2. AP Biology 2005-2006
What is behavior & Why study it?
ī§ Behavior
īĩ everything an animal does & how it does it
ī§ link between animal & its environment
īĩ innate = inherited or developmentally fixed
īĩ learned = develop during animalâs lifetime
ī§ Why study behavior?
īĩ part of phenotype
īĩ acted upon by natural selection
ī§ lead to greater fitness?
ī§ greater reproductive success?
ī§ greater survival?
3. AP Biology 2005-2006
What questions do we ask?
ī§ Proximate causes
īĩ immediate stimulus & mechanism
īĩ âhowâ & âwhatâ questions
ī§ Ultimate causes
īĩ evolutionary significance
īĩ how does behavior
contribute to survival
& reproduction
īĩ âwhyâ questions
Courtship behavior in cranes
âconsider how & why questions
5. AP Biology 2005-2006
Types of behaviors
ī§ Innate behaviors
īĩ automatic, fixed, âbuilt-inâ
ī§ despite different environments, all individuals
exhibit the behavior
ī§ triggered by a stimulus
ī§ Learned behaviors
īĩ modified by experience
ī§ variable
ī§ triggered by a stimulus
does lipstick create
a supernormal
stimulus in humans
6. AP Biology 2005-2006
Innate behavior
ī§ Fixed action patterns (FAP)
īĩ sequence of behaviors
essentially unchangeable
& usually conducted to
completion once started
īĩ sign stimulus
ī§ releaser that triggers FAP
male sticklebacks exhibit
aggressive territoriality
attack on red belly stimulus
court on swollen belly stimulus
8. AP Biology 2005-2006
Fixed Action Patterns (FAP)
Do humans exhibit Fixed Action Patterns? The âeyebrow-flashâ
Digger wasp
egg rolling in geese
9. AP Biology 2005-2006
Directed movements
ī§ Taxis
īĩ change in direction
īĩ automatic movement toward (positive taxis) or
away from
(negative taxis) a
stimulus
ī§ phototaxis
ī§ chemotaxis
ī§ Kinesis
īĩ change in rate of
movement in
response to a stimulus
10. AP Biology 2005-2006
Migration
ī§ Complex behavior, but still under
genetic control
īĩ âmigratory restlessnessâ seen in birds bred &
raised in captivity
migrating western sandpipers
Monarch
migration
11. AP Biology 2005-2006
Migration
Bobolink Golden plover
Summer
nesting
range
Winter
range
Summer
nesting
range
Winter
range
ī§ Following ancient fly-ways
īĩ navigate by sun, stars, magnetic fields
12. AP Biology 2005-2006
Imprinting
ī§ Learning at a specific critical time
forming social attachments
īĩ both learning & innate components
Konrad Lorenz was âmotherâ to
these imprinted graylag goslings
13. AP Biology 2005-2006
Imprinting for conservation
Conservation biologists have
taken advantage of imprinting by
young whooping cranes as a
means to teach the birds a
migration route. A pilot wearing a
crane suit in an ultralight plane
acts as a surrogate parent.
Imprinting
Wattled crane conservation
teaching cranes to migrate
15. AP Biology 2005-2006
Learned behavior
ī§ Associative learning
īĩ learning to associate
1 feature of the
environment (stimulus)
with another
ī§ operant conditioning
īˇ trial & error learning
ī§ classical conditioning
īˇ stimulus &
reward/punishment
QuickTimeâĸ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
16. AP Biology 2005-2006
Operant conditioning
ī§ Skinner box
QuickTimeâĸ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTimeâĸ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
18. AP Biology 2005-2006
Habituation
ī§ Loss of response to
stimulus
īĩ âcry-wolfâ effect
īĩ learn not to
respond to
repeated
occurrences of
stimulus
21. AP Biology 2005-2006
Social behaviors
ī§ Contests for resources
īĩ develop as evolutionary adaptations
īĩ agonistic behaviors
ī§ threatening & submissive rituals
ī§ symbolic, usually no harm done
22. AP Biology 2005-2006
Social behaviors
ī§ Dominance hierarchy
īĩ social ranking within
a group
ī§ pecking order
23. AP Biology 2005-2006
Social behaviors
ī§ Altruistic behavior
īĩ reduces individual fitness but
increases fitness of recipient
īĩ kin selection
How can this be of adaptive value?
Belding ground squirrel
26. AP Biology 2005-2006
Mating & parental behavior
ī§ Genetic influences
īĩ changes in behavior in different stages
of mating
ī§ pair bonding
ī§ competitor aggression
ī§ Environmental influences
īĩ modifies behavior
ī§ quality of diet
ī§ social interactions
ī§ learning opportunities
27. AP Biology 2005-2006
Social interaction requires communication
ī§ Pheromones
īĩ chemical signal that stimulates a
response from other individuals
ī§ alarm pheromones
ī§ sex pheromones
28. AP Biology 2005-2006
Pheromones
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
Female mosquito use CO2
concentrations to locate victims
marking territory
31. AP Biology 2005-2006
Auditory communication
ī§ Bird song
īĩ species identification & mating ritual
īĩ mixed learned & innate
īĩ critical learning period
ī§ Insect song
īĩ mating ritual & song
īĩ innate, genetically
controlled
Red-winged blackbird
32. AP Biology 2005-2006
Social behaviors
ī§ Cooperation
Pack of African
dogs hunting
wildebeest
cooperatively
White pelicans
âherdingâ school
of fish
33. AP Biology 2005-2006
Colonial mammals
ī§ Naked mole rats
īĩ underground colony, tunnels
īĩ queen, breeding males, non-breeding workers
īĩ hairless, blind
âPicture 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.â
convergent evolution:
bees, ants, termitesâĻ
mole rats
Proximate cause questions The redâcrowned cranes, like many animals, breed in spring and early summer. A proximate question about the timing of breeding by this species might be, How does day length influence breeding by redâcrowned cranes? A reasonable hypothesis for the proximate cause of this behavior is that breeding is triggered by the effect of increased day length on an animalâs production of and responses to particular hormones. Indeed, experiments with various animals demonstrate that lengthening daily exposure to light produces neural and hormonal changes that induce behavior associated with reproduction, such as singing and nest building in birds. Ultimate cause questions In contrast to proximate questions, ultimate questions address the evolutionary significance of a behavior. Ultimate questions take such forms as, Why did natural selection favor this behavior and not a different one? Hypotheses addressing âwhyâ questions propose that the behavior increases fitness in some particular way. A reasonable hypothesis for why the redâcrowned crane reproduces in spring and early summer is that breeding is most productive at that time of year. For instance, at that time, parent birds can find ample food for rapidly growing offspring, providing an advantage in reproductive success compared to birds that breed in other seasons.
Do humans exhibit Fixed Action Patterns? This question was addressed by Irenaeus Eibl-Eibesfeldt and Hans Hass who worked at the Max-Planck-Institute for Behavioural Physiology in Germany. They created a Film Archive of Human Ethology of unstaged and minimally disturbed social behaviour. They filmed people across a wide range of cultures with a right-angle reflex lens camera i.e. the subjects did not realize that they were being filmed because the camera lens did not appear to be pointing at them! Eibl-Eibesfeldt has identified and recorded on film, several human Fixed Action Patterns or human 'universals' e.g. smiling and the "eyebrow-flash" Eibl-Eibesfeldt took these pictures of a Himba woman from Namibia (SW-Africa). She shows a rapid brow raising (between the second and third still images) which coincides with raising her eyelids. Because all the cultures he examined showed this behaviour, Eibl-Eibesfeldt concluded that it was a human 'universal' or Fixed Action Pattern. Some Sphex wasps drop a paralyzed insect near the opening of the nest. Before taking provisions into the nest, the sphex first inspects the nest, leaving the prey outside. During the sphex's inspection of the nest an experimenter can move the prey a few inches away from the opening of the nest. When the sphex emerges from the nest ready to drag in the prey, it finds the prey missing. The sphex quickly locates the moved prey, but now its behavioral "program" has been reset. After dragging the prey back to the opening of the nest, once again the sphex is compelled to inspect the nest, so the prey is again dropped and left outside during another stereotypical inspection of the nest. This iteration can be repeated again and again, with the sphex never seeming to notice what is going on, never able to escape from its genetically-programmed sequence of behaviors. Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett have used this mechanistic behavior as an example of how seemingly thoughtful behavior can actually be quite mindless, the opposite of human behavioral flexibility that we experience as free will
The sow bugs become more active in dry areas and less active in humid areas. Though sow bugs do not move toward or away from specific conditions, their increased movement under dry conditions increases the chance that they will leave a dry area and encounter a moist area. And since they slow down in a moist area, they tend to stay there once they encounter it. In contrast to a kinesis, a taxis is a more or less automatic, oriented movement toward (a positive taxis) or away from (a negative taxis) some stimulus. For example, many stream fish, such as trout, exhibit positive rheotaxis (from the Greek rheos, current); they automatically swim or orient themselves in an upstream direction (toward the current). This taxis keeps the fish from being swept away and keeps them facing the direction from which food will come.
Bird migration, a behavior that is largely under genetic control. Each spring, migrating western sandpipers (Calidris mauri), such as those shown here, migrate from their wintering grounds, which may be as far south as Peru, to their breeding grounds in Alaska. In the autumn, they return to the wintering grounds.
But how do the young know on whomâor whatâto imprint? How do young geese know that they should follow the mother goose? The tendency to respond is innate in the birds; the outside world provides the imprinting stimulus, something to which the response will be directed. Experiments with many species of waterfowl indicate that they have no innate recognition of âmother.â They respond to and identify with the first object they encounter that has certain key characteristics. In classic experiments done in the 1930s, Konrad Lorenz showed that the most important imprinting stimulus in graylag geese is movement of an object away from the young. When incubatorâhatched goslings spent their first few hours with Lorenz rather than with a goose, they imprinted on him, and from then on, they steadfastly followed him and showed no recognition of their biological mother or other adults of their own species. Again, there are both proximate and ultimate explanations
Cranes also imprint as hatchlings, creating both problems and opportunities in captive rearing programs designed to save endangered crane species. For instance, a group of 77 endangered whooping cranes hatched and raised by sandhill cranes imprinted on the sandhill foster parents; none of these whooping cranes ever formed a mating pairâbond with another whooping crane. As a consequence, captive breeding programs now isolate young cranes and expose them to the sights and sounds of members of their own species. But imprinting can also be used to aid crane conservation Young whooping cranes imprinted on humans in âcrane suitsâ have been taught to follow these âparentsâ flying ultralight aircraft along new migration routes. And importantly, such cranes have formed mating pairâbonds with other whooping cranes.
The luring function of sex pheromones is a perfect way for predators to get heir prey without having to work too hard. The spider Mastophora hutchinsoni spreads sex pheromones of moths, using them as allomones. This way he can lure about enough moths to sustain. When the moths fly in, convinced they are about to mate, the spider shoots a sticky ball on wire towards them. As they stick to the ball, he drags them in and eats them.