Download Behavioral Biology

Behavioral
Biology
Chapter 51
Behavior
• Ethology the study of animal behavior in the
wild.
• Behavior: What and How an animal does
things.
• Nature vs. Nurture – importance of learned
(environment) vs. instinctive (genetic)
causes of behavior. Both have important
roles.
Table 33.1a
Table 33.1b
What causes behavior?
• Ultimate causation is the
ecological/evolutionary reason.
– How does it maximize fitness?
• Proximate causation – trigger or
signal that causes behavior
• Innate behaviors
are genetically
determined or
developmentally
fixed.
• Genetic
component:
Love Bird Nest
Building fig. 51.1
– Behavior later
modified by
experience
Fixed Action
Patterns
• Complex behaviors performed without ever
having seen them performed
• Set of movements, always in sequence
• Proceed without stopping once started.
• Triggered by sign stimulus
http://neuromajor.ucr.edu/cour
ses/egg-roll.gif
Normal
Mouse –
FAP:
Collect babies
shelter them
Mouse
with
mutant
fosB allele
• Fixed Action
Pattern
• Triggered by sign
stimulus, or
realeaser
– Red underbelly
cause response,
even if over-all
shape is wrong
Learned Behaviors
• Learned Behaviors- behaviors modified by
experience.
– Animals respond differently after a stimulus
than before.
• React to environmental stimuli
• Niko Tinbergen’s experiments with digger
wasps 51.2
– Sense location, size of items around nest.
• Song bird repertoire
– older males know more songs, more
experienced
– females prefer males that know more songs.
51.5; 51.6
“Learning” the
surroundings
• Niko Tinbergen’s
experiments with
digger wasps 51.2
– Sense location, size of
items around nest.
• Bee wolves learn the
landmarks each time
they leave.
• Remember size and
positions, not the
objects themselves
Fig. 33.5
Heard parent’s song
No song during rearing
Bird Song: Instinctive and learned components
Songs Learned
Learning
• Learning- modification of behavior in response to
specific experiences.
• Nature vs. Nurture which input is of primary
importance?
– We have an innate Language ability
– which language due to upbringing.
• Maturation
– bird flight is genetic,
– “learning” period is maturation.
– Language ability greatest while young, then fixed, much
more difficult when older. (ex. deaf returned to hearing)
Learned Behaviors
• Habituation-loss of response to unimportant
stimuli.
– Hydra stop responding to repeated changes in water
currents.
– Squirrels stop responding if no threat perceived after
calls.
• Imprinting - Konrad Lorenz and the goslings
during first hours, accept as him as “mother”
ignoring other members of species.
– Salmon return home by following scent of water.
– Critical time period and is irreversible.
– Adults imprinted by young in first hours after hatching,
birth
Imprinting
•
Sensitive
or
critical
period
Whooping Crane Eastern
Partnership
• Establish a new eastern population
• Kept separate from native population
• Make a new migration route Wisconsin,
Nacedah NWR to Florida, Cassohovitz
NWR
• Use Sandhill information from Rocky
Mountains area.
• Use captive bred birds
• Hand raised, inprinted to recognize pilot,
and follow them in ultralight planes.
New Migration Route
Teaching a new route
Ultralight migration
2005 Migration Update
• http://www.operationmigration.org/Fi
eld_Journal.html
Associative learning
• Classical conditioning:Associate arbitrary
stimulus with reward/punishment.
– Pavlov’s dogs, salivate when given meat spray and
stimulus. Then salivate with just stimulus.
– Huxley’s fish and pipe whistle
• Operant conditioning: Trial and error learning.
Either behavior is rewarded or harmful.
Rats in a box get
food or a shock.
Very common in nature good food with smell etc, or
upset digestive tract with
another.
Movement
• Kinesis- involves a simple change in activity rate.
– Most animals don’t move directly towards or away from
stimulus.
– Higher activity in dry areas causes sow bugs to move
farther. They slow down in wet habitats, so they spend
more time there.
• Nocturnal active at night
• Diurnal - active at day.
• Taxis a automatic directed movement
– towards (positive) a stimulus
– away (negative) a stimulus
• Landmarks – Bee wolves
• Cognitive maps- Bird finds stored food
Migration
• Butterflies, Plovers - find their way to same spot
some without having ever been there before
– program independently or follow magnetic path?
• Piloting using familiar landmarks
– Learned behavior
• Orientation -using a compass directions
– Use sun, stars follows a line path for mostly short
distances.
– Mostly a innate behavior.
• Navigating find location given current location
relative to other locations in addition to the
compass direction.
– Starling experiment, juveniles to Spain , adults to
England. Fig. 51.16
• Birds collected in
different sites in
Germany and England
• Reared in cages
• Then allowed to
“migrate”
• Showed genetic
differences
Monarch Butterflies
West of Rockies, Adults
over-winter in coastal
valleys from Bolinas,
to Ensenada.
Eastern Monarchs
migrate to central
Mexico.
Only known insect that
migrates over long
distances.
3000 miles to MX
660 miles AZ to CA
Winters
• Adults eat nectar- hard to find in winter
inland, easier along coast, Mexico
• Adults migrate, basically going extinct in
cold areas over the winter.
• Return to same trees as the previous year.
Yet – They are three or four generations
removed from previous years monarchs!!
– Migration is instinctive, not learned
• In spring they repopulate, laying eggs as
they fly back north, west. Offspring then
take over repopulation spreading the
population back as winter retreats.
Migration
Routes
Western
Migration
Monarchs protected by
Milkweed toxins eaten while
larvae
Larvae (caterpillars) eat Milkweed,
and accumulate the toxic cardiac
glycosides. The Monarchs are
immune but their predators are not.
Monarchs are protected by these
compounds from being eaten in
general. A few must be lost so
birds learn to avoid them.
Predators (birds) learn to avoid
adult monarchs by their coloration.
Monarch Sanctuary in
Pacific Grove
Social Behavior
• Social Behavior- rituals to warn, defense,
appease, court
• Dominance – hierarchies
– alpha (hens, dogs) controls pack,
– Beta, etc. omega lowest.
– Control resource use, access.
• Courtship- rituals,
usually no strong
continuous
attraction, even in
long lived species
with rearing
(elephants)
Territoriality- defend area,
harem.
Modes of Communication
• Signals, warning, to
other species, within
species.
– chemical - pheromones
– visual
– Auditory
• Agonistic –Contests with threatening,
submissive- win access to resource
• Ritual-symbolic activity no harm done
• Bees- complex tactile dance
• Language are we the only ones???
Bee Wiggle
Dance
• Speed of wiggle
tells how far
• Direction of wiggle
tells direction to fly
relative to the sun
Learning Behaviors
• Observational learning- Vertebrates, mammals
learn from parents other members of sp.
– Traditions may be passed down generations maternal structure of Elephant pods.
• Play – Practice and exercise
• Cognition- being
aware and making
judgments about
environment.
• Perceive, store and
process information
for senses.
• Insight- figure things
out- Problem solving
skills
– Birds, primates- helps
obtain food.
– Tremendous variation
among individuals
within same species.