This document outlines concepts related to animal behavior, including stimuli that elicit behaviors and physiological responses, the role of experience in influencing behaviors through learning processes, how behaviors aid individual survival and reproduction, and how behaviors may evolve to benefit populations. Key points covered include fixed action patterns triggered by sign stimuli, communication methods like pheromones and sounds, associative learning processes like classical and operant conditioning, mating behaviors and sexual selection, and how altruism can increase inclusive fitness.

1. Animal Behavior
Unit: Animal Form and Function
Chapter 51

2. Lecture Outline
Concepts:
 51.1 Stimuli causing simple and complex
behaviors
 51.2 Experience and Behavior
 51.3 Selection for Individual survival and
Reproductive success
 51.4 Fitness beyond individual survival

3. 51.1 Stimuli and Mediation
 What stimulus elicits the behavior, and
what physiological mechanisms
mediate the response?
 Proximate causation: “How”
-environmental stimulus that triggers the
behavior

4. Fixed Action Patterns
 Fixed Action Pattern: sequence of unlearned acts
linked to a simple stimulus
-Unchangeable and carried out to completion
 Sign Stimulus: trigger for
the behavior (ie: red object
prompting the male
stickleback’s
aggressive behavior)
 Habituation: ignoring
stimulus after constant
repetition

5.  Migration stimulated by environmental
cues; magnetic pull
 Circadian clock synchronized with light &
dark

6. Animal Signals and
Communication
 Pheromones: chemical signals emitted by
members of one species to affect other
members of same species
 Visual signals: physical signals to warn or
send a message to members of same
species (ie: white warning of mockingbird)
 Auditory signals: sound messages (ie:
screech of blue jay)

7. Choice Chamber Experiment
In an investigation of fruit-fly behavior, a covered choice
chamber is used to test whether the spatial distribution of
flies is affected by the presence of a substance placed at
one end of the chamber. To test the flies’ preference for
glucose, 60 flies are introduced into the middle of the
choice chamber at the insertion point indicated by the
arrow in the figure above. A cotton ball soaked with a
10% glucose solution is placed at one end of the
chamber, and a dry cotton ball with no solution is placed
at the other end. The positions of flies are observed and
recorded every minute for 10 minutes.

9. Chi-Square
 A Chi-square (Χ2) Goodness of Fit
calculation compares the experimental
data with a theoretical expected
distribution
Chi-Square = Σ
O−E 2
E
Trial 1
E O (O-E) (O-E)2 (O-E)2/E
1 6.0 14 8.0 64 11
2 6.0 2.0 -4.0 16 2.7
3 6.0 2.0 -4.0 16 2.7
4 6.0 4 -2.0 4 .67
Ʃ 24 22 -2.0 100 17.1

10. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 4 Trial 5 Trial 6
Cricket Courtship Behavior to
Antennae
Chi Square Values
 Degrees of Freedom: A measure of how many
values can vary in a statistical calculation.
 n-1 where n=independent variables

11. 51.2 Experience and Behavior
 How does the animal’s experience during
growth and development influence the
response?
 Proximate causation: “How”
 The learning process that influences the
animal

12. Learning
 Imprinting: learned and innate components,
limited to a sensitive period and are generally
irreversible
 Spatial & Cognitive Maps: using memory to reflect
the environment through representation in the
nervous system

13.  Cognition: decision-making through
reasoning, recollection, and judgment
 Social: Learning through observation of
others

14.  Associative: ability to associate one
feature of environment with another
-Classical conditioning: arbitrary stimulus
becomes associated with a particular
outcome
-Operant conditioning: trial-and-error
learning, reward and punishment

15. 51.3 Individual & Reproduction
 How does the behavior aid survival and
reproduction?
 Ultimate causation: “Why”
 How these behaviors increase the survival
and reproductive success

16. Foraging Behavior
 Foraging behavior is based on the efficiency of
the method.
 Evolution of foraging is shown in the optimal
foraging model;
natural selection
favors minimal
cost, maximum
benefits

17. Mating Behavior
 Monogamous: one male and one female
 Promiscuous: no mating bond
 Polygamous: an individual of one sex with several
of the other
-Polygynous: one male and lots of females
-Polyandrous: one female and lots of males

18.  Intersexual Selection: sexual selection; one sex
chooses mates based on certain traits
-sexual selection influenced by imprinting; chooses
father’s traits
-Mate-choice copying: females copy other females’
choices
 Intrasexual Selection: competition within the
gender

19. 51.4 Evolution of Behavior
 What is the behavior’s evolutionary
history?
 Ultimate causation: “Why”
 Inclusive fitness benefits the population as
a whole

20. Good of the Whole
 Altruism: selfless behavior that decreases
the individual’s fitness but increases the
fitness of others in the population
 Inclusive Fitness: by helping other
members of the same species and
reproducing, the genes of the individual
proliferate