Brief information about scope of animal behaviour

1. IIMT UNIVERSITY
MEERUT
TOPIC:
SCOPE OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR
SUBMITTED TO:
DR.SANGEETA SHARMA
Asst. Professor
SUBMITTED BY:
SHIVANI SHARMA
M.Sc Zoology
2nd year

2. CONTENT
 INTRODUCTION
 NIKO TENBERGEN’S STUDY
 NIKO TENBERGEN’S 4 AIM’S
 AIM/SCOPE OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

3. INTRODUCTION
 Behavior is recognized as one of the most important functions of animal life.
 The study of the behavior of animals is the final objective of all other branches of
biology.
 Some of the elementary actions of the animals — to avoid predators, to gather
food, to reproduce etc., depend on an extraordinary complex and beautiful
synchronized mechanism of nerve cells, glands and muscles, along with a
supporting skeleton.
 These structures are part of a complex mechanism that must combine properly
through the inherited constitution of each individual.
 Ethology has made important contributions to other disciplines like
anthropology, sociology, psychology, physiology, environmental biology,
sociobiology etc.

4. NIKO TINBERGEB’S STUDY
 The Dutch ethologist Niko Tinbergen shared the nobel prize in 1973 in
physiology or medicine with Konrad Lorenz and kari von Frisch for their
discoveries of individual and social behavior in animals.
 Niko Tinbergen’s legacy as a exceptionally gifted experimentalist include the
pharsing of four different type of questions as a Tinbergen’s aim.
 Tinbergen’s aim:
 Proximal mechanisms
 Development & Learning
 Functional Significance
 Evolution

5. Niko Tinbergen’s 4 Aim’s Example-
Territoriality in Red-winged Blackbirds
 Male red-winged blackbirds are conspicuous and familiar birds throughout most
of North America, where they commonly occupy and defend perches near
sources of water.
 Aggressive while defending a territory, they will attack much larger animals, such
as ravens, hawks, or humans who encroach upon their territories.
 In the northern US, male red-winged blackbirds return from their wintering
grounds in early March.
 In rather stunning song-spread display they flaunt their prominent red epaulets,
they lower and spread their tails, puff out their feathers, issuing their
distinctive Cong-a-lee! call. According to Tinbergen's 4 Aims our interests as to
"Why" they would show such a distinctive type of territorial advertising can be
organized in a number of different ways.

6. RED WINGED BLACKBIRD

7. Proximate Mechanisms
 This mechanisms that cause the behavior via its underlying neural, endocrine and genetic
mechanisms i.e., the behavior’s proximate causation.
 The vocal organ of birds, the syrinx, is located at the base of the blackbird's trachea. Sound
is produced when air flowing through it causes the syringeal walls to vibrate.
 Muscles modulate the sound shape by changing the tension of the membranes and the
bronchial openings.
 Centers for song production pathways include the High vocal center (HVC); robust nucleus
of archistriatum (RA); and the tracheosyringeal part of the hypoglossal nucleus (nXIIts).
 Both pathways show sexual dimorphism, with the male producing song most of the time.
 Androgens are believed to play a key role in the expression of male song behaviors as it
exhibits a strong correlation with seasonal testosterone profiles.
 Song is enhanced with testosterone injections and ceases following adult castration.
 Injections of testosterone induce growth of the HVC and thereby even produce song in
female birds, which otherwise would not sing.

8. Development & Learning
 We could also query in what way the territorial display emerges in development. What role does
maturation play? To what degree does the behavior depend on learning processes and tutors?
What neural substrates are involved in its acquisition?
 The song of red-winged blackbird males, like that of many other song birds, is learned.
 A comparison of hatchlings, which were either deprived of normal song altogether or simply
presented with its recording, demonstrated that individuals readily learned their song from
conspecifics in the vicinity.
 Far from a pure cultural transmission of song dialects, however, innate predispositions played an
important role.
 Some individuals were able to learn complex repertoires with minimal stimulation while others
were quite reluctant to develop elaborate, species-specific calls.
 Some remain faithful to their tutors while others improvised readily and invented new versions.
 The neural signals that subserve vocal learning center on the anterior forebrain pathway with
magnocellular nucleus of the anterior neostriatum (LMAN), Area X, and the Dorsolateral Medial
thalamus (DLM)

9. Functional Significance
 Alternatively, we may be interested to know what function this particular
territorial display serves.
 If selection favors individuals with a behavior that is beneficial to the bearer's
reproductive success, what are the precise benefits bestowed to that individual
and its parents? What defines this behavior as successful in evolutionary terms?
What factors are turned up by a search for the functional significance or
adaptiveness of this behavior?
 When red-winged blackbirds were surgically muted, the loss of song affected
their ability to defend the territory.
 Males were captured and replaced by an auditory display of the individual's
recorded song to examine whether the broadcasts alone would be sufficient to
defend the territories.

10. Evolution
 Does the red-winged blackbird perform its territorial display because its
ancestors did it in a similar way? Is it the only one within its clade that has this
display? What were the precise patterns of change throughout the evolutionary
lineage that result in the behavior today? How does the red-winged blackbird's
display compare to that of other blackbirds?
 Most members of the red-winged blackbird's evolutionary lineage communicate
with simple call notes, suggesting that its specific call features may have been
inherited from an ancestral taxon.

11. AIM / SCOPE
OF
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

12. Ethology & Enviornment
 Animal behavior generally provides the first clue to environmental degradation.
 Changes in sexual behavior affects the population size of animals allowing us to
take measures to save the environment.
 Field studies of natural behavior of animals are vital to provide baseline data for
environmental monitoring.
 For example, Environmental Protection Agencies use changes in swimming
behavior of minnows as an index of possible pesticide pollution.
 Animal behavior studies have led to the understanding of insect reproduction
and host plant protection, leading to the discovery of non-toxic pheromones for
insect pest control.
 Thus, the need for toxic pesticides can be avoided. Knowledge of predator-prey
relationship would lead to the maintenance of proper food web in a given
ecosystem.

13. Animal behavior & Conservation
 It is essential that we know about the natural behavior (foraging, reproductive,
migratory, home range etc.) of endangered species in order to develop
protective measures for their conservation.
 Re-introduction of animals into their natural habitat, such as the Golden lion
tamarin of Brazil, requires detailed knowledge about the behaviour of such
species.
 Reproductive behavior studies have led to improved captive breeding methods
of near-extinct species such as snow leopard, red panda, golden lion tamarin,
whooping cranes etc., so as to save them from extinction.
 Animal behavior research, both in captivity and in natural habitat, has become
increasingly important.

14. Animal behavior & Economic Implication
 Research on salmon migration has revealed a lot about the mechanisms of
migration.
 This information has been valuable in preserving the salmon industry in the
Pacific Northwest, which has led to the development of the salmon fishing
industry in the Great Lakes, USA.
 Thus, basic animal behavior research has important economic implications.
 Such behavioural researches, if conducted on hilsa fish, can result in a boom of
the dwindling hilsa fishing industry in India.
 Most common example of economic implication is Labeo rohita (Rohu) in
Haryana.

15. Animal behavior & Neuro-ethology
 Through close observation of animal behavior, Sir Charles Sherrington (1954), a
Nobel Prize winner, developed a model for the structure and function of the
nervous system.
 This work of Sherrington has been amply supported through subsequent
neurobiological research on humans.
 Neuro-ethology is the science of animal behavior and neurobiology combined
together.
 It provides an important framework for explaining neural mechanisms which can
benefit humans.
 Behavioural studies of poisonous and venomous animals, and the extraction of
poison (neurotoxic chemicals) from such animals, is used to make various
medicines which has undoubtedly benefited mankind.

16. Animal behavior & Science Education
 Courses on animal behavior and behavioural ecology have been recently
introduced in Indian universities.
 Still, the related departments like Anthropology, Zoology, Psychology and
Wildlife have very little syllabus on Ethology.
 Students are still far away from wildlife and their behavior. It is disheartening that
most students have very little knowledge about the commonly found birds and
animals around their own residence, leave aside those found in National Parks,
Sanctuaries and Reserves.
 It is, therefore, essential that schools, colleges and universities should give
emphasis on the study of Wildlife Biology, Conservation, Management, Animal
Behavior and Animal Husbandry.

17. Ethology & Human behavior
 Many problems in human society are related with the interaction of environment
and animal behavior.
 Studies on animal behavior have led to interpretation of the framework of human
society and to understand the various society-related problems.
 Many studies on child abuses and infanticides in humans, finds its bearing from
observation of animal behavior.
 Various ethologists document that human societies have gradually evolved from
behavior of animals has helped in unfolding the mysteries of our own social
organisations.
 Animal societies and that understanding the behavior of animals has helped in
unfolding the mysteries of our own social organisations.

18. THANK YOU