ST: Graduate Behavioral Mechanisms - BSC 6932 - Final Exam

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Umwelt

An animals perspective or experience of the world

Animals possess

unique sensory systems that affect how they perceive and respond to the world

Animals respond to a select number of stimuli

Gull chicks respond to a bird bill

Male European Robins respond to feathers on an appendage

Three spined sticklebacks

Cat's umwelt

talk through smells

Dog's umwelt

Dichromatic

Increased peripheral vision

Increased awareness of movement

Most bats call through their mouth

a few call through their nose

Donald R. Griffin

Did experiments along with the physics department to discover echolocation

What was Dr. Griffin's overall conclusion?

Bats need their hearing to complete captures of insects in the lab -- To be cont.

Echolocation

Emit high pitched sounds to see their environments

Search/Approach Phase

Between wing beats and is a lower cost than terminal buzz

Terminal Buzz

Decrease in pulse length and is energetically demanding

Frequency Modulated Signals (FM)

Short pulses (> 5 msec) with downward sweep in frequency

Localization & clutter removal

Harmonics & broad-range signal

Combined Signals (CF-FM)

Consists long, constant tone - followed by a downward frequency sweep

Extended range, detect Doppler shifts

Bats use ultrasonic auditory signaling because

of the short wavelength of the signal

Short wavelengths

reflect sound off small objects

show dramatic attenuation (i.e. volume reduction)

Cross-Correlation prey detection

Outgoing signal is compared to returning echo

Moth Jamming

Bat fails to capture Tiger moth that jams the signal

Genomic Evolution of Echolocation

Convergence in 200 loci

Genes associated with: Hearing and Deafness

Pseudo-penis

enlarged clitoris

Cons to a Pseudo-penis

10% of first-time mothers die

High levels of androgen can result in sterility

Stabilizing selection in the pseudo-penis

Higher-ranked aggressive mothers also produce aggressive highly ranked daughters but are limited by the amount of androgen they can express. Too much androgen = sterility.

By-Product Hypothesis

Increased androgens could have made females more aggressive and dominant

The pseudo-penis is a by-product of selection in female social groups

Signaling Hypothesis

Males present penis in courtship. Penis presentation prevents females from attacking male

Mutant Pseudo-penis could allow females to benefit from male-female signal subordination

Signal-Receiver Systems

Behavior of one animal (signaler) affects the behavior of another animal (receiver)

Experimental Setup with ants

Workers approach stridulation

Signal Attenuates after 6 cm

The signal doesn't need to go very far, the surrounding ants are enough to help dig

Language

Form of communication that provides symbolic meaning to symbols and gestures

Round Dance

Circular dance communicates that food is at a close distance

Waggle Dance

Multi-modal "dance" that communicates orientation and distance

Length of Waggle Dance

communicates flight effort

Orientation of waggle dance relative to gravity in the hive communicates

orientation relative to sun outside of hive

Dishonest Signal

The cuckoo chick is a parasite that exploits the signal/ receiver system.

Adopted parents feed cuckoo more than the equivalent call of their brood.

Photuris firefly female

produce signal that attracts males of different species- Eat lured males. Maladaptive context

Illegitimate Receiver

Tungara frogs in areas with fringed-lip bats give more low-frequency whines than high-frequency chucks and whines

Females prefer high-frequency whines & chucks

Parthenogenetic Whiptail Lizard

Females that engage in courtship produce more eggs than isolated females

Sensory Exploitation

Novel signal taps into a pre-existing perceptual mechanism- Swordtail females show a preference for males with tails

Females can show strong preference for traits

that have never existed within a clade- Artificially attached crest attracts females finches

Development

Similar to morphology, behavioral patterns appear and disappear from an animal's repertoire in a predictable manner

What did Mahler discover?

Ability to learn song was species specific, not population, specific

Isolated birds sang after 150 days

Only twitter or utterance

Birds learned song by hearing adults

Between first 10-100 (30 - 50) days of life

Deafened birds can sing

but not the song

Immature Pronghorn

For the first three weeks of life, they will stay still in the grass and not move until the approacher is close

Behavior of young animals is not

immature adult behavior

Selection acts on adolescent individuals as much

as if not MUCH more than adults

Play

Not fully functional behavior; Spontaneous, voluntary, pleasurable, or autotelic (i.e. for its own purpose)

Developmental Instability

Bilateral traits can vary during development

Stability in Sexual Preference

Receptive female - symmetric male

Learning

A long-term change in behavior that occurs as a result of practice and experience

Non-Associative

Learning resulting from repetitive exposure to a stimuli

Associative

A new behavior becomes associated with an additional, secondary stimulus

Habituation

Response to stimuli declines with repetition

Sensitization

Response to stimuli increases with repetition

Classical conditioning

Neutral/ insignificant stimulus (i.e., Conditioned Stimulus - CS)associates with significant stimulus (i.e., Unconditioned Stimulus - US)

Operant Conditioning

Reinforcer is paired with a behavior

Positive reinforcer

Increase frequency of behavior

Negative reinforcer

decrease frequency of behavior

Natural Learning

Male Thynnine wasps deceived by female-mimic orchid

Habituation occurs over time

Intelligence

a component of an animal's umwelt

Memory

The ability to recall information

Wasps can remember

Chemical and Visual signals

Chemiosignal

Nest specific

Visual Signal

Individual specific

Social Memory

Wasps will recognize a wasp that was a part from them for several weeks but will attack if the individual is unrecognizable (face paint)

Spatial Memory

Clark's nutcracker can remember where it hid a seed for up to nine months, until spring essentially

Imprinting

Developmental sensitive (critical period) learning

Imprinting can be used for conservation

Showing whooping crane migration trail to hand raised chicks

Social/ Observational Learning

Animals learning by "watching" others

Individual Learning

Independent Trial and Error Learning

Social Facilitation

Novel context for an established behavior

Observational Learning

Imitation

Local Enhancement

Individuals attracted to novel stimulus

Mastery is independent trial and error

Teaching

Must be an intentional passing down of knowledge

Meerkat prey modification

Meerkats will give young meerkats scorpions with varying degrees of modification (no stinger or claws) to teach them how to handle the prey

Themnothorax ant tandem run

Ants will tandem run to slowly show where a food source is to another ant through the touching and responsive walking to the food source

Culture

Population specific behavioral patterns that are transmitted through social learning

Japanese snow monkeys washing potatoes

Cultural shift after the first monkey washed their potatoes because there was sand on them

In the typical research paper, where do the authors justify the rationale for the research question and their motivation for conducting the work?

Introduction

What class of neurons are involved when an action is either performed or observed. For example, what class of neurons does this immature primate fire when it sticks out its tongue and when it sees a different individual stick out its tongue?

Mirror Neuron

Which of the following is the diagnostic trait for all carnivora (e.g., cats, dogs, bears, etc)?

Carnassial teeth

Which of the following can most clearly be defined as a STATE action pattern?

The duration that male and female prairie voles "cuddle".

Male Thynnid wasps that mate with hammer orchids are an example of __________. The structure and smell of the hammer orchid looks and smells like a receptive female wasp

Maladaptive Context (correct response to stimulus - wrong situation)

This trait is most valuable to developing a phylogeny based on cladistics.

Shared-Derived Characters

What gene is most likely to be associated with a male lion's roar?

Foxp2

Is the following finding a proximate or ultimate explanation of the behavior?

Courtship feeding in gulls is stimulated by mutual head-bobbing displays between a male and female.

Proximate

Which of the following is of Tinbergen's Four Questions?

Evolution History, Mechanisms, Ontogeny, Adaptations

Which term describes behavior that enhances the survival of others at a cost to the individual?

Altruism

Which of the following is an example of honest signaling?

A peacock displaying its tail to attract mates

In operant conditioning, what is the term for adding a stimulus to increase the likelihood of a behavior?

Positive reinforcement

Which of the following is an example of sexual selection?

A deer fighting with another for access to mates

What is the optimal foraging theory?

Animals forage in a way that maximizes energy intake while minimizing effort.

Which animals are known for using the Earth's magnetic field for navigation?

Pigeons

Neuroethology

Study of neural mechanism that affect animal behavior using neural biology and animal behavior

Behavior is the product of neural activity

Behavior must reflect neural organization

HVC

Higher Vocal Center

Song Production Pathway

HVC → RA → nXIIts

Mushroom Body

role in learning and smell

Basal Ring of calyx

More developed Queens

Collar of calyx

More developed in Workers