Animal Behavior: Causes, Patterns, and Evolution

Ethology

The study of animal behavior.

Proximate Cause

What environmental stimuli triggered the behavior?

Ultimate Cause

What is the significance of this behavior? What is it's function?

Fixed Action Patterns (FAP)

Innate behaviors that are unchangeable and must be carried out to completion once initiated.

Sign Stimulus

A specific stimulus that triggers a fixed action pattern.

Imprinting

A process that includes both learned and innate components, distinguished by a sensitive period and usually irreversible.

Directed Movements

Animal movements that are under strong genetic influence.

Taxis

Automated, oriented movement toward or away from a stimulus.

Kinesis

A simple change in activity or turning rate in response to a stimulus.

Migration

A genetically programmed behavior triggered by environmental stimuli, causing animals to seek a different environment

Circannual Rhythm

Biological rhythm linked to a yearly cycle.

Circadian Rhythm

Biological rhythm linked to a daily cycle.

Circalunar Rhythm

Biological rhythm linked to the lunar cycle.

Animal Communication

The process by which animals convey information using signals.

Chemical Signals

Signals emitted by animals, commonly in the form of pheromones.

Pheromones

Odors or tastes emitted by signaling animals with multiple purposes.

Cross-Fostering Study

A study where the young of one species are raised by adults of another species to measure behavioral changes.

Habituation

The loss of responsiveness to stimuli that convey little or no information.

Spatial Learning

The establishment of a memory that reflects the environment's spatial structure.

Cognitive Mapping

A sophisticated form of spatial learning using mental representations of spatial relationships.

Example of Male Stickleback Fish

A male stickleback fish will attack other males that invade his territory.

Example of Goslings and Mother Goose

Goslings imprint on their mothers from the moment of hatching.

Twin Studies

Studies that help understand human behavioral disorders such as schizophrenia, anxiety, and alcoholism.

Directed Movements in Stream Fish

Stream fish exhibit positive rheotaxis by swimming upstream.

Directed Movements in Sow Bugs

Sow bugs become more active in dry areas and less active in humid areas.

Alarm Call in Zebras

An alarm call from another zebra triggers the immediate behavior of fleeing.

Migration in Ducks

Ducks migrate south for the winter in response to cooler temperatures and food scarcity.

Cognitive Mapping in Nutcrackers

Nutcrackers cache as many as 30,000 pine seeds in thousands of hiding places in the fall, and in the winter, the birds can relocate many of their caches by way of cognitive mapping.

Associative Learning

Learning that involves associating one of its behaviors with a reward or punishment.

Operant Conditioning

A type of associative learning in which an arbitrary stimulus is associated with a reward or punishment.

Cognition

The most complex form of learning, involving awareness, reasoning, recollection, and judgment.

Problem Solving

A cognitive activity where an individual devises a method to process from one state to another in the face of real apparent obstacles.

Foraging Behaviors

Behaviors that enhance efficacy in feeding, including eating and activities an animal uses to search for, recognize, and capture food.

Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT)

A model predicting how an animal behaves when searching for food, balancing the benefits of nutrition against the costs of obtaining food.

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Crow Feeding Behavior

Crows eat molluscs called whelks by dropping them from the air to crack the shells, with optimal flight height in foraging behavior correlated with a fewer number of drops.

Risk vs Reward

The risk of predation is the most significant cost to a forager, with food availability being normal across foraging areas while predation risk can vary greatly.

Mating Behaviors

Include seeking or attracting mates, choosing among potential mates, competing for mates, and caring for offspring, as a product of sexual selection.

Promiscuity

A mating system where many species have no strong pair-bonds.

Polygamy

An individual of one sex mates with several of the other sex, including polygyny (1 male to multiple females) and polyandry (1 female to multiple males).

Monogamy

A mating system where 1 male mates with 1 female, usually sharing a pair-bond.

Needs of the Young

The needs of the young influence the evolution of mating systems.

Certainty of Paternity

The degree to which a parent can be sure that they are the parent of an offspring.

Guarding of Females

A strategy mammals use to increase certainty of paternity, such as a stallion fighting another stallion to protect his harem.

Sexual Selection

A form of natural selection driven by sexual dimorphism, where intersexual selection involves one sex choosing mates based on characteristics of the other sex.

Game Theory

Evaluates alternative behavioral strategies in situations where the outcome depends on each individual's strategy and the strategy of others.

Altruism

A behavior that reduces an animal's individual fitness but increases the fitness of other individuals in the population.

Inclusive Fitness

The total effect an individual has on proliferating its genes by producing its own offspring and aiding close relatives to produce offspring.

Hamilton's Rule

Natural selection favors altruism when the benefit to the recipient multiplied by the coefficient of relatedness exceeds the cost to the altruist.

Kin Selection

Natural selection that favors altruistic behavior by enhancing reproductive success of relatives, weakening with hereditary distance.

Reciprocal Altruism

Altruistic behavior towards others who are unrelated, typically occurring in humans and chimpanzees, often involving expectations of returning favors.

Sociobiology

The study of how human culture relates to evolutionary theory, suggesting certain behavioral characteristics exist as expressions of genes perpetuated by natural selection.