Transcript Animal Behavior

Animal Behavior
What/why an animal does what it
does, and how it does it.
Essays
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Pick one of the following do all parts of
the essay.
Read chapter 51
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Ethology: is the study of animal behavior
The argument between nature and nurture is a
debate as to which affects behavior. In reality biologists
study to what degree each impact an organism.
Nature vs. Nurture
Innate behavior: is programmed into our genes and is
constant in any environment.
Learned behavior: behavior is a response to what has
been learned or experienced.
Animal movement
Taxis: animals move towards or away from a stimulus
(light, heat, moisture, sound, or chemicals)
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Plants grow towards light
Salmon swim hundreds of miles upstream to spawn
Animals mate (light and temperature)
Kinesis: is random movement that does not result
in orientation with respect to a stimulus.
Innate Behavior
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Fixed Action Pattern (FAP): A sequence of behavioral
acts that are essentially unchangeable and usually
carried to completion once initialed the FAP is triggered
by an outside sensory stimulus or sign stimulus.
A male moth antennae detect the chemical attractant of
a female moth somewhere upwind. The male takes to
the air and follows the trail. Suddenly, vibration sensors
in the moth abdomen signal the presence of
echolocation (ultrasonic chirps). The moth folds and
falls to the ground.
FAP: Innate
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Stickle back fish: Males will attack other
males that invade their territory. The
stimulus for the attack is the red belly of
the intruder. They will even readily attack
non-fishlike models as long as some red is
present.
Unlike humans many animals tend to use
a relatively limited amount of sensory info.
Limited sensory information
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Optimal Foraging: concept that natural selection will
favor animals that choose foraging (meal finding)
strategies that maximize differential between benefits
and costs.
Learning
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A modification in behavior resulting form specific
experiences.
Learning to speak a language: Learning
However: the ability to learn a language is a function of
a complex brain that develops because of genetics and
the environment.
Learning vs. Maturation
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Maturation: change of behavior due to ongoing
developmental changes in the neuromuscular system.
A bird cannot learn to fly until it is matured.
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Animal behavior
Compass
Behavior
Learning/time
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Imprinting: learning that is limited to a specific time
period in an animals life that is generally irreversible.
The specific time period in which the behavior is learned
is the critical period.
Example: mother offspring bonding (duck/geese chicks
follow their mothers)
Konrad Lorenz: followed by geese chicks which had no
interest in their own mother or others of their own
species. Courtship behavior with humans
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Associative Learning: the ability of many animals to
learn to associate one stimulus with another.
Classical conditioning (Pavlov): is learning to associate
an arbitrary stimulus with a reward of punishment.
Operant conditioning: is trial and error learning. Learning
to associate one of its own behaviors with a reward or
punishment, thus tending to quickly repeat or avoid that
behavior.
Play: is basically used for practice exercise.
Question:
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Researchers are very interested in studying identical
twins who were separated at birth and raised apart. So
far, the data suggests that these twins are much more
alike than researchers would have predicted; they have
similar personalities, mannerisms, habits and interests.
What kind of general questions do you think researchers
hope to answer by studying twins that have been raised
apart?
Why do twins make good subjects for this research?
What do the initial results suggest?
Lab Activity
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A. You will be using Pillbugs to study animal behavior
B. needs:
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5 Pillbugs
two petridishes which have been cut
paper towels cut to fit bottom of pertridishes
tape
1. Put 5 pillbugs in pertidish and observe their behavior Taxis or
Kinesis? Describe
2. Put the paper towel on bottom of each petridish and add water to
one side (just enough to dampen the towel)
3. Observe the pillbugs for 8 minutes recording behavior every 30
seconds (make table and answer ?’s)
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Habitation: very simple type of learning that involves a loss of
responses to stimuli that convey little or no information (boy who
cried wolf effect)
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Cognition: the ability of an animals nervous system to perceive,
store, process, and use information gathered by sensory receptors.
Cognitive maps: internal representation of the spatial relationship of
object in their surroundings
Cognitive maps have been studied in animals that migrate. The
three mechanisms used in migration are piloting: using familiar
landmarks, orientation: using an internal “compass” and navigation:
determining present location relative to other locations.
Migration
Social Behavior and
Sociobiology
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Social Behavior refers to how two or more animals, usually of the
same species, interact with each other. Social behavior involves
behaviors such as aggression, courtship, cooperation and deception.
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Agnostic behaviors: contest for mate or food
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Dominance: the establishment of a “pecking order”
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wolves: dominant female controls the mating of other females
When food is scare few mate
When food is plenty many mate
Mating System
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The mating relationship between males and females varies greatly
among different species. In many species, mating is promiscuous,
with no lasting relationships. Mating may also be monogamous, with
one male mating with one female, or polygamous, with an individual
of one sex mating with several of the other.
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Agonistic Behavior refers to a contest involving both threatening and
submissive behaviors to determine which competitor gains access to
a certain resource. These contests can involve only displays that
make the competitors look large, strong, and fierce. These
behaviors usually involved a ritual. One of the competitors usually
submits and backs off before any sort of combat occurs. Under
certain conditions where an extremely limited resource is at stake,
these contests do become violent and may result in severe injury or
death. When this happens, natural selection favors a strong
tendency to end the contest as soon as a winner is established,
because further contact could injury the winner as well as the loser.
Ritual- use of symbolic activity
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Dominance Hierarchies refers to social groups controlled by a
clear “peaking order”. For example, if you were to put a group
of hens unfamiliar with each other into a pen, they would
skirmish and peck at each other until a dominance hierarchy
was formed. The largest, most threatening hen would control
the behavior of the others and have control of the resources,
such as food.
Territoriality. A territory is an area that an individual defends,
usually excluding other members of its own species. Territories
are mostly used for feeding, mating, rearing young, or a
combination of the three. The size of a territory depends on the
species, what the territory is being used for and the amount of
resources available. For example, song sparrows have territories
up to 3000 square meters while most seabirds mate and nest in
an area of only a few square meters. Natural selection does not
always favor territoriality, and not all species are territorial.
Altruism
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Animals sacrifice themselves for others.
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Bees: work for the queen
Squirrels
Altruism
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Most social behavior of animals are selfish and only benefit an
individual at the expense of others. This is because behavior that
maximizes an individual’s reproductive success will be favored by
selection, regardless of how much damage such behavior does to
others. However, some animals occasionally act in a way that will
reduce their own chances of survival to benefit another. This
behavior is known as altruism. Altruistic behavior can be one
individual sacrificing itself to protect one individual, such as a parent
protecting its offspring, or one individual sacrificing itself to protect
a population, such as a sterile worker bee dying to protect the
queen bee. Altruism is not limited to parents protecting offspring,
this typr of behavior has also been observed between siblings and
even cousins of certain species.
Courtship
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Courtship behavior among animals of the same species and of the
opposite sex to show and interest in mating. Females commonly
show more discrimination in choosing mates than males. This is
most likely due to females having a greater parental investment in
the offspring. In most species, females are very choosy in picking a
mate. Males usually compete with one another for mates,
sometimes by trying to impress females. Another way for females to
choose a mate requires the male to display the resources under his
control. This process is called assessment. The resources involve
either food or genetic quality. In some species, the males gather in
a group called a lek. The females of that species visits the lek to
choose a mate that displays the most desirable qualities.
Displays
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An important evolutionary consideration in communication is the
way a species transmits information. Animals use visual, auditory,
chemical, tactile and electric signals. The animal’s lifestyle
determines which type of signal it uses.
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Inclusive fitness describes the total effect an individual has on
proliferating its genes by producing its own offspring and by
providing aid that enables other close relatives to increase the
production of their offspring. An important measure of this can be
observed through the coefficient of relatedness.