Animal Behavior

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Animal Behavior

• Chapter 51

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Behavior

• Animal responds to stimuli
• Food odor
• Singing

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Ethology

• Study of patterns of animal behaviors in nature

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Ethology

• Proximate causation
• How the behavior works??
• Ultimate causation
• What is the adaptive value to this behavior??

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Behavioral ecology

• Study of the ecological evolutionary basis for
  animal behavior
• Study of how natural selection shapes behavior

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Innate Behavior

• Developmentally fixed behaviors
• Preset behaviors
• Individuals in a species respond similarly
• Geese retrieving eggs

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Innate behaviors

• Fixed action pattern
• Sequence of unlearned behavioral acts that are
  unchanged
• Carried to completion
• Sign stimulus (key stimulus)
• Triggers the behavior

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Fixed action patternStickleback fish
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Innate Behavior

• Fixed-Action Pattern
• Begging behavior of new chicks
• Raised heads, open mouths, loud cheeps
• Sign stimulus
• Parent landing at the nest.

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Behavior

• Taxis
• Movement towards or away from stimuli
• Positive taxis
• Towards a stimulus
• Negative taxis
• Away from a stimulus
• Kineses
• /- nonspecific movement due to stimuli

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Migratory behavior

• Migration
• Long distant change in location

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Migratory behavior

• Orientation
• Following a bearing
• Navigation
• Ability to adjust that bearing

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Communication

• Signal
• Behavior causes a change in another animals
  behavior
• Communication
• Reception response of a signal
• Auditory, visual, olfactory(chemical), tactile
  signal

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Courtship

• Leads to potential mates
• Species-specific

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Courtship
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Bird of paradise
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Fruit Fly courtship
Orienting
Tapping
Singing
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Honeybees

• Waggle dance

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Pheromones

• Chemical signals
• Animal communication
• Mating behaviors.
• Territorial behaviors

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Pheromones
Minnowsbefore alarm
Minnowsafter alarm
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Pheromones
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Learning

• Modification of behavior based on experiences
• Non-associative learning
• Simple
• No association between two stimuli
• Between a stimulus response

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Habituation

• Loss of responsiveness to irrelevant stimuli.

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Imprinting

• Sensitive period (critical period)
• Soon after hatching
• Important for normal parent/child behaviors
• Stimulation necessary for normal behavior
• Premies
• Sexual behavior-mating

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Imprinting (Konrad Lorenz)
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Spatial learning

• Memory based on environmental clues
• Digger wasps

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Learning

• Associative learning
• Association between two stimulus
• Stimulus a response
• Behavior is modified (conditioned) through
  association

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Associative learning
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Associative learning

• Classical conditioning
• Operant conditioning

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Classical conditioning

• Pairing of two different stimuli
• Ivan Pavlov
• Dogs
• Food, salivate
• Ring bell at same time
• Dog learned to salivate with bell ringing

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Operant conditioning

• Associate behavioral response with a reward or
  punishment
• Trial error
• B.F. Skinner
• Skinner box
• Rats would bump lever, food came out
• Learned to hit lever to get food

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Operant Conditioning
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Cognitive behavior

• Ability of the animals nervous system to
  perceive, store , process
• Use information gathered by sensory receptors

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Cognitive behavior

• Chimpanzee
• Nuts
• Bugs

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Vervet monkeys and alarm calls
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Imprinting
Forms oflearning andproblemsolving
Spatial learning
Cognition
Associative learning
Social learning
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Forging Behavior

• Obtaining food at the least expense
• Energy efficient
• Food vs safety
• Food vs mating
• Food vs protection

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Territoriality

• Defends an area
• Usually excludes members of own species.
• Exclusive rights
• Food, mating

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Gannet
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Cheetah
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Reproductive strategies

• Set of behaviors evolved to give maximum
  reproduction
• Food source
• Nesting sites
• Members of opposite sex

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Mating relationships
(a) Monogamy
(b) Polygyny
(c) Polyandry
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Jaw fish
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Sea elephant
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Altruism

• Benefits others at the cost of individual