Animal Behavior

1. Animal Behavior meerkats

2. Why study behavior? • Evolutionary perspective… • part of phenotype • acted upon by natural selection • lead to greater fitness? • lead to greater survival? • lead to greater reproductive success?

3. What questions can we ask? • Proximate causes • immediate stimulus & mechanism • “how” & “what” questions • Ultimate causes • evolutionary significance • how does behavior contribute to survival & reproduction • adaptive value • “why” questions • male songbird • what triggers singing?  how does he sing?  why does he sing? Courtship behavior in cranes  what…how… & why questions  how does daylength influence breeding?  why do cranes breed in spring?

4. The heart of Ethology……. 1. What is the basis of the behavior, including chemical, anatomical and physiological mechanisms? 2. How does development of the animal, from zygote to mature individual, influence the behavior? 3. What is the evolutionary history of the behavior? 4. How does the behavior contribute to survival and reproduction? • Developed by Tinbergen in 1963

5. What is behavior? • Behavior • everything an animal does & how it does it • response to stimuli in its environment • innate behaviors • automatic, fixed, “built-in”, no “learning curve” • despite different environments, all individuals exhibit the behavior • ex. early survival, reproduction, kinesis, taxis • learned behaviors • modified by experience • variable, changeable • flexible with changing environment

6. attack on red belly stimulus court on swollen belly stimulus male sticklebacks exhibit aggressive territoriality Innate behaviors • Fixed action patterns (FAP) • Sequence of unlearned acts that aretriggered by a sign stimulus. • Usually carried out to completion

7. Sandpiper Monarch migration Golden plover Bobolink Complex Innate behaviors • Use of environmental cues to carry out behavior • Migration, Hibernation, Estivation, Courtship • “migratory restlessness” seen in birds bred & raised in captivity • navigate by sun, stars, Earth magnetic fields ancient fly-ways

8. Innate: Directed movements • Taxis • Response movement toward (positive taxis) or away from (negative taxis) a stimulus • phototaxis • chemotaxis • Kinesis • Random movement in response to a stimulus ex: stopping, starting, or turning. ex: sowbug activity increases when conditions are dry.

9. Learning: Imprinting • Young animals go through a “critical period”whereafter they follow the organisms present during the period. Konrad Lorenz

10. Learning: Associative • learning to associate a stimulus with a consequence • operant conditioning • trial & error learning • associate behavior with reward or punishment • ex: learning what to eat • classical conditioning • Pavlovian conditioning • associate a “neutral stimulus” with a “significant stimulus”

11. Operant conditioning • Skinner box Basic animal training with rewards for behaviors. mouse learns to associate behavior (pressing lever) with reward (food pellet)

12. Learning: Habituation • Loss of response to stimulus • “cry-wolf” effect • decrease in response to repeated occurrences of stimulus • enables animals to disregard unimportant stimuli • ex: falling leaves not triggering fear response in baby birds; animals standing next to hwy

13. Learning: Spatial • Establishment of memories that reflect the physical structure of the environment. • Squirrels using physical markers to find buried food. • Wasps using physical markers to find their nest.

14. crow sea otter Learning: Problem-solving/Cognition • Involves reasoning, awareness, recollection and judgment Insight learning tool use

15. Social behaviors • Interactions between individuals that develop into evolutionary adaptations • communication / language • agonistic behaviors • dominance hierarchy • cooperation • altruistic behavior

16. Language • Honey bee communication • dance to communicate location of food source • waggle dance

17. Communication by song • Bird song • species identification & mating ritual • mixed learned & innate • critical learning period • Insect song • mating ritual & song • innate, genetically controlled Red-winged blackbird

18. Social behaviors • Agonistic behaviors • threatening & submissive rituals • symbolic, usually no harm done • ex: territoriality, competitor aggression

19. Social behaviors • Dominance hierarchy • social ranking within a group • pecking order

20. Social behaviors • Cooperation • working together in coordination Pack of African dogs hunting wildebeest cooperatively White pelicans “herding” school of fish

21. Social interaction requires communication • Pheromones • chemical signal that stimulates a response from other individuals • alarm pheromones • sex pheromones

22. Female mosquito use CO2 concentrations to locate victims marking territory Spider using moth sex pheromones, as allomones, to lure its prey The female lion lures male by spreading sex pheromones, but also by posture & movements Pheromones

23. Behaviors should increase fitness! • Foraging behavior – cost and benefits • Mating systems – monogamy vs. polygamy • Certainty of paternity • Agonistic behavior • Game theory – California lizard species Orange outcompetes blue Blue outcompetes yellow Yellow outcompetes orange

24. Social behaviors • Altruistic behavior • reduces individual fitness but increases fitness of recipient • kin selection • increasing survival of close relatives passes these genes on to the next generation How can this be of adaptive value? Belding ground squirrel

25. Colonial mammals are altruistic! • Naked mole rats • underground colony, tunnels • queen, breeding males, non-breeding workers • hairless, blind “Picture a hot dog that's been left in a microwave a little too long…add some buck teeth at one end, and you've got a fairly good idea of what a Naked Mole Rat looks like.”

26. Make sure you can… • Provide proximate and ultimate explanations for behaviors • Compare innate and learned behaviors and provide examples of each • Describe how a particular behavior can evolve • Explain how particular behaviors contribute to an organism’s fitness • Explain how altruistic behaviors can evolve in a population

27. Any Questions??