Evolutionary Perspectives on Animal Behavior

Evolutionary Perspective of Behavior

Part of a phenotype acted upon by natural selection, leading to greater fitness, survival, and reproductive success

Proximate Causes

Addresses the mechanisms that produce a behavior, focusing on how and what questions

Ultimate Causes

Addresses the evolutionary significance of a behavior, explaining how a behavior increases the evolutionary fitness of the animal demonstrating it

Learned Behavior

Behavior that an animal develops through experience, not present at birth, changeable and flexible with the environment

Innate Behavior

Behavior an animal is born with, coded within the DNA and passed from one generation to the next

Ethology

The study of animal behavior, particularly concerned with innate behaviors, approached from 2 different points of view

Homeostatic Mechanisms

Body's mechanisms to maintain balance, regulating developmental, physiological, and behavior events to increase fitness and long-term survival

Taxis

Response movement toward or away from a stimulus

Negative Taxis

Movement away from taxis

Positive Taxis

Movement toward taxis

Kinesis

Random movement in response to a stimulus

Behavior

Anything an animal does and how it does it

Fixed Action Patterns (FAP)

Sequence of unlearned acts triggered by a sign stimulus, usually carried out to completion

Imprinting

Young animals following organisms present during their critical period, learning to follow and bond with the first thing seen after birth

Associative Learning

Learning to associate a stimulus with a consequence

Operant Conditioning

Trial and error learning where animals associate behaviors with reward or punishment

Classical Conditioning

Associating a neutral stimulus with a significant stimulus, learning to associate one thing with another

Habituation

Loss of response to a stimulus due to repeated occurrences, enabling animals to disregard unimportant stimuli

Spatial Learning

Establishment of memories reflecting the physical structure of the environment

Problem Solving/ Cognition

Involves reasoning, awareness, recollection, and judgment

Social Behaviors

Interactions between individuals that develop into evolutionary adaptations

Pheromones

Chemical signals stimulating responses from other individuals

Foraging Behavior

Balancing costs and benefits in search of food

Game Theory

Analyzing competitive interactions

Altruistic Behavior

Behavior reducing individual fitness but increasing recipient fitness, often linked to kin selection

Kin Selection

When animals help their relatives survive and reproduce to indirectly pass on shared genes

Complex Innate Behaviors

Use of environmental cues to carry out behavior

Stimulus

Something that triggers a response

Adaptive Value

The value of a trait in terms of increasing fitness of the organism

Proximate Explanations

Immediate causes of behavior, including stimuli and mechanisms

Ultimate Explanations

Evolutionary causes of behavior, focusing on why a behavior has evolved over time