adaptation. (10
points)

23.

Here on campus a pair of red tail hawks took up residence a few years
ago. These birds prey upon the squirrels that are common inhabitants of
our campus. (10 points)
a. Draw a graph of the relationship between vigilance and group
size that you would expect to see in squirrels both before the
squirrels took up residence on campus and after. Be sure to label
each axis and both the before and after distributions.
b. Briefly explain the rationale for your two distributions.

24.

Mark Abrahams (1999) examined whether guppies distributed

themselves at food patches according to the Ideal Free Distribution Model.
He fed the fish at three distinct times each day and recorded the number
of fish at each food patch. He found that the model accurately predicted
the distribution of fish late in the day but not early in the day. Explain what
he thought was causing this pattern. (10 points).