Animal Behavior, Animal Welfare and the Environment

Flashcards on Animal Behavior, Animal Welfare, and the Environment

Animal Behavior (Ethology)

The study of how animals move in their environment, interact socially, learn, and achieve cognitive understanding.

Fixed Action Pattern (FAP)

A certain set of behaviors an animal performs in response to a stimulus, making the animal more adaptable to change.

Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) Framework

A framework where a stimulus, determined by the environment, leads to a response determined by the nervous system.

Animal Personality

Consistent individual differences in behavior, also known as behavioral syndromes, individual differences, coping strategies, and temperaments.

Innate Behavior

Behavior that is inherent or present from birth, predictable, species-specific, and independent of experience (e.g., reflexes, instincts).

Acquired Behavior

Adaptive change in behavior resulting from experience, modified through exercise, and flexible learning.

Interspecies Aggression

Aggression involving behaviors between different species, such as predator-prey interactions or antipredatory behaviors.

Intraspecies Aggression

Aggression directed toward other members of the same species, including territoriality and social hierarchy.

Flight Zone

The animal’s ‘personal space.’ When a person enters the flight zone the animals will move away

Lordosis

A posture assumed by some female animals during mating, to allow mounting.

Crepuscular

Active or appearing at the time of day just before the sun goes down, or just after the sun rises, when the light is not bright) pattern in feeding activity, with clear peaks around dawn and dusk

Animal Communication

The transfer of information from one or a group of animals (sender or senders) to one or more other animals (receiver or receivers) that affects the current or future behavior of the receivers.

Kairomones

Allelochemicals that evoke a behavioral (releaser effect) or physiological response (primer effect) in the receiver of the signal that is adaptively favorable to the receiver but not the emitter.

Animal Welfare (OIE Definition)

The physical and psychological wellbeing of an animal, described as good or high if the individual is fit, healthy, free to express natural behaviour, free from suffering and in a positive state of wellbeing.

Stress (in Livestock)

An external event or condition that places a strain on a biological system or a state of threatened homeostasis; can be physical or psychological.

Homeotherm

Animals that are able to thermoregulate or maintain a stable internal body temperature regardless of external influence.

Endotherm

Animals that generate heat.

Thermo-neutral Zone

An environmental temperature where a mammal or bird has to produce or dissipate little heat; the range of temperatures where the body can maintain its core temperature.

Thermogenesis

Heat production is a metabolic process during which body burns calories to produce heat.

Nonshivering thermogenesis

An increase in metabolic heat production (above the basal metabolism) that is not associated with muscle activity.

Heat Stress

A result of an imbalance between metabolic heat production inside the animal body and its dissipation to the surroundings under high air temperature and humid climates.

Gular Fluttering

Rapid vibrations of the gular (throat) skin in birds, during which the mouth is opened, the rate of blood flow to the buccal area is increased, and the moist gular area is rapidly vibrated to counteract overheating.

Wind Chill

The sensation of cold produced by the wind for a given ambient air temperature on exposed skin as the air motion accelerates the rate of heat transfer from the body to the surrounding atmosphere.