PSYCO381 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Fixed Action Pattern, Conditioned Taste Aversion, Instinct

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO381
• Professor: Michele Moscicki

Document Summary

Natural selection: individuals with adaptive traits are more likely to reproduce and be represented in future generations. Consider also the study of finches on the galapagos islands wherein a major drought caused the supply of edible seeds to decrease dramatically, leaving only tough, hard to crack seeds. Only birds with larger beaks could eat them. Over time there was an increase in the average beak size of birds in the next generations. In evolution, the bottom line is reproductive success. In the long run, the winners in evolution are the individuals who pass their genes along to the next generation: these individuals are described as fit . An organism is the gene"s way of making more genes e. o. Fitness: an individual"s ability to pass genes on to the next generation. Behaviour can evolve through natural selection only if: there is variation in behaviour, that variation is linked to genes and is heritable, the behaviour leads to an adaptive advantage.