ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

1. ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

2. 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

3. 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, won’t stop till it is finished (toad sees prey, flips out tongue)

4. 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

5. Complex pattern of innate behavior Longer than a reflex Example: greylag goose rolling eggs Instinctive Behavior

6. 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

7. E. Suckling: mammal babies instinctively know how to get nourishment from their mother

8. 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

9. “Pecking order” Social ranking within a group Usually a dominant male (“alpha male”) may sire most of young Social Behavior:1. Dominance Hierarchy

10. 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 2. Courtship behavior

11. 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 3. Territoriality

12. 4. Communication: ants and beesusing pheromones • Bees “dance” to show hive members the way to food • Ants

13. Intimidates others of same species Used to defend young, territory, food Teeth baring, growling, bird calls Rarely leads to death, just submission 5. Aggressive Behavior

14. Learned Behavior: behavior changes through practice or experience • Habituation: repeated stimulus not associated with a reward or punishment, so animal eventually ceases to respond

15. Learned behavior: Imprinting • At a critical time in its life, animal develops a social attachment to another object • Usually irreversible • Mostly in birds

16. 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

17. Learned behavior: Classical conditioning (Pavlov’s dog) • “Learning by association” • One stimulus associated with another to receive reward • Eventually, first stimulus no longer needed

18. 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

19. Which is it?