Suggested textbook:

Chris Barnard: Animal Behaviour. Mechanism, Development, Function and Evolution.
(available as e-book)

CLASS 2011

All students who did the test passed. So you can start working on your projects. Please, contact me with your lists of references and for an appointment to discuss where you are.

Suggested textbook: Barnard: Animal Behaviour, Mechanism, Development, Function and Evolution

Topics for Ethology exam (2 questions)

1. Tinbergen’s four questions. Why is it important to consider all levels of organisation? (Give examples)
   Give some evidence on the involvement of hippocampus in spatial navigation.
   
2. What was the contribution of behaviourists to behaviour biology?
   Nocturnal moths can detect the position and distance of approaching bats. What is the mechanism?
   
3. Four day old chicks prefer to peck at green versus red insects, but peck equally at red and green fruits (http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/268/1485/2525.full.pdf). How would you study the cues used by the chicks to differentiate between insect and fruit? (Think about Tinbergen’s experiments on key stimuli)
   Juvenile barn owls reared with visual displacing prisms gradually shift their sound localization behaviour to agree with the mismatched visual scene. What is the mechanism?
   
4. Why do some animals prefer artificial stimuli over natural ones (supernormal key stimulus)?
   Give an example for Central Pattern Generators.
   
5. Northwestern crows fly up about 5 meters to drop their whelk. They repeat the flight until the whelk breaks. Is this behaviour optimal? How would you study that?
   What is the function of the “third eye” in lizards?
   
6. Theory suggests that natural selection weeds out less than optimal behaviour. Then how do you explain the coexistence of alternative strategies within the same population? (Think about the rock-paper-scissors game and give examples).
   Give some examples of magnetoreception.
   
7. What is ritualisation? Give some examples.
   The sensory world of the Naked mole rat.
   
8. What are the possible costs and benefits of living in social groups?
   What is the mechanism of the development of sexual fidelity in prairie voles?
   
9. Give some examples of arithmetic abilities in non-human species.
   What are the functions of territoriality? How do you determine optimal territory size for a species?
   
10. Why do low-ranking males stay in the lek?
    How do you explain that altruistic behaviour is not weeded out by selection.