Insect Behaviour Quiz

Section 1: Definitions

This is considered an open-book quiz, you may use any of the course materials that are available to you. You may also use the internet, however, most of your answers should be based upon the course material. I ask you to please use the honour system and refrain from contacting your fellow classmates regarding the quiz.

Read each question and instructions carefully; some sections give you options for which questions to answer (answering all questions in these instances will not give you extra points, instead I will choose which ones to count toward your overall grade). All answers and examples must be related to insect behaviour. No references are necessary for your answers. You may answer in point form for all questions except the ‘Longer Answer’ questions. Write your answers next to or below the question.

Allogrooming – It is the behaviour of animals to provide caregiving through means of physical contact in which they use their hands, mouth or other parts to the body to groom and maintain the appearance of an individual of the same species.

Phoretic behaviour – It is a form of symbiotic relationship in which there is a non-permanent commensalism interaction between organisms in which the smaller organism (phoront) is mechanically carried by the larger organism (the host) usually for the purpose of travel .In this relationship, both the host and the phoront are not dependent on each other for the procurement of food .

Kleptoparasitism – It is typically a parasitism that occurs by theft. It involves feeding in which one animal steals the resources and prey or food that was stored, collected or was prepared by other organism. In this type pf parasitism, one organism get harmed by the interaction and the other organism benefits from it .

Ethology – It is the scientific study of animal behaviour that focuses on behaviour ,communication, emotions ,culture, learning and sexuality of organism and view behaviour as a perspective of evolutionary adaptive traits.

Sexual Dimorphism –  Sexual dimorphism is when sexes of the same species exhibit different characteristics, particularly secondary sex-characteristics that are not directly involved in reproduction.. In example of Orchid Bee mating rituals- orchid bees collect scents from floral and non-floral sources to create species-specific “perfumes”. Perfumes are released from a perching site in combination with male display behaviours to attract females.

Polyphenism

Aggregation pheromones

Hygienic behaviour

Thermoregulation

Alternating tripod gait

Microhabitat

1) Generalist mosquitoes vs specialist mosquitoes

2) Associative learning vs social learning

3) Subsocial vs eusocial insects

4) Thermoregulation of social vs individual insects

5) Hemimetabolous vs holometabolous. What can these differences tell us about how immature stages might behave compared to the adults?

6) Proximate vs ultimate causation.

The proximate causation is a mechanism that deals with behaviour which is closest to, or suddenly responsible for causing some observed result.  contrast to a higher-level ultimate cause (or distal cause) which is usually thought of as the real reason something occurred.

1) Give 4 examples of holometabolous insect orders.

2) Give 4 examples of hemimetabolous insect orders.

3) How does knowledge of insect behaviour help to hypothesize phylogenetic relationships?

4) Why do insects groom? Give 2 examples of grooming in eusocial insects and why this is beneficial.

5) Which behaviours did Mikheyev & Linksvayer (2015) observe changes in as worker ants aged?

6) What are some predatory strategies of assassin bugs?

7) What are two current theories for vitellogenin use in division of labour?

8) List the various jobs in a leaf cutter ant colony and what they do.

1) What are taxis and kinesis? Discuss the different types of taxis and give insect examples of each.

2) Using examples from class, discuss the role of genetics in determining insect behaviours.

3) How does knowledge of insect morphology help to understand their behaviour and type of locomotion? Discuss 3 locomotory behaviours and how they relate to their morphology.