Animal Behavior

1. Animal Behavior AP Biology

2. Innate Behaviors • Innate behaviors are behaviors that are genetically inherited. • Behavior influenced by genes can be selected on by natural selection, so these behaviors should increase the fitness of an organism in some way. • Types of Innate Behaviors • Instinct • EX: In mammals, care for offspring by female parents is instinctual • Fixed Action Patterns (FAP) • Imprinting

3. Fixed Action Patterns • Follow a regular, unvarying pattern • Initiated by a specific stimulus • Behavior is usually always carried out to completion • Examples: • When a graylag goose sees an egg outside her nest, she will roll it back into the nest. She will also retrieve any object that resembles her egg. Even if its removed completely she’ll go through the motions of moving an egg back into the nest. • Male stickleback fish defend their territory against other males. The red belly of males is the stimulus for aggression. Any object with a red underside will be attacked.

4. Imprinting • An innate program for acquiring a specific behavior • Requires an appropriate stimulus during the critical period • Once acquired, the behavior is irreversible • Examples: • In the first two days of life, graylag goslings will accept any moving object as their mother for life. Even a real mother introduced after the critical period will be rejected • Salmon hatch in freshwater streams and migrate to the ocean to eat. When they are ready to mate, they return to their birthplace to breed, identifying the exact location of the stream. During early life, they imprint the odors of their birthplace.

5. Learned Behaviors • Behaviors acquired through a process of learning • Types of Behavioral Learning • Associative Learning • Habituation • Observational Learning • Insight

6. Associative Learning • When an animal learns that two events are connected. • EX: Dog learns that the smell/sight of food leads to eating (they will then begin to salivate) • Types of Associative Learning • Classical Conditioning • Operant Conditioning • Spatial Learning

7. Classical Conditioning • A form of A.L. in which an animal responds to a substitute stimulus • Example • Psychologist Ivan Pavlov found that if after repeated experiences in which a bell were rung before a dog was given food, the dog would salivate when the bell was rung alone (no food present). Dogs associated the bell with food.

8. Operant Conditioning • Also known as trial and error learning • Occurs when an animal connects its own behavior with a particular response. • This is how we train animals- positive and negative reinforcement. • Example: • Psychologist Skinner trained rats to push levers to obtain food or avoid painful shocks. • Extinction: when a learned behavior no longer exhibits the expected response, the learning can be reversed or forgotten

9. Spatial Learning • When an animal associates attributes of a location with the reward it gains by being able to identify and return to that location • Tinbergen observed wasps using pinecone markers to return to their nests. If the markers were removed, wasps could not find the nest.

10. Habituation • It allows an animal to disregard a meaningless stimuli • The stimuli in question triggers an innate behavior, not a learned one (different from extinction) • Example: • Sea anemones pull food into their mouths. If they are stimulated repeatedly with non-food items (sticks, for example) they will then begin to ignore the stimulus.

11. Observational Learning • Occurs when animals copy the behavior of another animal w/o any previous + reinforcement of the behavior • Example: • Japanese monkeys usually remove sand from food by brushing them with their hands. One monkey discovered that dipping food in water more easily rid the food of sand. Through observational learning, many of the other monkeys began to use water to clean their food.

12. Insight • When an animal, exposed to a totally new situation and without prior experience or observation, performs a behavior that generates a desirable outcome. • Example • A chimpanzee placed in a room with food beyond their reach will stack boxes up to get to the food.

13. Kinds of Behavior Innate Learned Imprinting Instinct Insight Habituation Observational Learning Associative Learning FAP’s Operant Conditioning Classical Conditioning Spatial Learning

14. Animal Movement • Kinesis-undirected change in activity level/turning rate of animal in response to a stimulus. • Example: when bugs scurry when a rock is lifted. • Taxis- directed movement towards or away from a stimulus. • Phototaxis is movement towards light, chemotaxis is towards a chemical. • Example: moths fly towards light. • Migration- long distance, seasonal movements to find food or better environmental conditions. • Example: whales, birds, elk, insects, and bats all move to warmer climates during the winter.

15. Animal Communication • Chemical- pheromones are chemical animals secrete to communicate. • Example: ants mark their trail, urine spraying, primer pheromones in queen bees and termites • Visual- animals will make displays to show aggression or courtship. • Example: Wolves will threaten each other by showing their teeth or show submission by lying on their backs • Birds of Paradise • Auditory- making sounds. • Example: frog calls, whale songs • Tactile- touching • Example: Monkeys will groom each other, wolves will greet dominant males with a lick

16. Foraging Behaviors • Feeding: Goal is to maximize amount of food eaten while minimizing energy used and risk of injury or attack • Herds, Flocks, & Schools provide advantages: • Concealment: Most individuals are hidden in the middle. • Vigilance - Individuals can trade off foraging and watching for predators- two eyes are better than one! • Defense • Packs • Cooperation in catching prey • Search images • Learning to search for an abbreviated image of the target or goal • EX: searching for a book, seeing a cop car

17. Social Behaviors • Agonistic Behaviors- specificaggressive and submissive ritualized behaviors that exist to establish dominance hierarchy but minimize injury • Dominance hierarchies- where there is a pecking order indicating status and power • Minimizes fighting for food and mates • Territoriality- defending an area for food and/or mating. • Altruism- seemingly unselfish, fitness-lowering behaviors where an organism helps another animal. • Usually occurs between relatives. This is called kin selection • Leads to inclusive fitness (the fitness of the group with similar genes) • EX: Belding’s ground squirrels give alarm calls when predators are near. This risks that squirrels safety but protects the group, which not coincidentally, is made of closely related females