BIO FINAL VOCAB
Terms
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- learning
- modification of behavior in response to experience in the environment; a behavioral change resulting from experience
- dispersion
- the pattern of spacing among indiviuals within geographic population boundaries
- Ultimate
- explanations that focus on the evolutionary rationale for a phenomenom, such as why it might be adaptive
- imitation
- learning by observing and mimicking the behavior of others
- life history
- the series of events from birth through reproduction and death
- aphotic
- a zone of the ocean where light penetration is effectively zero, and neither vision nor photosynthesis are possible
- density dependent
- any characteristic that varies according to an increase in population density, example: mortality rates that increase with an increase in population size
- climate
- usually defined as the "average weather" or more rigourously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of temperature, precipitations, and wind, etc. over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years
- kin selection
- a phenomenon of inclusive fitness, used to explain altruistic behavior between related individuals, example: an individuals alleles may benefit more from that individual sacrificing itself for its kin that by selfishly saving itself
- social behavior
- any kind of interaction between two or more animals, usually of the same species
- population
- a group of interacting individuals belonging to one species and living in the same geographic area that therefore cna potentially interbreed
- intertidal
- the shallow zone of the ocean where land meets water, which is alternately covered or exposed by the tied
- innate
- behavior that is largely genetically programmed appears to be performed in virtually the same way by all individuals of a species
- search images
- a mechanism that animals use to scan areas for a particular size and color of food, especially use of certain sign stimuli
- circadian rhythms
- a physiological cycle of about 24 hours that is present in all eukaryotic organisms and that persits even in the absence of external cues
- random
- describing a dispersion pattern in which individuals are spaced in a patternless, inpredictable way
- surviorship curves
- a plot of the number of members of a cohort that are still at each age; one way to represent age-specific mortality
- association
- the acquired ability to associate one stimulus with another, also called classical conditioning
- biospheres
- the entire portion of Earth inhabited by life; the sum of all the planet's ecosystems
- dominance hierarchies
- a linear "pecking order" of animals, where position dictates characteristic social behaviors
- biotic
- all the living organisms that are part of the environment
- ecosystem ecology
- the integrated study of abiotic and biotic components of ecosystems and their interactions within an ecosystem framerwork
- uniform
- describing a disperion patter in which individuals are evenly distributed in space , example exaclty one per square meter
- population
- a subfield of ecology that deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with teh environment
- carrying capacity
- the maximum population size that can be supported by the available resources symbolized as K
- foraging
- food obtaining behavior
- physiological
- a biological discipline which studies the adaptation of organism's physiology to environmental conditions
- kineses
- a change in activity or turning rate in response to a stimulus, that does not necessarily correspond to the direction of that stimulus, e.g. turning rate increases, but the direction of each turn is random in direction
- habitats
- places where organisms live; environmental situations in which organisms live
- landmarks
- a point of reference for orientation during navigation
- sign stimuli
- an external sensory stimulus that triggers a fixed action pattern
- density
- an ecological measure of the number of individuals per unit of space (area, volume, etc.)
- sign stimuli
- an external sensory stimulus that triggers a fixed action pattern
- migrations
- the regular back and forth movement of animals between two geographic areas at particular times of the year
- abiotic
- non-living parts of an ecosystem, such as rocks, soil and water bodies and atmposhere
- demographic transition
- a shift from zero population growth in which birth rates and death rates are high to zero population growth characterized instead of low birth and death rates
- spatial learning
- modificaftion of behavior based on experience of the spatial structure of the environment
- density-independent
- any factor affecting a population that has the same effect, regardless of population density, example: a tsunami that kills all members of a population in a certain area, regardless of how many of them are present
- wetland
- an ecosystem intermediate between an aquatic one and a terrestrial one
- altruism
- behavior that reduces an individuals fitness while increasing the fittness of another individual
- polygamous
- a mating relationship wherein one partner mates with multiple other partners of the opposite sex, but each of those partners mates only with the one.
- monogamous
- a mating relationship wherein one male and one female mate only with each other
- inclusive fitness
- encompasses conventional Darwinian fitness with the addition of behaviors that contribute to an organisms individual fitness through altruism
- clumped
- describing a dispersion pattern in which individuals are aggregate in patches
- Proximate
- the immediate explanation for a phenomemon, e.g. a stimulus such as environmental stimuli that triggers a behavior
- territories
- an area that an individual or individuals defend and from which other members of the same species are usually excluded
- sociobiology
- the study of social behavior based on evolutionary theory
- population ecology
- the study of the disturbance, abundance, demography, and interactions between coexisting population
- habituation
- a very simple type of learning that involves a loss of responsiveness to stimuli that convey little or no information
- exponential population growth
- the geometric increase of a population as it grows in an ideal, unlimited environment
- disphotic
- a zone of the ocean where light penetration is too low for photosynthesis, byt vision is still possible for some species
- agnostic behavior
- a type of behavior involving a non-lethal contest of some kind that determines which competitor gains access to some resource, such as good or mates
- promiscuous
- a mating relationship wherein each individual mates with multiple other individuals, and forms no exclusive pair bond
- fixed action pattern
- a sequence of behavioral acts that is essentially unchangeable and usually carried to completeion once initiated
- r-selected
- populations that maximize r, the intrinsic rate of increase
- imprinting
- a type of learned behavior with a signifcant innate component, acquired during a limited critical period
- cognition
- the ability of an anima's nervous system to percieve, store, process, and use information obtained by its sensory receptors
- signals
- a behavior that causes a change in behavior in another animal
- pelagic
- the area of ocean past the continental shelf, with areas of open water often reaching to very great depths
- logistic population growth
- a model describing population growth that levels off as population size approaches carrying capacity
- eusocial
- the phenomenon of reproductive specializations found in some animals, where a large group of sterile colony memebers carry out specialized takss and care for the few reproductive memebers, most familiar examples are insects: bees and wasps
- Behavior
- activity (muscular or otherwise) triggered by a stimulus, governing interactions with the environment or other individuals
- benthic
- the bottom surfaces of aquatic environments
- taxes
- movement toward or away from a stimulus
- cognitive maps
- a representation winthin the nervous system of spatial relations among objects in an aniamls environment
- life tables
- a table of data summarizing mortality in a population
- biomes
- one of the world's major ecosystems, classified according to the predominant vegetation and characterized by adaptations of organisms to that particular environment
- problem solving
- inventive behavior that arises in response to new situation
- sustainable resource management
- a management policy in which long term resource viability is emphasized instead of short-term economic gain
- photic
- a zone of the ocean where light penetration is high enough for photosynthesis
- maximum sustained yields
- a method of setting harvest limits such that produces a consitent yield is produced without forcing a population into decline
- esuary
- the area where a freshwater stream or river merges with the ocean
- optimal foraging theory
- the basis for analyzing behavior as a compromise of feeding costs versus feeding/benefits, anticipating that animals will attempt to maximize energy obtained as a function of time and/or energy spent
- k-selected
- populations that maximize the carrying capacity of their environment