Genetic basis of behaviour examines the interaction between genes and environment in shaping behaviour. According to the interactive theory of development, genes and environment work together to influence behavioural phenotypes. Behavioural development requires both genetic and environmental factors, as seen in honey bee foraging behaviour which progresses through different stages based on age and hormone concentration. A single gene difference can lead to large behavioural differences, as shown in knockout experiments where mice lacking the fosB gene show no parental care behaviours. Both nature and nurture interact to produce behaviour.

1. GENETIC basis of behaviour
HNBGU,SRINAGAR
DEPARTMENT OFZOOLOGY AND
BIO-TECHNOLOGY
BY
SIDDHANT BHARDWAJ
submitted to Prof. N. Singh

2. CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE INTERACTIVE THEORY OF
DEVELOPMENT
3. NURTURE FALLACY
4.BEHAVIOURAL DEVELOPMENT
REQUIRES BOTH GENES AND
ENVIRONMENT
5. SINGLE GENE EFFECT ON

3. INTRODUCTION
•BEHAVIOUR is the series of actions of events
that together show how things normally
happens or done via organism.
•GENETICS is the study of the genetic make-up of
organisms and how this influences physical
and behavioural characteristics.
•BEHAVIOURAL GENETICS is concerned with the
genetic transmission of traits that give rise
to patterns of behaviour or it’s the study of
relative influence of genetic and
environment on behaviour.

4. THE INTERACTIVE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT
Many insect species posses extremely sophisticated
behavioural abilities.
Taking the worker honey bee as an example, workers go
through a regular progression of occupation. when a
worker emerges from a brood cell in the waxy comb
tended by other workers, her first job is a humble one
,the cleaning of comb cells. She then becomes a nurse
bee that feeds honey to larvae in the brood comb before
making the transition to a distributor of food to her
fellow workers. The last phase of her life ,which begins
when she is about 3 weeks old , is spent foraging for
collecting pollen and nector ouside the hive.

5. What causes a worker to go
through these different
developmental stages?
According to interactive theory of
development the information in
some of the bee’s, may thousand
of genes [the bee’s genotype ]
must respond to the environment
in ways that influence the
development of her measurable
characteristics[the bee’s
phenotype] which include the
proximate mechanisms
underlying her behaviour.

6. NURTURE FALLACY / THE NATURE
Bee foraging behaviour cannot be purely genetically
determined because the behaviour is the product of
literally thousands of gene-environment interaction , all
of which are required to construct the bee’s brain and
the rest of its body . Indeed, the information in the DNA
that makes up a gene is expressed only when the gene is
in the appropriate environment.
f.eg- Concentration difference in juvenile hormone in
young nurse workers and older foragers.
Presence of ethyl oleate in forager bee’s that inhibit the
development of foraging behaviour in young bee’s.

7. BEHAVIOURAL DEVELOPMENT
REQUIRES BOTH GENES AND
ENVIRONMENT
IMPRINTING is an classical example
of the circumscribed learning , in
which a young animal's early social
interactions , usually with its parents
lead to its learning. Such things as
what constitutes an appropriate
sexual partner.
F.eg-A group of greylag goslings,
having imprinted on behavioural
biologist konrad lorenz rather than a
mother goose , formed both a
learned attachment to lorenz and in
the case of male grey lags , when
they reached adulthood ,a prefrence
for humans as mate.

8. SINGLE GENE EFFECT ON DEVELOPMENT
A difference in even a single gene product can lead to
many divergence in the gene- environment interactions
occuring in different individuals which may translate into
large behavioural differences between them.
Single gene effects can be documented in several
different ways, but perhaps most dramatically via GENE
KNOCKOUT experiments , in which a given gene is
inactivated in an animal genome in order to determine
how that particular gene contributes to development in
a particular environment.

9. F.Eg – knocking out of fosB gene
mice with the experimental
mutation are normal in most
respects but are totally
indifferent to their newborn
pups, which they fail to
retrieve should they wriggle
away from the nest. In
contrast, normal females
with two copies of active
fosB gene invariably gather
displaced pups together and
crouch over them, keeping
them warm and permitting
them to nurse.

10. CONCLUSION
There are different types of behavioural
patterns majorly instinctive and adaptive , but
all behavioural pattern requires the expression
of genes under suitable environmental
conditions.
Neither genotype nor environment can be said
to be more important than the other.

11. THANKS