Animal Behavior

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Animal Behavior

• AP Biology

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Innate Behaviors

• Innate behaviors are behaviors that are
  genetically inherited.
• Behavior influenced by genes can be selected on
  by natural selection, so these behaviors should
  increase the fitness of an organism in some way.
• Types of Innate Behaviors
• Instinct
• EX In mammals, care for
• offspring by female parents is
• instinctual
• Fixed Action Patterns (FAP)
• Imprinting

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Fixed Action Patterns

• Follow a regular, unvarying pattern
• Initiated by a specific stimulus
• Behavior is usually always carried out to
  completion
• Examples
• When a graylag goose sees an egg outside her
  nest, she will roll it back into the nest. She
  will also retrieve any object that resembles her
  egg. Even if its removed completely shell go
  through the motions of moving an egg back into
  the nest.
• Male stickleback fish defend their territory
  against other males. The red belly of males is
  the stimulus for aggression. Any object with a
  red underside will be attacked.

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Imprinting

• An innate program for acquiring a specific
  behavior
• Requires an appropriate stimulus during the
  critical period
• Once acquired, the behavior is irreversible
• Examples
• In the first two days of life, graylag goslings
  will accept any moving object as their mother for
  life. Even a real mother introduced after the
  critical period will be rejected
• Salmon hatch in freshwater streams and migrate to
  the ocean to eat. When they are ready to mate,
  they return to their birthplace to breed,
  identifying the exact location of the stream.
  During early life, they imprint the odors of
  their birthplace.

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Learned Behaviors

• Behaviors acquired through a process of learning
• Types of Behavioral Learning
• Associative Learning
• Habituation
• Observational Learning
• Insight

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Associative Learning

• When an animal learns that two events are
  connected.
• EX Dog learns that the smell/sight of food leads
  to eating (they will then begin to salivate)
• Types of Associative Learning
• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Spatial Learning

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Classical Conditioning

• A form of A.L. in which
• an animal responds to a
• substitute stimulus
• Example
• Psychologist Ivan Pavlov found that if after
  repeated experiences in which a bell were rung
  before a dog was given food, the dog would
  salivate when the bell was rung alone
• (no food present). Dogs associated the
• bell with food.

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Operant Conditioning

• Also known as trial and error
• learning
• Occurs when an animal connects its own
• behavior with a particular response.
• This is how we train animals- positive and
  negative reinforcement.
• Example
• Psychologist Skinner trained rats to push levers
  to obtain food or avoid painful shocks.
• Extinction when a learned behavior no longer
  exhibits the expected response, the learning can
  be reversed or forgotten

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Spatial Learning

• When an animal associates attributes of a
  location with the reward it gains by being able
  to identify and return to that location
• Tinbergen observed wasps using pinecone markers
  to return to their nests. If the markers were
  removed, wasps could not find the nest.

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Habituation

• It allows an animal to disregard a meaningless
  stimuli
• The stimuli in question triggers an innate
  behavior, not a learned one (different from
  extinction)
• Example
• Sea anemones pull food into their mouths. If they
  are stimulated repeatedly with non-food items
  (sticks, for example) they will then begin to
  ignore the stimulus.

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Observational Learning

• Occurs when animals copy
• the behavior of another animal w/o any previous
  reinforcement of the behavior
• Example
• Japanese monkeys usually remove sand from food by
  brushing them with their hands. One monkey
  discovered that dipping food in water more easily
  rid the food of sand. Through observational
  learning, many of the other monkeys began to use
  water to clean their food.

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Insight

• When an animal, exposed to a totally new
  situation and without prior experience or
  observation, performs a behavior that generates a
  desirable outcome.
• Example
• A chimpanzee placed in a
• room with food beyond their
• reach will stack boxes up to get
• to the food.

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Kinds of Behavior
Innate
Learned
Imprinting
Instinct
Insight
Habituation
Observational Learning
Associative Learning
FAPs
Operant Conditioning
Spatial Learning
Classical Conditioning
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Animal Movement

• Kinesis- undirected change in activity
  level/turning rate of animal in response to a
  stimulus.
• Example when bugs scurry when a rock is lifted.
• Taxis- directed movement towards or away from a
  stimulus.
• Phototaxis is movement towards light, chemotaxis
  is towards a chemical.
• Example moths fly towards light.
• Migration- long distance, seasonal movements to
  find food or better environmental conditions.
• Example whales, birds, elk, insects, and bats
  all move to warmer climates during the winter.

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Animal Communication

• Chemical- pheromones are chemical animals secrete
  to communicate.
• Example ants mark their trail, urine spraying,
  primer pheromones in queen bees and termites
• Visual- animals will make displays to show
  aggression or courtship.
• Example Wolves will threaten each other by
  showing their teeth or show submission by lying
  on their backs
• Birds of Paradise
• Auditory- making sounds.
• Example frog calls, whale songs
• Tactile- touching
• Example Monkeys will groom each other, wolves
  will greet dominant males with a lick

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Foraging Behaviors

• Feeding Goal is to maximize amount of food eaten
  while minimizing energy used and risk of injury
  or attack
• Herds, Flocks, Schools provide advantages
• Concealment Most individuals are hidden in the
  middle.
• Vigilance - Individuals can trade off foraging
  and watching for predators- two eyes are better
  than one!
• Defense
• Packs
• Cooperation in catching prey
• Search images
• Learning to search for an abbreviated image of
  the target or goal
• EX searching for a book, seeing a cop car

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Social Behaviors

• Agonistic Behaviors- specific aggressive and
  submissive ritualized behaviors that exist to
  establish dominance hierarchy but minimize injury
• Dominance hierarchies- where there is a pecking
  order indicating status and power
• Minimizes fighting for food and mates
• Territoriality- defending an area for food and/or
  mating.
• Altruism- seemingly unselfish, fitness-lowering
  behaviors where an organism helps another animal.
  
• Usually occurs between relatives. This is called
  kin selection
• Leads to inclusive fitness (the fitness of the
  group with similar genes)
• EX Beldings ground squirrels give alarm calls
  when predators are near. This risks that
  squirrels safety but protects the group, which
  not coincidentally, is made of closely related
  females