Behavior:

1. Behavior: How Do Animals Interact With Other Animals?

2. How is Animal Behavior Studied? • Questions animal behaviorists ask: • What are the mechanisms that cause the behavior? • How does the behavior develop?

3. How is Animal Behavior Studied? • Questions animal behaviorists ask: • What is the survival value of the behavior? • How did the behavior evolve?

4. The History of Animal Behavior • Study of animal behavior was strongly influenced by Darwin’s The Origin of Species • Georges J. Romanes • Protégé of Darwin. • Listed emotions in the order he imagined they evolved.

5. Evolution of Emotion

6. The History of Animal Behavior • Early 1900’s: field split into two branches: • Ethology • Study of animal behavior under natural conditions. • Comparative behavior • Study of animal behavior often done under tightly controlled laboratory conditions.

7. Controversy Splits Two Groups • Controversy was between Nature and Nurture. • Ethologists believed that the driving force in behavior was instinct. • Comparative behaviorists said that learning and rewards were more important factors.

8. Controversy Splits Two Groups • 1920s: Ivan Pavlov shows that behavior is influenced by both: • Instinct. • Learning and rewards.

9. Sociobiology • Is the study of animal behavior that stresses. • Evolutionary, genetic, and ecological processes • New behavioral field. • Many questioned to what extent can sociobiology could explain human behavior.

10. Learning • Defined as changes in behavior that result from experience • Cannot be explained in terms of increasing maturity, sensory adaptation, or fatigue. • Learning shows elements of inherited capabilities and external experiences. • Grouped into 7 categories.

11. Learning • Habituation: • Learning not to respond because of lack of reinforcement. • Classical conditioning: • When an animal learns to give a response, which is normally associated with one stimulus, to a different response.

12. Learning • Operant conditioning: • Learning to increase the frequency of action because of rewards. • Latent Learning: • Situations where animals learn new behaviors with no apparent or immediate rewards.

13. Learning • Learning set: • Learning how to learn. • Social learning: • Learning from others. • Example: young of carnivores learn where and how to obtain food

14. Learning • Play: behavior that appears to be trifling, that is not directed to any immediate goals or needs, but that often results in learning. • Learning through play increases development: • Physically • (strength, endurance and coordination) • Socially • (grooming, social bonds, reproductive displays, dominance hierarchies) • Cognitively • (perceptual abilities)

15. How is Animal Behavior Related to Other Branches of Biology? • No branch of biology stands alone • Numerous examples in preceding chapters of biology’s interrelatedness • Can you think of any examples? • Animal behavior is also connected to other branches of biology • Genetics • Evolution • Physiology

16. Genetics of Behavior • How does the presence or absence of a protein influence behavior? • Proteins in the cell membrane of Paramecium function as calcium channels. • Play a role in movement of the protist.

17. Genetics of Behavior • Blue-footed booby chicks. • While parents are away, they toss sticks and catch them by the ends. • Parents have not modeled the behavior • Behavior must have genetic component.

18. Evolution of Behavior • If some behaviors have a genetic basis, and if evolution involves a population-wide shift in allele frequencies: • We can predict behaviors evolve

19. Evolution of Behavior • Optimality Theory • Predicts that behaviors will evolve that promote the greatest fitness. • Costs and benefits of a particular behavior depend on the behavior of other individuals in the population. • Example: fogs croaking

20. Evolution of Behavior • What behavior will evolve in any given situation? • Evolutionary Stable Strategy (ESS) • is the one that results in the most offspring (or relatives) that evolve. • By definition, ESS cannot be replaced or improved once most individuals in the population adopt it.

21. Physiology of Behavior • Behavior often involves satisfying some physiological need. • While every organ system is involved at one time, • the endocrine and nervous system are most intimately tied to behavior

22. Physiology of Behavior • Endocrine system has profound effects on behavior in vertebrates • Effects categorized into two types: • Organizational effects • Activational effects

23. Physiology of Behavior • Organizational effects • Are permanent and often appear early in life. • Example: In embryonic development of many mammals, the presence of certain hormones sets the embryo on the track toward becoming a male or female

24. Physiology of Behavior • Activational effects • Short-term, periodic effects that appear later in life. • Example: female dog in heat advertises her sexual receptivity both physiologically and behaviorally.

25. How Do Individual Animals Behave? • Animal behavior is directed toward the survival and reproduction of individuals. • Not the improvement of species or biological communities.

26. Animals Move Through Space • Animals move from place to place in order to position themselves in environments and habitats where they are most likely to be successful. • Different types of movement: • Kineses • Taxes • Migrations

27. Animals Move Through Space • Kineses: • Undirected movements stimulated by unfavorable environmental conditions. • Example: wood lice move to dry moist places • Intolerant of dry environments.

28. Animals Move Through Space • Taxes: • Directed movements toward or away from a stimulus. • Example: • Moths move toward light. • Earthworms move away from light.

29. Animals Move Through Space • Migrations: • Are periodic movements between habitats. • Example: Monarch butterfly.

30. Animals Move Through Space • While on migrations, animals must orient themselves • Three general types: • Piloting: the sequential recognition of landmarks. • Compass orientation: moving a particular direction for a prescribe length of time or distance. • True navigation: finding one’s way by means of an internal compass and map.

31. Animals Forage for Food • Getting enough to eat is one of the most demanding animal activities. • Three feeding strategies: • Filter feeding • Herbivory • Carnivory

32. Animals Forage for Food • Filter feeding: • Animals filter dissolved nutrients or plankton out of the water. • Invertebrate feeders: immobile • Vertebrate feeders: mobile

33. Animals Forage for Food • Herbivory: • When animals eat plants. • Carnivory • When animals eat other animals. • Scavenging is a specialized form of carnivory.

34. Animals Avoid Becoming Food • Animals must remain vigilant to the approach of predators. • Simplest way to avoid predators is to avoid detection. • Conserves time and energy

35. Animals Avoid Becoming Food • Cryptic coloration: • Resembling the background of the environment. • Example: • Squid changes colors to match background.

36. Animals Avoid Becoming Food • Misleading coloration: • Resembling an object they are not. • Example: • Question-mark butterfly

37. Animals Avoid Becoming Food • Some animals have chemical or physical defenses. • Examples: • Skunks release noxious odors • Monarch butterflies taste bad • Wasps and bees have stingers • These animals advertise potential danger by bright colors and conspicuous behavior.

38. Animals Avoid Becoming Food • Müllerian mimicry: • When groups of animals resemble each other, each of which is dangerous. • Example: several species of wasps and bees are black and yellow.

39. Animals Avoid Becoming Food • Batesian mimicry: • When a nondangerous species gain benefits from resembling dangerous animals. • Example: robber flies also have black and yellow coloration. • Don’t have stingers or noxious characteristics.

40. Animals Reproduce • Reproduction is of fundamental importance to all organisms. • Allows successful characteristics to be passed on to the next generation. • There are three main mating strategies: • Monogamy • Polygyny • Polyandry

41. Animals Reproduce • Monogamy: • Occurs when only one male breeds with only one female. • Animals mate for life. • Serial monogamy: • When male and female bond for one mating season. • How long pair bonds depends on the species. • More common.

42. Animals Reproduce • Polygyny: • One male mates with multiple females. • Most common mating pattern among vertebrates • One form favors males who • 1. Are larger than females • 2. Have characteristics that assist them to attract, keep and defend females • 3. Are aggressive • Examples: moose, lions, and elephant seals

43. Animals Reproduce • Polyandry: • Occurs when one female breeds with multiple males • Rarest of mating strategies. • The advantage to females is that it allows them to mix their genes, and thus characteristics, with several males rather than only one per mating season. • Example: small shorebirds.

44. Animals Reproduce • Parental care • Time and effort devoted to care varies widely. • Some animals do nothing more than place numerous eggs in favorable environments. • Other extreme, both parents devote extensive care to a few young for extensive periods of time.

45. How Do Groups of Animals Behave? • Nearly all animals must interact with others of their kind for purposes of reproduction. • Some are seasonally gregarious. • Some live in groups year round.

46. How Do Groups of Animals Behave? • Costs and benefits associated with sociality. • Costs: sharing resources, attracting predators, more easily spreading disease. • Benefits: locating food more easily, driving off predators, attracting mates, raising young.

47. How Do Groups of Animals Behave? • Sociality evolves in those species and environments wherein costs exceed benefits.

48. Animals Communicate, Especially in Groups • Animal communication involves: • 1. Conveying information. • 2. The sender intends to communicate. • 3. leads to modifications in the recipient’s behavior that benefits the sender.

49. Animals Communicate, Especially in Groups • Almost any mode of behavior can be used for communication. • Common modes: • Sound • Visual displays • Odors • Release of chemicals • Includes pheromones • Touch • Vibrations in soil or water • Electric fields

50. Animals Communicate, Especially in Groups • Types of communication: • Agonistic encounters • Often lead to dominance hierarchies • A social system based on aggression and submission organized into established rankings of members