1 / 6

Behavioral Ecology

Behavioral Ecology. Behavioral ecology is the study of an animal’s behavior & how it is tied to its evolution, survival, and its reproductive success. Behavior is everything an animal does and how it does it. To study behavior, two basic types of questions are asked.

gordy
Download Presentation

Behavioral Ecology

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Behavioral Ecology • Behavioral ecology is the study of an animal’s behavior & how it is tied to its evolution, survival, and its reproductive success. • Behavior is everything an animal does and how it does it. • To study behavior, two basic types of questions are asked. • Proximate questions are often considered "How" questions. • environmental stimuli, trigger event, genetic, physiological, and anatomical mechanisms • Ultimate questions are often considered "Why" questions • asks the evolutionary significance of a behavior and how it inferred fitness

  2. Ethology • Behavioral ecology can be further narrowed to the study of Ethology (organisms in their natural environments). • An ethologist will attempt to answer the following 4 questions without influencing the outcome. • What is the mechanistic basis of the behavior (chemical, anatomical, & physiological)- proximate • How does development of the animal influence behavior - proximate • What is the evolutionary history of the behavior - ultimate • How does the behavior contribute to an animal's fitness - ultimate

  3. Behaviors studied by Ethologists • FAP (Fixed action Patterns) • a sequence of unearned behaviors that once triggered is carried to completion • example: Aggression in the male 3-spined stickleback • action: attacks another male in its breeding area • Proximate cause: red underbelly(trigger) • Ultimate cause: by chasing other males away the male will leave more offspring thereby having greater reproductive success

  4. Behaviors studied by Ethologists • Imprinting • a behavior that includes both innate and learned components that once learned is irreversible • example: ducks following their mother • action: baby ducks will follow any real or surrogate mother that they imprint during the sensitive period (period of entrainment) • Proximate cause: during a critical period, young ducks see their mother moving away and calling • Ultimate cause: ducks that don't follow are not cared for and do not learn the necessary skills for survival

  5. Behaviors studied by Ethologists • Nature vs Nurture • Genetic components - innate actions (nature) • types: • Directed movements • kinesis -a change in activity rate in response to a stimuli (non-directional) • taxis -movement toward (pos) or away (neg) from a stimulus • Migration- seasonal movement by a species • Signals(behavior causing change) and communication (signal and response) • chemical - pheromones • Auditory - bird songs, insect sounds from wings • Mating • Chemicals released during mating may help form a monogamous bond in species

  6. Nature vs Nurture • Environmental Components (nurture) - may act to modify the genetic response • learning -modification of behavior based on specific circumstances • habituation- loss of responsiveness to stimuli that convey little or no information • Spatial learning - learning with some degree of spatial variance • Nesting sites, population density, hazards associated with food location, ... • may use land marks to form a cognitive map (use of multiple landmarks to identify location of food, home, mate) • associative learning - ability to associate one stimulus with another • may use classical conditioning - repetitive use of consequences / reward to reinforce an association • Operant conditioning – trial & error learning • cognition- the ability of an organism to perceive, store, process, and use information learned

More Related