Deck 4: Natural Selection and Behavior

Question 1

Traits that have evolved because they allow individuals to survive and reproduce better than their competitors are called

A) adaptations.
B) advancements.
C) alleles.
D) artificial selections.

Answer 1

adaptations.

Question 2

"Natural selection" differs from "artificial selection" in that natural selection

A) is capable of long-range planning.
B) is imposed by humans with particular goals in mind.
C) is not goal directed.
D) operates only on domestic animals.

Answer 2

is not goal directed.

Question 3

Passing on copies of one's genes by parenting offspring of your own that survive and reproduce is referred to as

A) direct fitness
B) inclusive fitness
C) indirect fitness
D) maximum fitness

Answer 3

direct fitness

Question 4

An individual who is "fit" must

A) have a large body size.
B) have the well-being of the species in mind.
C) live to old age.
D) pass copies of its genes to the next generation.

Question 5

Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A) Natural selection acts with the future of the species in mind.
B) Traits evolve in order to help a species survive.
C) Traits evolve only if they are favorable for the population as a whole.
D) Traits that increase an individual animal's fitness will become more frequent in the population.

Question 6

"Microevolution" refers to

A) a large scale evolutionary change over geological time.
B) an evolutionary change within a species.
C) the change within an individual as it develops during its lifetime.
D) all of the above.

Question 7

Before natural selection can operate upon a population, organisms within a species must show

A) reproductive incompatibility.
B) some variability.
C) the same genotype.
D) the same phenotype.

Question 8

Natural selection operates

A) directly on the genotype.
B) most strongly on traits that are acquired during an animal's lifetime.
C) on recessive alleles in heterozygous individuals
D) only on phenotype.

Question 9

A primary source of genetic variability is mutation. Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A) Mutation is a change in the DNA sequence of an organism.
B) Mutations are more likely to influence structural genes than regulatory genes.
C) Somatic mutations can be passed on to offspring.
D) Variation produced by a mutation is almost always advantageous.

Question 10

A diploid parent produces haploid gametes; thus, a parent that produces an offspring by sexual reproduction shares with that offspring

A) an unpredictable fraction of its alleles.
B) only a random half of its alleles.
C) only the most adaptive half of its alleles.
D) the same half of its alleles as with other offspring.

Question 11

When environmental conditions are stable we expect

A) an increase in the variation of the trait, i.e., the normal distribution to become wider.
B) individuals at the extreme ends of the normal distribution to do best.
C) the average phenotype to shift markedly.
D) the optimal phenotype to be near the population's average.

Question 12

When the environment changes we expect

A) directional selection to occur.
B) stabilizing selection to occur.
C) the optimal phenotype to remain near the population's formerly adaptive average value.
D) the optimal phenotype to shift in a random manner.

Question 13

When directional selection persists over time we expect

A) an eventual decrease in genetic variation within the population.
B) an initial response in the population to the new environmental pressure, and then a flattening out of the response after several generations.
C) the population to become adapted to the new environment.
D) all of the above.

Question 14

Gene flow is

A) a kind of genetic "leakage" within a population that reduces variability.
B) a tendency for the intensity of a phenotype to be reduced over time within a single population.
C) genes moving between two populations that are not completely isolated from one another.
D) responsible for sharpening differences between two populations.

Question 15

A particular riparian population of spiders described in the text displayed more variability in their behavior, e.g., more of the highly aggressive territorial behavior typical of desert spiders, than was usual for riparian spiders. This was because this population

A) experienced an abrupt shift in its environment.
B) had become geographically isolated from other riparian populations for a long time.
C) suffered from a mutation caused by pesticides.
D) was not completely isolated from a population of desert spiders.

Question 16

Two populations that are not completely isolated from one another may become more similar over time because of

A) gene flow.
B) genetic drift.
C) phenotypic variation.
D) recombination.

Question 17

Genetic drift

A) can be very important in large populations.
B) is a change in allele frequency that results from purely chance events.
C) is a direct result of natural selection.
D) all of the above.

Question 18

Shifts in gene frequency

A) are always due to chance.
B) are not possible, according to a well known genetic law.
C) form the basic process of evolution.
D) were first identified by Darwin.

Question 19

Traits may be correlated with one another rather than evolving completely independently. This may happen because

A) a single gene, such as a regulatory gene, may affect several traits.
B) genes for two traits may be located at analogous sites on different chromosomes.
C) the effect of such trait combinations is consistently positive.
D) all of the above.

Question 20

When we observe a population with a trait that does not appear to be adaptive, it may be because

A) the population has been pushed by habitat destruction to the extreme edge of its normal range.
B) the population is being exposed to a novel species, such as a new predator, introduced intentionally or by accident.
C) there is a time lag between natural selection and its effects.
D) all of the above.

Question 21

Which of the following is NOT an example of frequency-dependent selection?

A) Blue jays prey on the most common form of moth until it becomes less common, and then they switch to an alternative form.
B) Female guppies choose males with novel color patterns over males with a familiar color pattern.
C) Male Texas field crickets that don't call very much may be more reproductively successful when parasitoid flies are common than are males that call much more frequently.
D) Many New Zealand birds do not have antipredator skills and may even alight near dangerous animals.

Question 22

Sometimes traits that we observe in a population appear not to be particularly adaptive. How is it possible for nonadaptive traits to exist?

A) by being linked closely on the same chromosome to an adaptive gene
B) by means of pleiotropy
C) through gene flow
D) all of the above

Question 23

An evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) would be described as

A) an acquired behavioral pattern.
B) frequency dependent.
C) frequency independent.
D) nonadaptive.

Question 24

An evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) is

A) a somewhat "expensive" strategy because it demands significant cognitive abilities to be effective.
B) a strategy that is effective as long as all members of the population behave in an "honest" fashion.
C) a strategy that maximizes the reproductive fitness of the most highly adapted individuals in the group.
D) a strategy that, when adopted by nearly all members of a population, cannot be beaten by a different strategy.

Question 25

Brockmann and others (1979) studied female digger wasps' (Sphex ichneumoneus) alternative nesting strategies (digging her own nest or entering an existing burrow) and their outcomes. They found no significant difference between the reproductive successes of wasps using a dig strategy and wasps using an enter strategy. This indicates that the nesting strategies are

A) a mixed ESS.
B) a pure ESS.
C) consciously planned.
D) frequency independent.

Question 26

Male side-blotched lizards (Uta stansburiana) come in three coat colors, orange, yellow, and blue. Orange throated males are very aggressive and defend large territories that include several females. Yellow throated males are "sneakers" who have no territory of their own, but mate covertly with unguarded females on an orange male's territory. Blue throated males defend territories that are big enough to hold only a single, well-guarded, female. In this mixed ESS

A) blue beats both orange and yellow.
B) yellow beats blue, blue beats orange, and orange beats yellow.
C) yellow beats orange and blue.
D) yellow beats orange, blue beats yellow, and orange beats blue.

Question 27

Negative assortative mating preserves genetic variation in a population by producing a situation in which

A) "birds of a feather flock together."
B) "opposites attract."
C) individuals tend to choose mates with phenotypes similar to their own.
D) inbreeding tends to occur more often than chance.

Question 28

The hypothesis that territoriality in funnel-web spiders is adaptive was most clearly supported by the finding that

A) territorial spiders grow to twice the body size of nonterritorial spiders.
B) territorial spiders have 13 times the reproductive potential of nonterritorial spiders.
C) web sites of territorial spiders have more abundant prey than web sites of nonterritorial spiders.
D) web sites of territorial spiders were bigger than web sites of nonterritorial spiders.

Question 29

Tinbergen observed a seemingly nonadaptive behavior in black-headed gulls (Larus ridibundus), i.e., that the gull parent does not immediately remove broken eggshells from the nest. Further observations revealed that

A) delaying shell removal reduced predation on still wet chicks by cannibalisitic neighbor gulls.
B) shell removal is only one behavioral option in an evolutionarily stable strategy.
C) the behavior is really neutral in its overall effect and only appeared maladaptive at first.
D) the behavior truly is nonadaptive, most likely the result of a pleiotropic effect.

Question 30

Tinbergen painted some black-headed gull eggs white and then compared the predation rate on white eggs against that on natural, camouflaged, eggs. This is an example of which of the following approaches?

A) monitoring in the field
B) optimality modeling
C) the comparative method
D) the experimental method

Question 31

We can assume that related species will have inherited some common genes because they have a common ancestor. If they live in different ecological conditions, however, they have experienced different selection pressures. Observed differences in their behavior, therefore, may be due to natural selection. This argument provides the rationale for which approach to the study of adaptiveness?

A) monitoring in the field
B) optimality modeling
C) the comparative method
D) the experimental method

Question 32

The comparative approach identifies correlations between traits and ecological variables. This means that

A) differences in behavior between two related species may be due to natural selection.
B) the correlations identified in one comparative study become more convincing if they later allow behavior to be predicted in a previously unstudied group.
C) traits of related species are compared in different ecological settings.
D) all of the above.

Question 33

The strongest conclusions regarding the role of phylogeny in adaptations would come from

A) an examination of multiple species with a shared phylogeny found in different environments.
B) an examination of multiple species with multiple evolutionary origins found in different environments.
C) being able to construct the phylogeny from morphological traits rather than having to resort to use of DNA.
D) being able to map a series of behavioral traits onto a known phylogeny.

Question 34

Antler size, age, and body size are all correlated with reproductive success among red deer (Cervus elaphus) stags. When appropriate statistical controls were applied, it was determined that ____ was NOT the primary factor.

A) age
B) antler size
C) body size
D) a combination of age and body size

Question 35

A 30-year-long study by Grant and colleagues (1981; 1984) determined that during periods of drought, medium finches with medium beaks produced more offspring, while during rainy years birds with smaller beaks had the advantage. This study is an example of which method?

A) monitoring in the field
B) optimality modeling
C) the comparative method
D) the experimental method

Question 36

What is the major problem associated with the application of optimality theory to the study of animal behavior?

A) It is virtually impossible to find a common unit in which to translate all costs and benefits.
B) It is easy to measure the benefits of a behavior but very difficult to measure its costs.
C) It is not possible to determine the number of offspring that might have existed if the parent had behaved in a different fashion.
D) all of the above.

Question 37

When animals have displayed behaviors that appear very complex, behaviorists have generally concluded that

A) animals make conscious decisions regarding costs and benefits.
B) animals think things through until they have developed an optimal plan of action.
C) that optimal "decision rules" are typically found only in species with considerable cognitive ability.
D) what may appear to be a complex behavior may be based on following a fairly simple strategy.