Bio 6.1 definitions

Behavior

internally coordinates responses to internal and/or external stimuli

is a spiders web a decision or an instinct?

• Both!

• Spiders have species-specific designs ( they don’t have to be taught how to build a web), but they can learn to tune their web depending on the environment. Both the insticnt and capacity to build the web evolve, change, and can be selected for.instinct

Ethology (European)

• The study of Ethos (behavior)

• Focus on observation studies and the study of instinct

• start of nature argument

• interested in innate

• How behavior evolved: studied animals for animals’ sake

• ex: Niko Tinbergen

Comparative Psychology (USA)

• Focus on lab studies and understanding the neurological process for learning

• start of nurture argument

• learning about innate instict/

• How behavior developed rather; studied animals for humans’ sake

• ex: Pavlov

Behavioral ecology

• an evolutionary and ecological approach

• a behavioral approach to the study of ecology and evolution

• An integrative field that blurs the line between comparative psychology and ethology (nature and nurture build on one another)

What conditions are needed for natural selection to occur?

1. Variation among individuals for a trait

2. Trait must be heritable

3. Trait has a fitness impact (survival and reproductive)

Ancient History of the study of behavior

• Humans have had a longstanding innate understanding of animal behaviors,

• everything from hunting, recognizing/ knowing how to find animals, interpreting animal behavior, such as “prey is fleeing, meaning predator nearby.”

• The process of domestication shows the fundamentals of animal behavior

• large-scale process of taking animals with certain friendly characteristics and breeding them together until, over many generations, you end up with nice animals such as cattle and dogs

Fitness

the relative number of alleles contributed by an individual to the next generation

• how much your genes get into the next generation

• usually measured in terms of reporductive success

observation

define and record behaviors and relate them to the organisms’ environment and /or physiology

experimental design

manipulate the organism or its environment to test causal relationships among traits

Comparative approach

inferring adaptive basis of behaviors from patterns shared among species

Adaptation (process)

the increase in frequency of a trait that conveys greater fitness, due to natural selection. Occurs over generations.

Adaptation (trait)

a product of the process of adaptation (natural selection)

Adaptive behavior

a behavior that increases the fitness of the individual performing it, relative to a nearby alternative.

maladaptive behavior

a behavior that reduces the fitness of the individual performing it, relative to nearby alternatives

brood parasites

birds that lay their eggs in the nest of another species

proximate questions

immediate, underlying reason of HOW behavior happens

Ultimate questions

A historical reason for WHY behavior happens

Development (proximate)

How genetic-developmental mechanism generate a behvaior

• EX: How does the behvaior develop in organism?

  • genetic

  • instic and learning

  • endocrinology

Mechanism (proximate)

neuronal-hormonal mechanism that control behvaior

• what (internal or external) stimuli trigger the behavior?

  • pychology

  • endocrinology

  • neurobiology

Evolutionary History (ultimate)

Behavioral traits affected by descent from ancestral species

• along what phylogenetic pathway did the behavior evolve?

  • evolutionart origins, transitions, and precursors

  • phylogentic contraints

Adaptive function (ultimate)

net fitness benefit of a behavior influenced by natural selection

• Does the behavior convey a fitness advantage, and if so, how?

  • fitness benefits and costs (curvival, mating success)

Proximate vs Ultimate

• Proximate explanations DO NOT COMPETE with ultimate explanations, or vice versa. They are different levels of analysis.

• proximate mechanisms are a result of ultimate processes.