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4.0 Behavioural Ecology — Test 1
Q1. According to Hamilton's rule, altruistic behaviour can evolve when rB > C. The relatedness coefficient 'r' here is measured between the:✓ Individual performing the altruistic act and the recipient
Q2. Hamilton's rule for the spread of an altruistic allele is most correctly written as:✓ r > C/B
Q3. Inclusive fitness is best defined as:✓ The reproductive success of an individual plus its effect on the success of its relatives
Q4. Inclusive fitness refers to the reproductive success of an individual together with:✓ Its relatives (weighted by relatedness)
Q5. The behaviour in which an individual sacrifices some of its own reproductive success to benefit another is called:✓ Altruism
Q6. An interaction in which both the actor and the recipient suffer a cost is termed:✓ Spite
Q7. Worker bees forgoing their own reproduction to help the queen reproduce is best explained by:✓ Kin selection
Q8. In the context of kin selection, siblings on average share what fraction of their genes (coefficient of relatedness)?✓ One-half (0.5)
Q9. The kin-selection framework using relatedness and inclusive fitness was developed mainly by:✓ W. D. Hamilton
Q10. The most fit individual in the evolutionary (Darwinian) sense is the one that:✓ Leaves the greatest number of surviving, reproducing offspring
Q11. The peacock's elaborate, costly tail train is most often cited as supporting:✓ Zahavi's handicap principle
4.0 Behavioural Ecology — Test 2
Q12. According to the Hamilton–Zuk hypothesis, females prefer males with elaborate ornaments because the ornaments:✓ Indicate the male's resistance to parasites/disease
Q13. Sexual selection can drive traits to extreme, exaggerated forms because:✓ A positive feedback (runaway) develops between the preferred trait and the preference for it
Q14. In reverse (sex-role-reversed) sexual selection, where variance in mating success is higher in females, it follows that:✓ Females are the competing sex and males are choosy
Q15. According to optimal foraging theory, when two equally abundant food types are available, a forager should prefer the one that:✓ Yields the greater net energy gain per unit handling time
Q16. Which of the following is NOT an example of cooperative behaviour?✓ Lek formation
Q17. Which condition is NOT likely to favour male monogamy?✓ When the male can gain more by seeking additional mates
Q18. Which is NOT a recognised evolutionary explanation for the existence of helpers in cooperative breeding?✓ Helpers gain by reducing their own inclusive fitness
Q19. Juvenile rhesus macaques learning to fear leopards by watching adults react fearfully is an example of:✓ Cultural (social) transmission
Q20. A population characterised by a low reproductive rate, larger body size and high competitive ability is described as:✓ K-selected
Q21. Which habitat is best suited for long-distance infrasound (very low frequency) communication?✓ Open ocean
4.0 Behavioural Ecology — Test 3
Q22. Acoustic signals tend to degrade most rapidly in which environment?✓ Dense rainforest
Q23. Which observation best supports the concept of a life-history trade-off?✓ An increase in offspring (seed) size is usually associated with a decrease in offspring number
Q24. The lactic acid in human sweat that attracts the mosquito Aedes aegypti acts as a:✓ Kairomone (benefits the receiver, the mosquito)
Q25. Comparing typical parental care, the arrangement where care is most often biparental, predominantly female, and predominantly male respectively is seen in:✓ Birds; mammals; many fishes
Q26. In mixed-species fish schools on coral reefs, a major benefit of joining a larger group is that it:✓ Reduces each individual's per-capita risk of predation (dilution/many-eyes effect)
Q27. Imprinting, as studied by Konrad Lorenz in geese, is a form of learning that:✓ Occurs during a fixed sensitive period early in life and is hard to reverse
Q28. In the marginal value theorem of patch use, an optimal forager should leave a patch when:✓ Its intake rate in the patch falls to the average rate for the habitat
Q29. An evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) is a strategy that, once common in a population:✓ Cannot be invaded by any alternative (rare mutant) strategy
Q30. Reciprocal altruism, as proposed by Trivers, can evolve between unrelated individuals when:✓ Individuals interact repeatedly and can reciprocate favours
Q31. The waggle dance of honeybees, decoded by Karl von Frisch, communicates:✓ The direction and distance of a food source