Ch 51 - Behavioral Ecology

1. Certain behavioral characteristics exist because they are expressions of genes that have been perpetuated by natural selection. Turn in Biomes HW. 1. Formal Lab Reports 2. Ch. 51 Objective: see connection between genes, evolution and environment on animal behavior HW: Ch. 50 - 52 Quiz Wed. (Objectives due if you want points back on your quiz) Ch. 52 Objectives Formal Lab Report due Friday

2. Ch 51 - Behavioral Ecology Behavioral ecologists distinguish between proximate and ultimate causes of behavior Many behaviors have a strong genetic component Environment, interacting with an animal's genetic makeup, influences the development of behaviors Behavioral traits can evolve by natural selection Natural selection favors behaviors that increase survival and reproductive success The concept of inclusive fitness can account for most altruistic social behavior

3. Behavior - everything an animal does and how it does it Ex: secreting a hormone to attract a mate predator chasing prey bird singing learning

4. Proximate questions - "how" questions Ex: "How does day length influence breeding by red- crowned cranes?" Ultimate questions - "why" questions; address evolutionary significance of a behavior Ex: "Why does the red-crowned crane breed in the spring and early summer"

5. Fixed action pattern (FAP) - a sequence of unlearned behavioral acts that is essentially unchangeable, and once initiated, is usually carried to completion - In response to a sign stimulus Ex: male stickleback fish and red bellies

7. Imprinting - a type of behavior that includes both learning and innate components and is generally irreversible. - Sensitive period - limited phase in an animal's development that is the only time when certain behaviors are learned Ex: young geese following the mother goose

9. Innate behavior - developmentally fixed; nearly all individuals in a population exhibit the same behavior, despite internal and external environmental differences during development and throughout life

10. Directed Movements: Kinesis - random movements in response to a stimulus Taxis - purposeful movement toward or away from a stimulus Migration

11. Animal Signals and Communication Signal - behavior that causes a change in another animal's behavior Communication - transmission of, reception of, and response to signals Chemical communication - phermones Auditory communication - songs

12. Genetic Influences on Mating and Parental Behavior Genes play a role in mate selection, parenting and behavior toward the rest of the population Ex: male prairie voles

13. Dietary Influence on Mate Choice Behavior Ex: Fruit flies Social Environment and Aggressive Behavior Ex: California and white-footed mice

14. Learning - the modification of behavior based on specific experiences Ex: simple - imprinting, habituation Habituation - a loss of responsiveness to stimuli that convey little or no information Spatial Learning - modification of behavior based on experience with the spatial structure of the environment (nest sites, hazards, food, mates) - landmark - location indicator, must be stable - degree of environmental variability influences the spatial learning strategies of animals

15. Cognitive maps - an internal representation, or code, of the spatial relationships between objects in an animal's surroundings

16. Associative learning - ability of many animals to associate one feature of the environment with another - Classical conditioning: an arbitrary stimulus is associated with a reward or punishment Ex: Pavlov's dogs - Operant conditioning: trial-and-error learning; animal learns to associate one of its own behaviors with a reward or punishment and then tends to repeat or avoid that behavior

17. Cognition - the ability of an animal's nervous system to perceive, store, process and use information gathered by sensory receptors Many animals learn how to solve problems by watching other animals

18. Behavioral Variation in Natural Populations Variation in Prey Selection Variation in Aggressive Behavior Experimental Evidence for Behavioral Evolution Fruitflies - foraging gene Blackcap migratory patterns

19. Optimal Foraging Theory a compromise between the benefits of nutrition and the costs of obtaining food, such as the energy expenditure or the risk of being eaten by a predator while foraging

20. Mate Selection and Behavior Polygynous species - dimorphic, males more showy and larger Polyandrous species - dimorphic, females more showy and larger

21. Mate Selection Females: health, or influenced by imprinting Males: agnostic behavior, variations among species Game theory applied to biology

22. Inclusive fitness - the total effect an individual has on proliferating its genes by producing its own offspring and by providing aid that enables other close relatives, who share many of those genes, to produce offspring

23. Hamilton's Rule and Kin Selection B = benefit to recipient C = cost to altruist r = coefficient of relatedness = the probability that if 2 individuals share a common parent or ancestor, a particular gene present in one individual will also be present in the second individual rB > C the natural selection that favors this kind of altruistic behavior by enhancing reproductive success of relatives is called kin selection

24. Social learning - learning through observing others Culture - a system of information transfer through social learning or teaching that influences the behavior of individuals in a population Mate choice copying - guppies Alarm calls - vervet monkeys

25. Sociobiology - certain behavioral characteristics exist because they are expressions of genes that have been perpetuated by natural selection