Social Behavior
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101 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Society | A group of individuals of the same species that is organized in a cooperative manner, extending beyond sexual and parental behavior. |
| Are there costs and benefits to living in a society? | Yes |
| Matrilineally | most mammalian social systems are arrange matrilinearlly; mothers and their offspring may stay together and groups are this composed of mothers, daughters, aunts, and nieces |
| Male Dispersal | Because of the prevalence of polygyny, and associated tendency for males to disperse as they reach maturity, adult males are generally not related to other adults in the group. Males leave before they reach the age of maturity (sexually) and fathers leave before their daughters reach the age of maturity |
| Most complex social organizations are in what species? | Carnivores, Cetaceans, and Primates |
| Social Species | Tend to be large and have large brains |
| Social terrestrial species | tend to forage above ground in open habitats during the daytime |
| Alarm Calling | When a mammal emits an alarm call, the caller is more likely to fall prey to the predator. The predator might abandon the hunt since they've been detected (caller is selfish) Other individuals may benefit (altruism) |
| Altruistic | Behavior that is potentially costly to the individual but beneficial to others |
| Cooperative Rearing of Young | is not common but it does occur in social carnivores and some rodents |
| Cooperative Rearing of Young in Carnivores (Lions) | Among carnivores, lionesses share the nursing of cubs in the pride, and subordinate wolves regurgitate food for the alpha female and her litter. |
| Cooperative Rearing of Young in Carnivores (Meerkat) | In mongooses and meerkats, subordinate females help rear the young of the dominant females. |
| Degrees of cooperation | The degree of cooperation ranges from none to complex coalitions and alliances. In some species, kinship is important but in others coalitions among nonrelatives are also common, as in hamadryas baboons and chimpanzees. |
| Barbary Macques Bonding | male Barbary macaques have a better chance of bonding with each other when at least one is hauling around an infant. the infant is used as a social tool-- the males however also have high stress levels because the children can get annoying |
| Agonistic buffering hypothesis | where males control their relationships with other males in the group using infants in what are called triadic male-infant interactions. |
| The epitome of social organization is referred to as? | Eusociality |
| Eusociality | 1. Cooperative care of the young 2. Reproductive castes with non-reproductive members caring for reproductive nest mates 3. Overlap between generations such that offspring assist parents in raising siblings |
| Organisms that have reached the level of Eusociality | the naked mole rat |
| Naked mole rat | the "queen" reproduces, mother and young are fed (but not nursed) by male and female adults of the worker caste, another caste kept the young warm . males of this caste bred with the queen. |
| Benefits of Mammals Living In a group | Benefits from Physical factors Protection against Predators Finding and Obtaining food |
| Benefits from Physical factors | White-footed mice frequently form communal nests in winter to huddle and conserve energy. Also Bats . This benefit does not necessarily lead to organized social groups. |
| Protection Against Predators | Detection of and communication about danger is more rapid when individuals are in groups and predator deterrence may be enhanced by mobbing and group defense. |
| Many eyes hypothesis | individuals in large groups spend less time watching for predators and more time doing other activities such as eating. |
| Many eyes hypothesis ground squirrel | predators could approach within 3 m of solitary individuals but no closer than 300 m to grouped individuals before waves of alarm calls swept through the colony |
| Musk Ox | Musk oxen form lines of defense against wolf attacks. |
| African Wild Dogs | African wild dogs are cooperative breeders living in packs of up to 20. Some will stay back and protect the pups while the rest hunt. |
| Allee Effect | Minimum pack size is 5, more than that and some can stay back. This minimum group size is called the |
| Finding and Obtaining Food | Wolves and lions are able to capture large species of prey - such as moose or Cape Buffalo - that would not be possible for individuals. |
| Optimum Hunting Size | Optimum group size in lions varies depending on the prey they take - 2 lions in the case of eating Thomson's gazelle. |
| Tradition | a behavior passed from one generation to the next through the process of learning. |
| Big Horn Sheep reason for grouping | in bighorn sheep the locations of feeding areas and migration routes are remembered by older members of the band and this information is transferred to subsequent generations via tradition |
| Group Defense of Resources | Lion prides, wolf packs and African wild dogs are all territorial and will defend resources to the death. In most cases the largest pack wins. |
| Assembling Members for Location of Mates | males of several species defend small territories and display to attract females for copulation. Examples include hammer-headed bats, topi, and fallow deer. |
| Division of Labor Among Specialists | This feature is rare in mammals and is found only in naked mole rats. |
| Richer Learning Environment for Young: | This suggested to be very important for primates and cetaceans. Dependence on learning provides for greater behavioral plasticity, but it requires a long period of physiological and psychological dependence |
| How much time do offspring spend with their parents? | Large brained and highly social species of primates and dolphins spend as much as 25% of their lives being dependent on parents and other relatives |
| Costs of Mammals Living In a group | Increased Intraspecific Competition for Resources Increased Chance for Spread of Diseases and Parasite Interference with Reproduction |
| Increased Intraspecific Competition for Resources | Agonistic behavior per individual increases as group size increases Foraging per day increases as a function of group size |
| Increased Chance for Spread of Diseases and Parasites | Members of dense colonies are much more at risk of spreading parasites or disease simply based on density and proximity. |
| Interference with Reproduction | Parental care that is misdirected to non-offspring (suckling the wrong baby) and killing of young by non-parents are the biggest costs in this category |
| Prairie dog colonies | In prairie dog colonies the amount of agonistic behavior per individual increases as a function of group size |
| Frugivorous primate colonies | Among frugivorous primates, the amount of time spent foraging per day increases as a function of group size and potentially sets an upper limit of group size. |
| Trouble Identifying Young | Many species who live in large groups have the challenge of identifying their young when returning from a foraging trip. |
| Station Keeping | Most mammalian movements occur in a relatively small area such as when an individual acquires resources within its home range. |
| Ranging | includes trips outside the home range, usually in search of mating opportunities or suitable habitat. This type of movement includes natal dispersal. |
| Natal Dispersal | means leaving the site of birth or social group (emigration), traversing unfamiliar habitat, and settling into a new area and/or social group (immigration). |
| Natal Dispersal in Mammals | In many species of mammals, members of one sex disperse while the other sex are philopatric (breeding near the place they were born). Among mammals it is usually the male that disperses. |
| Causes of Dispersal at Proximal Level | an individual may be forced out by its parents or as an involuntary response to increased testosterone levels associated with sexual maturation |
| Causes of Dispersal at ultimate level | the reasons may not be so immediately apparent |
| Ultimate cause of Dispersal | the avoidance of inbreeding |
| Inbreeding Depression | It manifests itself through reduced reproductive success and survival of offspring from closely related parents compared to offspring of unrelated parents. It is caused by increased homozygosity of the inbred offspring and the resulting expression of deleterious recessive alleles. |
| Hamadryas Baboon Natal dispersal | hamadryas baboon males usually leave the natal group around sexual maturation. They usually transfer to a neighboring group with age peers or brothers. Several years later, they may again transfer to a third group. This pattern of nonrandom followed by random movement minimizes the chances of mating with kin |
| Inbreeding effects depend on | The ultimate effects of inbreeding depend on past population size and mating patterns |
| Inbreeding Immunity | Populations that have survived episodes of inbreeding in the past may tolerate current inbreeding with relatively few ill effects. This is likely because deleterious recessive alleles already have been selected out of the population i.e Cheetah |
| Northern Elephant Seal Inbreeding | At the turn of the last century it was estimated that there were only between 20 and 50 northern elephant seals remaining. Now there are about 160,000 and growing at 6% per year. This suggests a severe genetic bottleneck and a minimal amount of genetic diversity. |
| Reason for dispersal (reduce Competition) | with conspecifics for food, shelter, or mates. Most mammals are polygynous and males may be forced to disperse as they compete for access to females |
| Does inbreeding hypothesis predict which sex should disperse? | No. While the inbreeding hypothesis predicts that one sex should disperse it does not predict which sex. |
| Does competition hypothesis predict which sex should leave? | Yes, the male should disperse in a polygynous species |
| The reproductive success of males depends on? | the number of females they can mate with and so are likely to range farther than females searching for mates. |
| Lion Dispersal Pattern | males leave (usually before 4 years old), to become nomads or form coalitions that take over new prides. Competition with other males is important as most departures occur when a new coalition takes over. Some males do leave voluntarily. |
| Coalition Control | A coalition controls a pride until a new one takes over or they leave to take over another pride (usually before their daughters start mating). New coalitions usually kill all of the young cubs so breeding males usually stay until their cubs are old enough. |
| What plays a role in lion dispersal patterns? | Male-male competition, mate acquisition, protection of young cubs, inbreeding avoidance |
| Testosterone in Belding's Ground Squirrels | dispersal appears to be the prenatal effects of testosterone on the male embryo during development and the attainment of critical body mass after birth. |
| Outbreeding Depression | matings between members of different populations within a species leads less-fit offspring. . Members of a population may possess adaptations to local conditions that are potentially lost through outbreeding. Two areas may differ in temperature, humidity, or types of food and if each population is genetically adapted to these conditions they would be better off mating with individuals with those same adaptations. |
| Philopatric Cooperation | More cooperative behavior is predicted in philopatric species and especially within the philopatric sex. |
| Belding's Ground Squirrels relative | In Belding's ground squirrels, females are philopatric and engage in altruistic alarm calling, whereas males who disperse away from relatives do not make alarm calls. This suggests an optimal inbreeding strategy in which matings between close relatives are avoided, but matings with Belding's ground squirrel Spermophilus beldingi more distant relatives are favored. |
| Groups with female dispersal | Pikas,kangaroo rats, chimpanzees, African wild dogs and whitelined bats. |
| Dispersal in Pikas | Most juvenile pikas stay in their natal patch for life but individuals occasionally disperse both within and between patches of talus Of those that move 100 m or more, most were females |
| Talus | isolated patches of rock debris |
| Habitat Selection | choosing a place to live, which does not necessarily imply a conscious choice or that individuals make a critical evaluation of all of the factors. More often the choice is an automatic reaction to key aspects of the environment |
| Limitations of Choices of Habitats | Choice of a habitat may be limited by: • accessibility (islands versus mainland) • behavior patterns (i.e., prefer trees to grasslands) • predators • parasites • diseases • allelopathic agents (plant toxins) • competitors • abiotic factors (temperature, moisture, light, nutrients) |
| Determinants of Habitat Preference | 1. Genes and the Environment (Nature versus Nurture) |
| Genes and the Environment (Nature versus Nurture) | If two animals reared from birth under identical environments differ in habitat preference when adults, the conclusion would be that the differences resulted from hereditary factors |
| Nature vs Nurture study results | After this series of experiments it was concluded that: 1. The choice of grassland by grassland deer mice is predetermined genetically. 2. Early grassland experience can reinforce this innate preference but is not a prerequisite. 3. Early experience in either forest or grassland did not reverse the innate preference. 4. Twenty generations of lab rearing resulted in a reduction of hereditary control over habitat choice. 5. Lab raised stock retained the capacity to "imprint" on early grassland experience but not forest. . He concluded that learned responses were primary basis of restriction and that genetics was secondary. |
| Nature vs. Nurture study participants | three types of mice: 1) Wild caught in grassland 2) Offspring of wild-caught parents 3) Grassland mice reared in the lab for 20 generations |
| Sheep habitat Home | Sheep habitats consist of stable, long-lasting grass communities that exist in small patches where knowledge of location and predator avoidance is crucial. |
| Moose and Deer Habitat Home | Moose and deer are more pioneer species and continuously colonize newly formed successional habitats that are formed by fire. |
| Migration | Migratory movements take an animal out of its home range and habitat type and is triggered by proximal cues, such as photoperiod, that are linked to ultimate factors, such as shortage of resources |
| Migration new info | Used to be defined by round trip but now one-way travel also counts |
| Bats and Migration | As the only flying mammals bats might be expected to show long distance migrations like birds but that is not generally true. Bat wings are very effective for slow maneuverable flight but not long distance migrations. |
| Bats migration and Hibernation | Most bats hibernate. Some bat species do migrate - most often to and from caves used as hibernation sites. Some little brown bats migrated over 200 km from hibernation caves in Vermont to summering sites in Massachusetts. |
| Cetacean Migration | Most species of baleen whale spend their summers at high latitudes feeding on plankton in the highly productive waters and then migrate to sub-tropical to tropical waters for the winter. |
| What drives Catecean migration? | Food supply does not drive this migration, but it is suggested that it is to minimize heat loss in the newborns |
| Pinniped Migration | Many species of seals and sea lions migrate thousands of kilometers each year from island breeding and molting sites to feeding areas. |
| Northern elephant seal migration | Northern elephant seals make two round-trip migrations per year travelling up to 21,000 km during the 250-300 days they are at-sea. Males migrate further than females. |
| Ungulate Migration | Large ungulates migrate impressive distances as well. Barren ground caribou herds move migrate 1000+ km between wintering and summering grounds. |
| Homing | a process by which most species return to a home range, nest site or den |
| Most of what is known about homing comes from studies on what species? | Birds but enough has been done on mammals to show that they use the same mechanisms. Most mammal research has been done on bats and mice. |
| In order for homing to occur an animal must have | - a sense of direction (some form of compass) - a sense of location (understand where it is starting from) |
| Piloting | Distant landmarks have been demonstrated to be used by some rodents |
| Best ways to use piloting | This approach would be best suited for use within the home range such as when grey squirrels locate a food cache |
| Requirements for piloting | requires a mental map of the terrain but does not require a compass. In principal it could be used for longer trips |
| Another way to maintain direction | Another way to maintain direction is to use the sun or stars as a compass and maintain a constant angle to it while traveling. This requires an internal clock to compensate for the sun moving at about 15° per hour |
| Magnetic Compass | Many organisms use geomagnetic cues. Marine Species follow the magnetic lineation in the seafloor, which are predominantly north-south. Other lineations oriented primarily east-west intersect these north-south lines; these east-west lines correspond to fracture zones across the spreading ridges |
| What causes marine mammal strandings? | Many marine mammal strandings have been associated with changes in the earth's magnetic field possibly due to solar flares or areas of magnetic minima. |
| Scale color denotes | how old the seafloor is in millions of years. |
| Factors Affecting Spatial Ability | Mammals are assumed to have a cognitive map, sex differences in spatial ability |
| Cognitive map | - a representation of the geometric relationships among a home site, terrain surrounding the home site, goals to be visited, and the terrain surrounding those goals. |
| Where would a map be stored in the brain | The hippocampus |
| The grates differences in sex spatial ability is seen in? | polygynous or promiscuous mating systems, and especially those with scramble competition for mates. |
| Size of Hippocampus differences | males of polygynous species have hippocampi that were 11% larger than females whereas in monogamous species the difference was only 2% (no data for humans). |
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