animal behavior 2012 2013

Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings

PowerPoint Lectures for

Biology, Seventh Edition

Neil Campbell and Jane Reece

Lectures by Chris Romero

Chapter 51

Behavioral EcologyAim: How do animals respond to each other and

their environment?

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foley/

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What You Must Know:

• The difference between kinesis and taxis

• Various forms of animal communication.

• The role of altruism and inclusive fitness in kin

selection.


• Behavioral ecology extends observations of

animal behavior by studying how such behavior is

controlled and how it develops, evolves, and

contributes to survival and reproductive success


Concept 51.1: Behavioral ecologists distinguish between proximate and ultimate causes of behavior

• Behavior is what an animal does and how it does

it

– It is the result of genetic and environmental

factors

– It is essential for survival and reproduction

– It is subject to natural selection over time

• Natural selection: those best adapted to

their environment will survive, reproduce

and pass on their traits to the next

population..


Proximate and Ultimate Questions

• Ethology is the study of animal behavior. Behaviors can

increase the chance of reproductive success****

• There are two ways to analyze animal behavior:

1. Proximate, or “how,” questions focus on:

– Environmental stimuli that trigger a behavior

– Genetic, physiological, and anatomical mechanisms

underlying a behavior

– Example: a female bird chooses to mate with a male

bird who sings the best song

2. Ultimate, or “why,” questions focus on evolutionary

significance of a behavior

– Why is that behavior important to survival,

reproduction and passing on traits

– Example: Females who select the best singing males,

have males who sing well


Innate Behaviors:

• Innate behaviors are developmentally fixed. They

are inherited.

– They are unlearned behaviors

• You do not have to learn them- you

automatically do them without thinking

• Instincts

• Reflexes

– Example:

• Newly hatched sea turtles go into the ocean


Innate Behaviors/Instincts:

• Fixed Action Pattern

• Kinesis

• Taxis

• Migration

• Hibernation

• Estivation

• Circadian rhythms

• Signals

• Waggle dance


Innate Behaviors:

• A fixed action pattern (FAP) is a sequence of

unlearned, innate behaviors that is unchangeable

• Once initiated, it is usually carried to

completion

• Unchangeable

• A FAP is triggered by an external sensory

stimulus known as a sign stimulus

• Example: Nicholas Tinbergen

– male stickleback fish, attack red objects.

– Sign stimulus: red object

– FAP: the attack


•It does not matter the

shape of the fish or

object.

•When male sticklebacks

are presented with an

object with RED, they

attack.

•They do not attack the

fish that looks like a

stickleback, but does not

have any red on it.

LE 51-4

BEHAVIOR: A male stickleback fish attacks other male

sticklebacks that invade its nesting territory.

PROXIMATE CAUSE: The red belly of the intruding male acts as

a sign stimulus that releases aggression in a male stickleback.

ULTIMATE CAUSE: By chasing away other male sticklebacks,

a male decreases the chance that eggs laid in his nesting

territory will be fertilized by another male.


Innate Behavior:

• Undirected Movement:

– Kinesis is a simple change in activity in

response to a stimulus.

– Examples:

– Turn on a light and cockroaches randomly

scatter

– **sow (pill) bugs become more active in dry

areas and less active in humid areas

• End up spending more time in damp areas

–Better chance of survival because need

moisture for respiratory surfaces

LE 51-7a

Kinesis increases the chance that a sow bug will encounter and stay

in a moist environment.

Dry open

area

Moist site

under leaf

Kinesis


Innate Behavior:

• Directed Movement:

– A taxis is an automatic movement toward or

away from a stimulus.

• Positive taxis- movement towards the

stimulus

• Negative taxis- movement away from the

stimulus

–Phototaxis- movement in response to light

–Chemotaxis- movement in response to

chemicals

–Hydrotaxis

–Thermo taxis, etc.


Taxis Examples:

• Chemotaxis in bacteria:

– Positive chemotaxis toward food such as

glucose

– Negative chemotaxis in repsonse to toxins

• Many stream fish exhibit positive rheotaxis

– In response to a current

– they automatically swim in an upstream

direction

– prevents them from being swept away

– keeps them facing the direction from which

food will come

LE 51-7b

Positive rheotaxis keeps trout facing into the current, the direction

from which most food comes.

Direction

of river

current


Innate Behaviors:

• Migration: is a complex behavior seen in a wide

variety of animals.

• Long distance movement , usually on a seasonal

basis

• Triggered by: local climate, local availability of

food, the season of the year or for mating reasons

– Navigation may be by detection of the Earth’s

magnetic field over visual cues


Migration- studies supporting it is innate

• Birds placed in funnel cages left marks indicating

the direction they were trying to migrate

Blackcaps placed in a funnel cage left marks indicating the direction in which they were trying to migrate.


Innate Behaviors:

• Hibernation: A state of inactivity in endotherms

(“warm-blooded animals”)

– Decreased metabolism

– Decreased breathing rate

– Decreased heart rate

– Decreased body temperature

• Triggered by ambient (air) temperature, season,

length of day.

• Before hibernation, animals store energy in the

form of fat by eating large amounts of food.

• Ectotherms (“cold-blooded”) organisms such as

fish do not “hibernate”, but when they are in colder

environments, their metabolic rate decreases


Innate Behaviors:

• Estivation: is a state of animal dormancy, similar to

hibernation, characterized by inactivity and a

lowered metabolic rate, that is entered in response

to high temperatures and arid conditions.

• It takes place during times of heat and dryness,

the hot dry season, which are often the summer

months.

• Snails (gastropods) estivate in shaded areas.

• Tortoise, crocodiles, salamanders- move

underground while it is hot and dry where it is

cooler and more humid


Innate Behaviors:

• Circadian rhythms: are behaviors that occur on a daily

cycle (24 hours). Allows the organism to anticipate

changes that may happen in the day or night. Activity must

be synchronized with 24 hour cycle for survival. (example:

a nocturnal animal that goes out during the day, is open to

predation).

– Nocturnal- “active” at night

– Diurnal- “active” in the day

– “Active”- Find food, mate, move, play, etc.


Innate Behaviors:

• A signal is a behavior that causes a change in the

behavior of another individual and is the basis for

animal communication.

• Examples:

• Chemical signals:

– Pheromones: are chemical signals that are

emitted by members of one species that affect

other members of the species.

• Visual signals: such as warning flash- when a deer

lifts its tail- white is seen to warn other deer of

danger

• Auditory signals: bird singing, mating calls, etc.


Animal Communication

• Communication mechanisms:

– Visual

– Audible

– Tactile

– Chemical

• To signal:

– Dominance

– To find food

– Establish territory

– Ensure reproductive success


Signal Behaviors

• Signal behaviors or cues can produce changes in

the behavior of other organisms

• Herbivory response- If a plant tastes bad, an

animal will learn to avoid it

• Territorial markings in mammals- warning signs of

danger

• Coloration in flowers- can attract pollinators, or

can serve as a warning sign that the plant is

poisonous.



• Bee dances

• Bird songs

• Territorial marking in animals

• Pack behavior in animals

• Herd, flock, schooling behavior in animals

• Predator warning

• Colony swarming behavior in insects

• Coloration- warning sign


Chemical Communication Example

• When a minnow or catfish is injured, an alarm

substance in the fish’s skin disperses in the water,

inducing a fright response among fish in the area

Minnows are widely dispersed in an aquarium before an alarm substance is introduced.

Within seconds of the alarm substance being introduced, minnows aggregate near the bottom of the aquarium and reduce their movement.


Innate Behaviors:

• The waggle dance of the honeybee as described

by Karl von Frisch

– The behavior in which the location and

distance of a food source is communicated to

the members of a hive by a foraging worker.

//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Bee_dance.png


Innate Behaviors:

• Courtship behavior: helps animals recognize other

animals of the same species for mating

– Ex. Dances, touching, calls, visual displays.

– Prezygotic isolating mechanism so organisms

mate with own species


51.2 Learning establishes specific links between experience and behavior

• Learning is the modification of behavior based on

specific experiences. It occurs through interactions

with the environment and other organisms. They

are vital to reproduction, natural selection and

survival.

– Imprinting

– Habituation

– Spatial learning

– Associative learning

– Classical conditioning

– Operant conditioning

– Cognition


Imprinting

• Imprinting is a behavior that includes learning and

innate components

– Is generally irreversible

– It is distinguished from other learning by a

sensitive period

– A sensitive period is a limited developmental

phase that is the only time when certain

behaviors can be learned


• Young geese following their mother

– Konrad Lorenz showed that when baby geese

spent the first few hours of their life with him,

they imprinted on him as their parent

Video: Ducklings

Imprinting Example

LE 51-5

BEHAVIOR: Young geese follow and imprint on their mother.

PROXIMATE CAUSE: During an early, critical developmental

stage, the young geese observe their mother moving away

from them and calling.

ULTIMATE CAUSE: On average, geese that follow and

imprint on their mother receive more care and learn

necessary skills, and thus have a greater chance of

surviving than those that do not follow their mother.


Learned Behavior:

• Habituation: the loss of responsiveness to stimuli

that convey little or no information.

– Simple form of learning

– Example: nagging sibling

– A hydra contracts when disturbed by a slight

touch, but it stops responding if repeatedly

disturbed without further consequences


Learned Behavior:

• A cognitive map is an internal representation of

spatial relationships among objects in an animal’s

surroundings.

– Spatial learning

NestNo nest

Nest


Learned Behaviors:

• Associative learning is the ability of many animals

to associate one feature of their environment with

another feature.

– Classical conditioning

– Operant conditioning


Learned Behaviors:

• Classical conditioning : a change in responding that occurs

when two stimuli are regularly paired in close succession:

the response originally given to the second stimulus comes

to be given to the first

– Pavlov

– Pair an unconditioned stimulus (food) to cause a

response (salivation) to a conditioned stimulus (tuning

fork) to create the same response (salivation)

– The conditioned stimulus (tuning fork) would not cause

the response (salivation) on its own, it must be FIRST

paired with the unconditioned stimulus (tuning fork)

and then can be removed.

– This results in the dog salivating (response) to the

tuning fork (conditioned response)


Classical Conditioning


Learned Behaviors:

• Operant conditioning occurs as an animals learns

to associate one of its behaviors with a reward or

punishment.

– Rewards: increase the behavior

– Punishments: decrease the behavior

– Skinner

– Trial-and-error learning


Learned Behaviors:

• Cognition is the ability of an animal’s nervous

system to perceive, store, process and use

information from sensory receptors.

– Problem solving

– Perception

– Pattern recognition

– Memory

– Language

– Art


Concept 51.3: Both Genetic makeup and environment contribute to the development of behaviors.

• Twin studies in humans indicate that both

environment and genetics contribute significantly

to behaviors.

– Personality, temperament, attitude, social

behavior, etc.

• Behavior can be directed by genes.

– For example, a single gene appears to control

courtship rituals in fruit flies.


Concept 51.4: Behavioral traits can evolve by natural selection

• Because genes influence behavior, natural

selection can result in evolution of behavioral traits

in populations

– Those best adapted to their environment,

survive, reproduce and pass on their traits

(genes).

• As generations continue, those traits will be

more common among the population

• Fitness: refers to how well the organism is

adapted to its environment


Foraging Behavior:

• Foraging behavior not

only includes eating,

but also mechanisms

used in searching for,

recognizing and

capturing food.

• The optimal foraging

model proposes that it

is a compromise

between the benefits

of nutrition and the

cost of obtaining food.


Mating systems

• Vary between species.

• The needs of the young are important in the

development of this behavior:

– Promiscuous- no strong pair-bonds

– Monogamous- one male/one female

– Polygamous- one individual mating with

several others.

• Ornamental males

LE 51-25b

Among polygynous species, such as elk, the male (left) is often highly ornamented.


Agonistic Behavior

• Are often ritualized contents that determine which

competitor gains access to a resource, such as

food or mates.


Concept 51.5: Inclusive fitness can account for the evolution of altruistic behavior

• Altruism occurs when animals behave in ways that

reduce their individual fitness, but increase the

fitness of other individuals in the population.

– selflessness

• Example: a blue jay giving an alarm call attracts

attention to its location.

• Example: In naked mole rat populations,

nonreproductive individuals may sacrifice their

lives protecting the reproductive individuals from

predators


• Inclusive fitness: is the total effect an individual

has on proliferating (passing on) its genes by

producing its own offspring and by providing aid

that enables other close relative to produce

offspring.

– The natural selection that favors this kind of

altruistic behavior by enhancing reproductive

success of relatives is called kin selection.



• Organisms exchange information with each other

in response to internal changes and external

cures, which can change behavior.

• Predator warnings: blue jay

• Avoidance responses: learn to avoid harmful

situations


Natural Selections favors innate and learned

behaviors that increase survival and reproductive

fitness

• Parent and offspring interactions: greater parental

care means greater reproductive success

• Courtship and mating behaviors: sexual selection-

females choose mates based on the best

characteristics leads to increased fitness

• Avoidance behavior to electric fences, poisons,

traps: trial and error- survival advantage to avoid

danger


Cooperative Behavior

Tends to increase the fitness of the individual and

survival of the population:

• Pack, herd, flock and schooling behavior: power in

numbers! Increases likelihood of survival. Appear

as one large organism.

animal behavior 2012 2013

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