ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

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ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

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What is Behavior?

• Anything an animal does in response to a stimulus
• Stimulus environmental change that directly
  influences an organism
• Example change in day length, heat

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Innate behavior Inherited

• Natural selection favors certain behaviors
• Behavior that helps survival is passed on to
  offspring
• Examples fixed action responses unchangeable
  behavior that once begun, wont stop till it is
  finished (toad sees prey, flips out tongue)

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Reflexes Automatic Responses

• Simplest form of behavior
• Simple automatic response to a stimulus that
  involves no conscious control
• Example jerking hand from hot stove
• Fight or flight response

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Instinctive Behavior

• Complex pattern of innate behavior
• Longer than a reflex
• Example greylag goose rolling eggs

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Internal and external cues

• A. Circadian rhythm 24-hour wake-sleep cycle
  regulated by light (some nocturnal)
• B. Migration instinctive seasonal movement by
  animals (birds, whales)
• C. Hibernation inactivity during cold weather
• D. Estivation state of reduced metabolism during
  periods of extreme heat

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E. Suckling mammal babies instinctively know how
to get nourishment from their mother
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F. Taxis

• responsive movement of a free-moving organism or
  cell toward or away from an external stimulus,
  such as light.
• Positive phototaxis movement toward light
• Negative phototaxis movement away from light

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Social Behavior1. Dominance Hierarchy

• Pecking order
• Social ranking within a group
• Usually a dominant male (alpha male) may sire
  most of young

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2. Courtship behavior

• Courtship behavior actions males and females
  carry out before mating
• Insures that members of the same species find
  each other and mate
• May protect male from being eaten long enough to
  mate

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3. Territoriality

• Physical space an animal defends against own
  species
• May include breeding, feeding, or mating areas or
  all three
• Reduces competition so improves survival
• Pheromones may mark boundaries

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4. Communication ants and beesusing pheromones

• Bees dance to show hive members the way to food
• Ants

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5. Aggressive Behavior

• Intimidates others of same species
• Used to defend young, territory, food
• Teeth baring, growling, bird calls
• Rarely leads to death, just submission

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Learned Behavior behavior changes through
practice or experience

• Habituation repeated stimulus not associated
  with a reward or punishment, so animal
  eventually ceases to respond

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Learned behavior Imprinting

• At a critical time in its life, animal develops a
  social attachment to another object
• Usually irreversible
• Mostly in birds

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Learned behavior Trial and Error

• Animal receives a reward for a certain response
• Motivation speeds up this type of learning
• Usually, satisfies a need such as hunger

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Learned behavior Classical conditioning
(Pavlovs dog)

• Learning by association
• One stimulus associated with another to receive
  reward
• Eventually, first stimulus no longer needed

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Learned behavior Insight

• Most complex type of learning
• Animal uses previous experience to respond to a
  new situation
• Much of human learning occurs by insight

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Which is it?