Transcript Behavioral Ecology - Santa Susana High School

Behavioral Ecology
• Behavioral ecology is the study of an animal’s behavior
& how it is tied to its evolution, survival, and its
reproductive success.
– Behavior is everything an animal does and how it does it.
• To study behavior, two basic types of questions are asked.
– Proximate questions are often considered "How" questions.
» environmental stimuli, trigger event, genetic, physiological, and
anatomical mechanisms
– Ultimate questions are often considered "Why" questions
» asks the evolutionary significance of a behavior and how it inferred
fitness
Ethology
• Behavioral ecology can be further narrowed to the study of
Ethology (organisms in their natural environments).
– An ethologist will attempt to answer the following 4 questions
without influencing the outcome.
• What is the mechanistic basis of the behavior (chemical, anatomical,
& physiological)- proximate
• How does development of the animal influence behavior - proximate
• What is the evolutionary history of the behavior - ultimate
• How does the behavior contribute to an animal's fitness - ultimate
Behaviors studied by Ethologists
• FAP (Fixed action Patterns)
– a sequence of unearned behaviors that once triggered is
carried to completion
• example: Aggression in the male 3-spined stickleback
– action: attacks another male in its breeding area
» Proximate cause: red underbelly(trigger)
» Ultimate cause: by chasing other males away the male will leave
more offspring thereby having greater reproductive success
Behaviors studied by Ethologists
• Imprinting
– a behavior that includes both innate and learned
components that once learned is irreversible
• example: ducks following their mother
– action: baby ducks will follow any real or surrogate mother that they
imprint during the sensitive period (period of entrainment)
» Proximate cause: during a critical period, young ducks see their
mother moving away and calling
» Ultimate cause: ducks that don't follow are not cared for and do not
learn the necessary skills for survival
Behaviors studied by Ethologists
• Nature vs Nurture
– Genetic components - innate actions (nature)
• types:
– Directed movements
» kinesis -a change in activity rate in response to a stimuli
(non-directional)
» taxis -movement toward (pos) or away (neg) from a stimulus
» Migration- seasonal movement by a species
– Signals(behavior causing change) and communication (signal and
response)
» chemical - pheromones
» Auditory - bird songs, insect sounds from wings
– Mating
» Chemicals released during mating may help form a
monogamous bond in species
• Nature vs Nurture
– Environmental Components (nurture) - may act to modify the genetic
response
• learning -modification of behavior based on specific circumstances
• habituation- loss of responsiveness to stimuli that convey little or no
information
– Spatial learning - learning with some degree of spatial variance
• Nesting sites, population density, hazards associated with food location, ...
• may use land marks to form a cognitive map (use of multiple landmarks to
identify location of food, home, mate)
– associative learning - ability to associate one stimulus with another
• may use classical conditioning - repetitive use of consequences / reward to
reinforce an association
• Operant conditioning – trial & error learning
– cognition- the ability of an organism to perceive, store, process, and
use information learned