Animal Behavior Modified from slideshow by Kim Foglia

1. Chapter 51. Animal Behavior Modified from slideshow by Kim Foglia

2. What is behavior? • Behavior • everything an animal does & how it does it • link between animal & its environment • innate = inherited or developmentally fixed • learned = develop during animal’s lifetime http://i.ytimg.com/vi/oYmzdvMoUUA/0.jpg http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/L/LearnedBehavior.html

3. Types of behaviors • Innate behaviors • automatic, fixed, “built-in” • despite different environments, all individuals exhibit the behavior • triggered by a stimulus • Learned behaviors • modified by experience • variable • triggered by a stimulus

4. Proximate and Ultimate Questions • Proximate questions: focus on environmental stimuli that trigger a behavior, as well as the genetic, physiological, and anatomical mechanisms underlying a behavioral act • Often are “how” questions • Example: How does day length influence breeding?

5. Ultimate questions: address the evolutionary significance of a behavior • Often “why” questions • Ex: Why did natural selection favor this behavior and not a different one?

6. Ethology • The scientific study of how animals behave • Four questions to be answered to fully understand any behavior:

7. What is the evolutionary history of the behavior? • How does this behavior contribute to the fitness of the organism? • What is the mechanistic basis of behavior, including chemical, anatomical, and physiological mechanisms? • How does the development of the animal influence behavior?

8. Innate behavior • Fixed action patterns (FAP) • sequence of behaviors essentially unchangeable & usually conducted to completion once started • sign stimulus • releaser that triggers FAP male sticklebacks exhibit aggressive territoriality attack on red belly stimulus court on swollen belly stimulus

9. Fixed Action Pattern courtship display in sticklebacks

10. Example: FAPEGG ROLLING IN GEESE If egg rolls away from the nest, the goose automatically rolls the egg back to the nest with a repeated, specific action. When the female notices an egg outside the nest (sign stimulus), she begins the repeated movement to drag the egg with her beak and neck.  If, while the goose is rolling the egg back to the nest, the egg slides off to the side or is removed by an observer, the goose continues to repeat the stereotypic movements, until she reaches the nest. She’ll then relocate the missing egg and begin the process all over again.

11. See video FAP in humans? YAWNING- lasts around 6 seconds Just try stopping in mid-yawn. You can’t. Once you begin to yawn, this instinctive, hard-wired response must run its course, from beginning to end. We are triggered to yawn when we see another person (or animal) yawning. Even seeing the word ‘yawn’ can trigger yawning

12. OTHER EXAMPLES OF FAP • Mating dances • Gulls pecking red spot on mom’s beakstimulates regurgitation • Human baby grasping http://i.ytimg.com/vi/oYmzdvMoUUA/0.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_action_pattern http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bUTjf-hNPDk/R6tc9enBOzI/AAAAAAAAAbA/Fz2Rc68SM8Q/j0408981.jpg

13. Directed movements • Taxis • change in direction • automatic movement toward (positive taxis) or away from (negative taxis) a stimulus • phototaxis • chemotaxis • Kinesis • change in rate of movement in response to a stimulus

14. Migration • Complex behavior, but still under genetic control • “migratory restlessness” seen in birds bred & raised in captivity migrating western sandpipers Monarch migration

15. Migration • Following ancient fly-ways • navigate by sun, stars, magnetic fields Summer nesting range Summer nesting range Winter range Winter range Bobolink Golden plover

16. Imprinting • Learning at a specific critical time forming social attachments • both learning & innate components Konrad Lorenz was “mother” to these imprinted graylag goslings

17. Imprinting Wattled crane conservation Imprinting for conservation Conservation biologists have taken advantage of imprinting by young whooping cranes as a means to teach the birds a migration route. A pilot wearing a crane suit in an ultralight plane acts as a surrogate parent. teaching cranes to migrate

18. Learned behavior • Associative learning • learning to associate 1 feature of the environment (stimulus) with another • operant conditioning • trial & error learning • classical conditioning • stimulus & reward/punishment

19. Operant conditioning • Skinner box

20. Classical conditioning • Ivan Pavlov’s dogs • connect reflex behavior to associated stimulus

21. Habituation • Loss of response to stimulus • “cry-wolf” effect • learn not to respond to repeated occurrences of stimulus

22. Thinking & problem-solving • Do other animals think? problem-solving tool use crow

23. Do other animals think & plan?

24. Social behaviors • Contests for resources • develop as evolutionary adaptations • agonistic behaviors • threatening & submissive rituals • symbolic, usually no harm done

25. Social behaviors • Dominance hierarchy • social ranking within a group • pecking order

26. Social behaviors • Altruistic behavior • reduces individual fitness but increases fitness of recipient • kin selection Belding ground squirrel How can this be of adaptive value?

27. Social behaviors • Territoriality nesting in birds

28. Territoriality

29. Mating & parental behavior • Genetic influences • changes in behavior in different stages of mating • pair bonding • competitor aggression • Environmental influences • modifies behavior • quality of diet • social interactions • learning opportunities

30. Social interaction requires communication • Pheromones • chemical signal that stimulates a response from other individuals • alarm pheromones • sex pheromones

31. Pheromones Female mosquito use CO2 concentrations to locate victims marking territory Spider using moth sex pheromones, as allomones, to lure its prey The female lion lures male by spreading sex pheromones, but also by posture & movements

32. Pheromones Human pheromones?

33. Honeybee communication • Honey bee dance to communicate location of food source • Bee waggle dance

34. Auditory communication • Bird song • species identification & mating ritual • mixed learned & innate • critical learning period • Insect song • mating ritual & song • innate, genetically controlled Red-winged blackbird

35. Social behaviors • Cooperation Pack of African dogs hunting wildebeest cooperatively White pelicans “herding” school of fish

36. Any Questions??