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Animal Behavior What/why an animal does what it does, and how it does it. Essays Pick one of the following do all parts of the essay. Read chapter 51 Ethology: is the study of animal behavior The argument between nature and nurture is a debate as to which affects behavior. In reality biologists study to what degree each impact an organism. Nature vs. Nurture Innate behavior: is programmed into our genes and is constant in any environment. Learned behavior: behavior is a response to what has been learned or experienced. Animal movement Taxis: animals move towards or away from a stimulus (light, heat, moisture, sound, or chemicals) Plants grow towards light Salmon swim hundreds of miles upstream to spawn Animals mate (light and temperature) Kinesis: is random movement that does not result in orientation with respect to a stimulus. Innate Behavior Fixed Action Pattern (FAP): A sequence of behavioral acts that are essentially unchangeable and usually carried to completion once initialed the FAP is triggered by an outside sensory stimulus or sign stimulus. A male moth antennae detect the chemical attractant of a female moth somewhere upwind. The male takes to the air and follows the trail. Suddenly, vibration sensors in the moth abdomen signal the presence of echolocation (ultrasonic chirps). The moth folds and falls to the ground. FAP: Innate Stickle back fish: Males will attack other males that invade their territory. The stimulus for the attack is the red belly of the intruder. They will even readily attack non-fishlike models as long as some red is present. Unlike humans many animals tend to use a relatively limited amount of sensory info. Limited sensory information Optimal Foraging: concept that natural selection will favor animals that choose foraging (meal finding) strategies that maximize differential between benefits and costs. Learning A modification in behavior resulting form specific experiences. Learning to speak a language: Learning However: the ability to learn a language is a function of a complex brain that develops because of genetics and the environment. Learning vs. Maturation Maturation: change of behavior due to ongoing developmental changes in the neuromuscular system. A bird cannot learn to fly until it is matured. Animal behavior Compass Behavior Learning/time Imprinting: learning that is limited to a specific time period in an animals life that is generally irreversible. The specific time period in which the behavior is learned is the critical period. Example: mother offspring bonding (duck/geese chicks follow their mothers) Konrad Lorenz: followed by geese chicks which had no interest in their own mother or others of their own species. Courtship behavior with humans Associative Learning: the ability of many animals to learn to associate one stimulus with another. Classical conditioning (Pavlov): is learning to associate an arbitrary stimulus with a reward of punishment. Operant conditioning: is trial and error learning. Learning to associate one of its own behaviors with a reward or punishment, thus tending to quickly repeat or avoid that behavior. Play: is basically used for practice exercise. Question: Researchers are very interested in studying identical twins who were separated at birth and raised apart. So far, the data suggests that these twins are much more alike than researchers would have predicted; they have similar personalities, mannerisms, habits and interests. What kind of general questions do you think researchers hope to answer by studying twins that have been raised apart? Why do twins make good subjects for this research? What do the initial results suggest? Lab Activity A. You will be using Pillbugs to study animal behavior B. needs: 5 Pillbugs two petridishes which have been cut paper towels cut to fit bottom of pertridishes tape 1. Put 5 pillbugs in pertidish and observe their behavior Taxis or Kinesis? Describe 2. Put the paper towel on bottom of each petridish and add water to one side (just enough to dampen the towel) 3. Observe the pillbugs for 8 minutes recording behavior every 30 seconds (make table and answer ?’s) Habitation: very simple type of learning that involves a loss of responses to stimuli that convey little or no information (boy who cried wolf effect) Cognition: the ability of an animals nervous system to perceive, store, process, and use information gathered by sensory receptors. Cognitive maps: internal representation of the spatial relationship of object in their surroundings Cognitive maps have been studied in animals that migrate. The three mechanisms used in migration are piloting: using familiar landmarks, orientation: using an internal “compass” and navigation: determining present location relative to other locations. Migration Social Behavior and Sociobiology Social Behavior refers to how two or more animals, usually of the same species, interact with each other. Social behavior involves behaviors such as aggression, courtship, cooperation and deception. Agnostic behaviors: contest for mate or food Dominance: the establishment of a “pecking order” wolves: dominant female controls the mating of other females When food is scare few mate When food is plenty many mate Mating System The mating relationship between males and females varies greatly among different species. In many species, mating is promiscuous, with no lasting relationships. Mating may also be monogamous, with one male mating with one female, or polygamous, with an individual of one sex mating with several of the other. Agonistic Behavior refers to a contest involving both threatening and submissive behaviors to determine which competitor gains access to a certain resource. These contests can involve only displays that make the competitors look large, strong, and fierce. These behaviors usually involved a ritual. One of the competitors usually submits and backs off before any sort of combat occurs. Under certain conditions where an extremely limited resource is at stake, these contests do become violent and may result in severe injury or death. When this happens, natural selection favors a strong tendency to end the contest as soon as a winner is established, because further contact could injury the winner as well as the loser. Ritual- use of symbolic activity Dominance Hierarchies refers to social groups controlled by a clear “peaking order”. For example, if you were to put a group of hens unfamiliar with each other into a pen, they would skirmish and peck at each other until a dominance hierarchy was formed. The largest, most threatening hen would control the behavior of the others and have control of the resources, such as food. Territoriality. A territory is an area that an individual defends, usually excluding other members of its own species. Territories are mostly used for feeding, mating, rearing young, or a combination of the three. The size of a territory depends on the species, what the territory is being used for and the amount of resources available. For example, song sparrows have territories up to 3000 square meters while most seabirds mate and nest in an area of only a few square meters. Natural selection does not always favor territoriality, and not all species are territorial. Altruism Animals sacrifice themselves for others. Bees: work for the queen Squirrels Altruism Most social behavior of animals are selfish and only benefit an individual at the expense of others. This is because behavior that maximizes an individual’s reproductive success will be favored by selection, regardless of how much damage such behavior does to others. However, some animals occasionally act in a way that will reduce their own chances of survival to benefit another. This behavior is known as altruism. Altruistic behavior can be one individual sacrificing itself to protect one individual, such as a parent protecting its offspring, or one individual sacrificing itself to protect a population, such as a sterile worker bee dying to protect the queen bee. Altruism is not limited to parents protecting offspring, this typr of behavior has also been observed between siblings and even cousins of certain species. Courtship Courtship behavior among animals of the same species and of the opposite sex to show and interest in mating. Females commonly show more discrimination in choosing mates than males. This is most likely due to females having a greater parental investment in the offspring. In most species, females are very choosy in picking a mate. Males usually compete with one another for mates, sometimes by trying to impress females. Another way for females to choose a mate requires the male to display the resources under his control. This process is called assessment. The resources involve either food or genetic quality. In some species, the males gather in a group called a lek. The females of that species visits the lek to choose a mate that displays the most desirable qualities. Displays An important evolutionary consideration in communication is the way a species transmits information. Animals use visual, auditory, chemical, tactile and electric signals. The animal’s lifestyle determines which type of signal it uses. Inclusive fitness describes the total effect an individual has on proliferating its genes by producing its own offspring and by providing aid that enables other close relatives to increase the production of their offspring. An important measure of this can be observed through the coefficient of relatedness.