Review and Animal Behavior

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Review and Animal Behavior
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Animal behavior

• Examples?
• Definition
• Why study behavior?

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How to study animal behavior

• Ethology The study of animal behavior in its
  natural environment
• Mid 20th century
• Tinbergen, von Frisch, Lorenz
• 4 foundational questions
• Mechanistic basis of the behavior
• How does development influence behavior
• Evolutionary history of the behavior
• How does the behavior contribute to its fitness?
• Behavioral ecology Stems from ethology, and
  attempts to explain how animal behaviors are
  controlled and why they developed

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Proximate versus ultimate explanations

• Proximate the mechanism (how)
• Ultimate Evolutionary significance (why)
• With your partner, write down a proximate and
  ultimate explanation

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Fixed action pattern (FAP)

• Sequence of unlearned behaviors
• Nearly unchangeable
• Carried out to completion
• Sign stimulus (releaser) ? behavior
• Example of an innate behavior

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Imprinting

• Generally irreversible
• Sensitive period
• Imprinting stimulus
• Innate and learning components
• Lorenz
• Proximate, ultimate explanations?

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Nature versus nurture

• Can behavioral traits be treated like physical
  traits?
• How do your determine whether genes, environment,
  or both cause behavior?
• Example behaviors intelligence, musical/artistic
  talent, love?

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Directed movements

• Strong genetic influence
• Kinesis versus taxis
• Migration
• Migrating blackcaps kept in captivity exhibited
  behaviors of migratory restlessness at night
• Migratory and nonmigratory blackcaps mated and
  subjected to both environments
• 40 of offspring exhibited migratory
  restlessness

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Signals and communication

• Signal causes change in another organisms
  behavior
• Difference between communication and language
• Pheromones (reproductive and nonreproductive
  behaviors)

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Auditory communication

• Songs of birds are partly learned
• Critical period
• Some insects, such as male Drosophila, produce a
  song even when reared in isolation
• Very little variation, why?

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Learning

• Definition?
• How do we learn?
• Habituation Loss of responsiveness

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Spatial learning and cognitive maps

• Spatial learning (Tinbergen) experience consists
  of spatial structures of the environment
• Use of landmarks. Reliable?
• Cognitive maps Internal representation of
  spatial relationships

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Classical conditioning (Pavlov)
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Operant conditioning (Skinner)
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How natural selections leads to behavioral traits

• Variation exists fraction of the species T.
  elegans (garter snakes) had ability to recognize
  slugs by chemoreception
• Increased fitness That variation has higher
  chance to survive and reproduce (genes passed on)
• Led to changes in the population over time

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• Your friend Jim comes to you with a problem His
  dog barks too much. He tells you that it is
  getting worse and the only way he can get his dog
  to stop barking is to give it a treat. Explain
  to your friend what kind of learning the dog is
  exhibiting and what can be done about it.
• Most birds cannot fly when they are first born,
  but only at a certain age. A scientists decides
  to isolate 2 groups of birds after being born.
  One group can practice flapping their wings at
  any point. The others groups wings are tied so
  that they cannot practice flapping. At the
  expected age, both groups are allowed to attempt
  to fly, and both groups do successfully with no
  apparent difference. What would account for these
  results. Innate, learned behavior? Both? Neither?
• The magnolia warbler only breeds in spring/early
  summer. Propose a proximate and ultimate
  explanation for this situation.

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Lab 11 Animal Behavior
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Lab 11 Animal Behavior

• Concepts
• innate vs. learned behavior
• experimental design
• control vs. experimental
• hypothesis
• choice chamber
• temperature
• humidity
• light intensity
• salinity
• other factors

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Lab 11 Animal Behavior

• Hypothesis
• Tentative, testable explanation
• It is the hypothesis in an experiment that is
  tested
• Deduction
• If hypothesis AND experiment THEN prediction

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Lab 11 Animal Behavior

• Hypothesis development
• Poor I think pillbugs will move toward the wet
  side of a choice chamber.
• Better IF pillbugs prefer a moist environment,
  AND they are randomly placed on both sides of a
  wet/dry choice chamber and allowed to move about
  freely for 10 minutes, THEN most will be found
  on the wet side.

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Lab 11 Animal Behavior

• Experimental design

sample size
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Foraging behavior

• Optimal foraging theory behaviors exist as a
  compromise between benefits of nutrition and cost
  of obtaining food
• Predation must be a factor

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Mating behavior
Promiscuous
Strong bonds
Monogamous (sex morphology similar)
Polygamous
Polyandry (dimorphic Larger, Showy males)
Polygyny (dimorphic Larger, Showy females)

• Factors influencing evolution of mating systems
• Need of young
• Paternity certainty
• certainty increases with external fertilization

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Sexual selection

• Sexual selection (selective pressure) ? evolution
  of male behavior and anatomy
• Stalked-eyed flies
• Females more likely to mate with males with
  longer eyestalks
• Why? Correlation between genetic disorders and
  inability to develop long eyestalks

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Agonistic behavior

• Ritualized
• Winner gains access to resources
• Physical and behavioral characteristics involved
• Usually harm is not done

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Game theory and behavior

• Game theory evaluates alternative strategies
  where outcome depends on strategies of other
  individuals
• Why dont less fit mating strategies disappear?
• Depends on abundance of certain strategies

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Prisoners dilemma (why cooperative succeeds)
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Altruism

• Cost/benefit of selfish vs. unselfish behavior?
• Altruism reduces individual fitness but increases
  fitness of others

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Inclusive fitness

• Helping close relatives would increase the
  inclusive fitness (own offspring and survival,
  reproduction of close relatives)
• Hamiltons rule
• Natural selection would favor altruistic behavior
  when rB gt C

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Social learning

• Experience involves observing others
• Culture information transfer through social
  learning
• Vervet monkey alarm calls
• Memes (Richard Dawkins)

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Sociobiology (E.O. Wilson)

• Connects human culture to evolutionary theory
• Social behaviors exist because they are
  perpetuated by natural selection
• Does not mean all social behaviors are hardwired
  (nature vs. nurture)