Animal Behavior Behavior What an animal does How it does it

1
Animal Behavior
2
Behavior

• What an animal does
• How it does it

3
Pet ActivityOn a separate sheet of paper

• 1. Write the name of one of your pets. Is it a
  bird, dog, or cat? Other?
• 2. What behaviors do you think about when you
  think of your pet? Give a list of behaviors.
  Indicate if the behavior was genetic innate or
  learned.

4
Behavioral Ecology

• Behavioral ecology emphasizes evolutionary
  hypothesis science as a process
• Based on expectation that animals behave in ways
  that will increase their Darwinian fitness
  (reproductive success)

5
Stimuli

• Certain stimuli trigger innate behaviors called
  fixed action patterns
• A fixed action pattern (FAP) is a highly
  stereotypical, innate behavior that continues to
  completion after initiation by an external
  stimulus

6
Learning

• Learning is experience based modification of
  behavior
• Some learning is due mostly to inherent
  maturation
• Habituation is learning involving loss of
  sensitivity to unimportant stimuli
• Associative learning involves linking one
  stimulus with another

7
Rhythmic Behaviors

• Rhythmic behaviors synchronize an animals
  activities with daily and seasonal changes in the
  environment
• Governed by endogenous clocks, which in turn
  require exogenous cues to keep the behavior
  properly timed with the external environment

8
Foraging Behavior

• Ecologists are using cost/benefit analysis to
  study foraging behavior
• Species may be generalists or specialists as
  foragers
• Animals modify behavior to favor a high ratio of
  energy intake to expenditure

9
Social Behavior

• Sociobiology places social behavior in
  evolutionary context

10
Competitive Social Behaviors

• Agonistic behavior competitor gains advantage by
  getting a limited resource like food or a mate
• Natural selection survival of the fittest
• Pecking order dominance hierarchies with
  differently ranked individuals permitted options
  according to their status

11
Mating Behavior

• Promiscuity having many random mates
• Monogamy having only one mate
• Polygamy having a few, selected mates

12
Social Interactions

• Social interactions depend on diverse modes of
  communication
• Some animals communicate with smells
• Honeybees communicate through dancing

13
Altruistic Behavior

• Inclusive fitness accounts for most altruistic
  behavior
• Best explained by a kin theory, animals try to
  maintain the survival of others who share their
  genes

14
Reciprocal altruism

• Some animals behave altruistically toward others
  who are not relatives. A wolf may offer food to
  another wolf even though they share no kinship.
• Such behavior can be adaptive if the aided
  individual returns the favor in the future.
• This sort of exchange of aid is called reciprocal
  altruism.
• Commonly used to explain altruism in humans.

15
Sociobiology

• Human sociobiology connects biology to the
  humanities and social sciences

16
Self-quiz

• Bees can see colors we cannot see and detect
  minute amounts of chemicals we cannot smell. But
  unlike many insects, bees cannot hear very well.
  Which of the following statements best fits into
  the perspective of behavioral ecology?

17
Possible answers

• A. Bees are too small to have functional ears.
• B. Hearing must not contribute much to a bees
  fitness.
• C. If a bee could hear, its tiny brain would be
  swamped with information.

18
Possible answers

• D. This is an example of a fixed action pattern
• E. If bees could hear, the noise of the hive
  would distract the bees from their work

19
Challenge question

• Starting with the very first time a bee leaves
  the hive, it always flies in a circle around the
  hive before heading out on a foraging trip.
• If it is prevented from seeing the hive when it
  leaves or if the hive is moved while the bee is
  gone, the bee is not able to locate the hive when
  it returns.

20
Challenge Question

• For this reason, beekeepers know that a hive
  should only be moved .when? Why?
• What part of the bees orientation flight
  behavior appears to be innate?
• What component shows learning?