DAT Biology: Animal Behavior

Ethology

Study of animal behaviors, either inherited or learned

Behavioral Ecology

Study of how innate behaviors increase fitness

Innate Behavior

Inherited Behavior, doesn’t require any learning to take place, animals are simply born with the ability to know how to do an innate behavior

Includes instincts, reflexes, fixed action patterns, imprinting

Instinct

Behavior that occurs with no thought/never taught

Example: sucking in response to a nipple

Reflex

Involuntary rapid response to a stimulus, involving the neural circuit

Simple reflex arcs, complex reflex arcs

Simple Reflex Arcs

Rapid reflexes, peripheral nerves synapse within the spinal chord

Example: doctor hitting the knee and it involuntarily moves

Complex Reflex Arcs

Slower reflexes (but not THAT much slower!), peripheral nerves do not synapse with each other in the CNS aka central nervous system, and they are separated by an intermediary known as the interneuron

Example: pulling your hand away from a flame when it is hot. fast, but not as fast as the simple reflex arcs

Interneuron

Space separating the efferent and afferent neurons from each other

Fixed Action Patterns

Innate behavior initiated by specific stimulus

Once initiated, behavior almost always continues to completion

Example: goose sees egg out of nest. once it notices it (the stimulus), it will begin rolling the egg back towards the nest until it is compelte

Initiating Stimulus

releaser or sign stimuli, not flexible or adaptive

Imprinting

Innate way animals learn certain behaviors

Once behavior is acquired, it can never be forgotten

Can only occur during the critical period

Example: Gosling recognizes any moving object they see in early life as their mother, knowing its their mother, but if they learned in any other time, they would never know that it was their mother

Learned Behavior

Behavior occurring after experience/practice

Types: classical conditioning, operant conditioning, associative learning

Example: Learning in school, boxing for the first time vs. the second and third

Classical Conditoning

Pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus, so that the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus, and creates a conditioned response

Neutral Stimulus

Stimulus that does not elicit a response

Unconditioned Stimulus

Stimulus that does elicit a response

Unconditioned Response

Response to an unconditioned stimulus

Conditioned Stimulus

A neutral stimulus that ends up turning into one in which the organism responds to as a result of pairing that neutral stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus

Conditioned Response

Response to an originally neutral stimulus that is now turned into a conditioned stimulus so it elicits a response due to pairing with an unconditioned stimulus

Stimulus Generalization

Occurs when a conditioned organism responds to a stimuli that is not identical to the original conditioned stimulus

Example: Little Albert got conditioned to fear rats, but soon, it became generalized to all fluffy white objects, like Santa

Stimulus Generalization Gradient

More a stimulus differs from the original conditioned stimulus, the conditioned response will get smaller and smaller

Example: Little Albert’s response to a white fluffy rat is drastically high, but as it becomes a fluffy gray duckling, the response is there, just less

Stimulus Discrimination

Ability of an animal to differentiate between a conditioned stimulus and other similar, but different, non-conditioned stimuli

Example: birds being able to distinguish similar but not identical calls between species

Operant Conditioning

Learning via associating behaviors with rewards/punishment

Reinforcement

Increasing likelihood of behavior

Punishment

Decreasing the likelihood of behavior

Positive (Operative Conditioning)

Adding something (does NOT increase/decrease likelihood of something occurring)

Negative (Operative Conditioning)

Removing something (does NOT increase/decrease likelihood of something occurring)

Skinner Box

Tool used for operant conditioning (lever providing either food or shock) for rats

Developed by B.F. Skinner, behavioral psychologist

Associative Learning

Animal learning that two things are connected to each other

Learned behaviors can be forgotten

Spatial Learning

animal associating landmarks with a specific location (finding way home)

Extinction

Learned behavior is forgotten

Recovery

Extinct behaviors remembered through re-association

Non-Associative Learning

A change in how you respond to a single, repeated stimulus without any rewards, punishments, or pairing of multiple stimuli (without associated things)

Sensitization

Occurs when an animal increases a behavioral response, whenever the stimulus exhibiting the behavior occurs more than once

When animals become more responsive to a stimulus

Habituation

Occurs when an animal learns to decrease a behavioral response to a repetitive meaningless stimulus

Spontaneous Recovery

An animal forgets that information was irrelevant, and returns to its initial behavior

Observational Learning

Learning things by observation/watching others

Insight

Ability to consider new info and derive a novel solution to a problem from that information—lightbulb moment

Kinesis

Animal changes speed in random directions

• Slow down in favorable environments

• Speed up in unfavorable environments

Taxis

Movement with specific direction, it is NOT random

• Positive Taxis: Fish moving towards food

• Negative Taxis: Fish moving away from sharks

• Phototaxis: Directional Response to sunlight

• Chemotaxis: Movement in response to a chemical signal

Positive Taxis

Movement directed towards a stimulus, intentional

Negative Taxis

Movement directed away from a stimulus, unintentional

Phototaxis

Directional response to sunlight

• Positive Phototaxis: going towards light (insects)

• Negative Phototaxis: going away from light

Chemotaxis

Movement in response to a chemical signal

Positive Chemotaxis

When the things move towards the side of an injury (neutrophils)

Migration

Relatively long-distance movement of animals from one area to another, due to instinct and seasons

Cooperation

Animals group together to better achieve a goal

Agonistic Behaviors

Threats, aggression, and submission occurring when animals compete

Threat

Behaviors signifying hostility towards another animal

Aggression

Fighting behavior, detrimental to both animals due to mutual injuries

Aggression-Ritualized Fighting

Fighting often ritualized to avoid significant injuries

Submission

Backing down behavior—averting eyes, laying down, and/or backing away

Submission-Appeasement Behavior

Submission following a threat, avoids aggression

Dominance Hierarchy

Pecking order in a group fo animals, where the alpha male is the highest ranked male

Alpha Male

Gets best access to resources, food, and other stuff

Territoriality

Behaviors animals use to protect their territory

Territory

Area animal chooses to protect, its home

Search Images

Type of feeding behavior, allowing animals to quickly locate abundant and safe food

Example: If a zebra and cheetah are in the grass, just seeing black and white is enough for the cheetah to go and attack it

Altruistic Behaviors

Behaviors reducing an individual’s fitness, but increase the fitness of the individual’s relatives

Example: Vampire bats regurgitate blood and give it to others who did not feed that night (not good for it, but good for others)

Inclusive Fitness

Sum of an animal’s direct and indirect fitness

Direct Fitness

Number of genes an animal can pass onto the next generation on its own

Indirect Fitness

Number of genes passes onto the next generation by the animal’s relatives

Hamilton’s Rule of Altruism

Determines if altruistic behavior will occur or not

r x B > C

r=relatedness: proportion of shared genes between two individuals

B=benefit to recipient, how many offspring the recipient will produce

c=cost to altruist: amount of genes the altruist is not going to be able to pass on to the next generation due to altruistic behavior

Kin Selection

Refers to the way an individual’s inclusive fitness is increased by indirect fitness

Forms of natural selection where altruists benefit the most

Example: male honeybees are genetically identical, have a high degree of relatedness, so they have maximized their indirect fitness

Reciprocal Altruism

Sacrifices an individual might make for another animal in anticipation for a later reward

Example: birds expect the same treatment of helping predators defend off nests

Sexual Selection

Mode of natural selection driven by choosing mates, creates differences in male/female mating behaviors and appearance

2 Types, female choice and male competition

Female Choice

Increases the frequency of traits or behaviors that females find most attractive in males

Example: beautiful peacock, larger things

Male Competition

Selection for the strongest male traits

Example: bull elk fighting, seals fighting (fight over access to females)

Sexual Dimorphism

Males/females of the same species look different due to sexual selection

Monogamy

One partner at a time

Example: swan and penguin

Polygamy

Having multiple partners at the same time

Two types: polygyny and polyandry

Polyandry

One female, many male partners'

More uncommon

Example: Northern Chicana

Polygyny

One male, many female partners

Example: bull elk, bull elephant seal

Semelparity

Animals mating only once in their life

Produce many offspring in single “reproductive episode”

Young receive little care

Example: Salmon

Iteroparity

Animals mate many times during their life, producing few offspring, but much more likely to survive to reproductive age

Example: giraffe