Behavioral Ecology

2. Behavioral ecology emphasizes evolutionary hypotheses: • Behavioral ecology is the research field that views behavior as an evolutionary adaptation to the natural ecological conditions of animals. • We expect animals to behave in ways that maximize their fitness (this idea is valid only if genes influence behavior). • http://biosci.usc.edu/courses/2002-fall/documents/bisc121-fuhrman_ch51.ppt Behavioral Ecology

3. Why has naturalselection favoreda multi-songbehavior? http://biosci.usc.edu/courses/2002-fall/documents/bisc121-fuhrman_ch51.ppt It may be advantageous for males attracting females - earlier mating For Example: Bird Songs

4. Behavior has both proximate and ultimate causes: • Proximate questions are mechanistic, concerned with the environmental stimuli that trigger a behavior, as well as the genetic and physiological mechanisms underlying a behavioral act. • Ultimate questions address the evolutionary significance for a behavior and why natural selection favors this behavior. • http://biosci.usc.edu/courses/2002-fall/documents/bisc121-fuhrman_ch51.ppt Proximate vs. Ultimate

5. Ethology

6. Innate Behaviors

7. Innate Behaviors

8. Fixed Action Patterns (FAPs)

9. Sign Stimulus (Releaser)

10. Supra-Normal Sign Stimulus

11. Love: a FAP? (Harlow)

12. Imprinting • Imprinting is the recognition, response, and attachment of young to a particular adult or object. • Konrad Lorenz experimented with geese that spent the first hours of their life with him and after time responded to him as their “parent.” • Lorenz isolated geese after hatching and found that they could no longer imprint on anything. • http://biosci.usc.edu/courses/2002-fall/documents/bisc121-fuhrman_ch51.ppt

13. Imprinting Stimulus What is innatein these birds is the ability to respond to a parent figure; while the outsideworld providesthe imprintingstimulus.http://biosci.usc.edu/courses/2002-fall/documents/bisc121-fuhrman_ch51.ppt The Sensitive Period is a limited phase in an individual animal’s development when learning particular behaviors can take place.http://biosci.usc.edu/courses/2002-fall/documents/bisc121-fuhrman_ch51.ppt

14. Learning Learning is the modificationof behavior resulting fromspecific experiences http://biosci.usc.edu/courses/2002-fall/documents/bisc121-fuhrman_ch51.ppt

15. Maturation Maturation is the situation in which a behavior may improve because of ongoing developmental changes in neuromuscular systems, for example, flight in birdshttp://biosci.usc.edu/courses/2002-fall/documents/bisc121-fuhrman_ch51.ppt

16. Habituation • Habituation is a kind of learning: • Habituation involves a loss of responsiveness to unimportant stimuli or stimuli that do not provide appropriate feedback. • For example, some animals stop responding to warning signals if signals are not followed by a predator attack (the “cry-wolf” effect). • http://biosci.usc.edu/courses/2002-fall/documents/bisc121-fuhrman_ch51.ppt

17. Habituation

18. Classical Conditioning

20. Operant Conditioning This is called trial-and-error learning - an animal learns to associate one of its own behaviors with a reward or a punishmenthttp://biosci.usc.edu/courses/2002-fall/documents/bisc121-fuhrman_ch51.ppt

21. Observational Learning

22. Cognition (Special/Insight Learning) Cognition is the ability of ananimal’s nervous system toperceive, store, process, anduse information gathered by sensory receptors http://biosci.usc.edu/courses/2002-fall/documents/bisc121-fuhrman_ch51.pp

23. Play • Practice? • Exercise? • Socialization? (building/testing of bonds) • The “Excessive Energy of Youth?”

24. Learning across Phyla

25. Moving Behaviors!

26. Kinesis: Activity only when stimulus is present, but activity is random (a.k.a., not moving only when happy) • Taxis: Movement up or down a gradient, i.e., towards something good or a way from something bad • Migration: Regular (e.g., annual) movement back and forth from place to place • Piloting: Directed movement from landmark to landmark; requires some form of map • Orientation: Directed movement consistently in a particular direction (e.g., employing compass) • Navigation: Directed movement employing some combination of piloting and orientation Moving Behaviors

27. Kinesis

28. Kinesis

29. Taxis

30. Migration

31. Piloting

32. Orientation

33. Navigation plus

34. Foraging

35. Foraging

36. costs: risk of adult mortality payoff (cost-benefit) benefits: # of surviving young Costs or benefits www.zoo.ufl.edu/bolker/bsc2011-2001/Behavioral%20ecology.ppt Clutch size Cost-Benefit Analysis

37. Optimal Foraging Behavior “The optimal foraging theory states that natural selection will benefit animals that maximize their energy intake-to-expenditure ratio (“most bang for the buck”).”http://biosci.usc.edu/courses/2002-fall/documents/bisc121-fuhrman_ch51.ppt

38. Search Image

39. Optimal Diet Model • Predictions from: http://www.bioscience.drexel.edu/Homepage/Winter2003/envr511/slides/ENVRFeb4.ppt • Predators should specialize when more profitable prey is very abundant • There should never be a partial preference (predicted for an exact balance which is rare) • Predators should have broader diets in poor environments • Predators should ignore poor quality items irrespective of abundance

40. Specialist vs. Generalist • To eat or not to eat! http://www.bioscience.drexel.edu/Homepage/Winter2003/envr511/slides/ENVRFeb4.ppt • 2 Basic strategies: • Generalist • Broad diet, consume most of the prey they encounter • Spend little time searching • Diet includes low quality food • Specialist • Narrow diet, consume specific prey • Only high quality food • Search time high

41. Social Behavior

42. Social Behaviors are interactions between conspecifics • Sociobiology is the application of evolutionary theory to our understanding of social behaviors • These behaviors include: • Fighting (and dominance hierarchies and maintaining territories) • Courting and Mating • Raising progeny • Cooperating (and Defecting) Sociobiology

43. Agonistic Behavior

44. Dominance Hierarchies are found among chickens, wolves, humans, etc. • The idea is to avoid fighting by knowing your place • to avoid picking on conspecifics that you know have already whooped ya… • Territories are maintained in part as a means of reducing aggressive interactions • An animal can avoid fighting by avoiding a conspecific’s territory • Fighting tends to occur mostly between conspecifics since same species are both better matched and more likely competitors (e.g., for food or mates) Hierarchies & Territoriality

45. Mating/Courtship Behavior

46. Females: Cost of egg, Cost of pregnancy (mammals), Cost lactating (mammals), Cost of raising (mostly mammals & birds) • Males: Sperm relatively cheap, Usually no pregnancy (sea horses exception), No lactation, Often no raising (some birds and humans exceptions), but… • Males: Paternity not assured, particularly given internal fertilization Differential Parental Investment

47. Mating Systems

48. Promiscuous: low likelihood of subsequent mating with same individual • Monogamous: high likelihood of subsequent mating with one individual • Polygamous: high likelihood of subsequent mating with more than one individual • Polygyny: one male mates with several females • Polyandry: one female mates with several males Mating Systems

49. Altruism/Cooperative Behavior Altruism is Cooperative Behavior in which the actor's Darwinian fitness is Reduced by the behavior

50. Defecting (not being altruistic)