Ant 200 Exam 2

What is animal behavior

How individuals respond to internal and external stimulu- social, structural, physiological

Ex: Imprinting. A human is there during the birth of baby chicks, as a result the baby chicks will respond by following the human(imprinting).

What are examples of Animal behaviors

• Instinct

• chemicals

• Foraging behaviors 

• Social behavior(dominant)

  

Why are we interested animal behavior

• It’s fun and cool to see how animal interact

• We interact with animals everyday

• Impacts on animal welfare(we can learn how to take care of them)

• Impacts on conservation(we can learn to take care of endangered animals)

• Insights into our behaviors

Ex: A cat named Maru would climb into boxes and it was entertaining and we can learn that cats like small spaces and can fit in small spaces because of their anatomy 

How did early history/humans incorporate animals into their lifes

• France (40k plus years) has paintings of how they interpreted animals. Also for 1000 plus years animals interactions with humans have been recorded

• Egyptians deity’s(referred to as Babi’s) had animalistic traits. They were omnivorous like monkeys and they were aggressive like monkeys but unlike monkeys they devoured souls of the sinful

• Greeks-Artistole thought of animals to have good memory and be able to follow instructions but unlike us they couldn’t remember the past. He also studied how animals are similar and different from us. 

Ethology means what

Ethos means character

Logia means the study of

This is the study of animal characteristics/behavior(both through field observation and experiments) from biological standpoint(instinctive behaviors)

Why is studying ethology important

• devising and promoting green techonologies

• policy creation against defaunation, poaching, exploitation of threatend species

• revising our economy to take into accounts the real costs of animal endangerment 

• dietary shifts towards plant based food to persevere animals who are on brink of ceasing to exist to not exist

• maintaining natures ecosystem services 

• prioritization of well funded and managed reserves

• outdoor nature education

• rewinding region with native species

What were Darwin’s Discovery of animals about?(3 things)

• Similar animals exhibited BOTH similar morphologies and ritualized behaviors. Tigers and Cheetahs’s both look slender and have some strip/dot pattern going on. They also feed their cubs with milk and they run towards prey and have a sneaky tactic 

• Animal instincts is subject to natural selection. Monkey’s have long fingers to graph on mother’s fur, because in the past those who didn’t wouldn’t be able to grasp on the fur and would fall

• Extends the argument of emotions and expression to animals. In short he thought both humans and animals can display emotions and expressions. Example: a cat can show signs of sadness and loneliness. 

What quote did Darwin say that connected human behavior, emotions to animals. 

“man once existed in much lower and animal-like condition”. and “the general ground and structure and habits of all animals have evolved.

• In short he believe humans were like animals in the past

• Animals have also gained maturity in emotions and habits(like humans)

Ethology approach through the European eyes look like what

• It was field observations/ “watching and wondering” 

• It took place in Europe during the 1900s to 1950s

Who was Tinbergen

• European ethologist between 1900s to 1950s

• received a Nobel prize in animal behavior in 1973s

• Introduced the idea of fixed action pattern

• Introduced baby gulls pecking at the color red

What made the baby gull pecking at red experiment and who established this experiment 

• Was created by Niko Tinbergen 

• The mother gull holds red berries in its beak and the baby gull pecks at it(to eat). 

  • This is instinctive/innate behavior. The baby naturally peaked at the red. This is also fixed action pattern because the baby is always pecking at the red. 

  • This is also NOT LEARNED

• The pecking at red experiment purpose:

  • to prove that the pecking at red behavior was innate/instictive.

What does this image say about the baby red gull experiment and about these vocab words: fixed action pattern, innate releasing, sign stimulus, supernormal stimulus

The experiment had 4 different groups. 

• A was a mother with a red dot and a large head

• B was a mother with a red dot but small head

• C was a mother with no red dot but large head (peaked the least on this)

• D was a large pencil(peaked the most on this)

Regardless of the size of the head(small or large), the baby gull just peaked at the red. This is why even the large head-C still only had 35 peaks while the smallest head with red had 92. This is why the red pencil had the biggest amount of peaks

fixed action pattern: the baby peaking at the red

innate releasing: the baby peaking at the red

sign still stimulus: the color red/the red spot 

Supernormal/abnormal stimulus: The red pen. A supernormal stimulus is an exaggrated cue that results in a stronger responses than a natural stimulus in which the red pen is. 

How we study animal behaviors is organized in 4 categories, what are those categories.

Remember: Animal Behavior C D E F

• Proximate:

  • immediate factors, relevant factors, measurable during current time and development

  • answers the what and how

• Ultimate:

  • focuses on survival of fittest, Darwins ideas

  • answers the why 

Example: what lead mother Bear to nurse her babies:

• positive genes(what) are released during pregnancy(how)

• feeding the baby allows the baby to pass on the mother’s genes(why)

What are Tinbergen’s 4 questions

Remember: Animal Behavior C D E F

• Proximate

  • causation(sensory-motor mechanisms)

  • developmental(change over lifetime)

• Ultimate

  • Evolution(historical pathways)

  • Function(the purpose of x in relation to surviving)

How are Tinbergen’s 4 questions organized in Historical sequence(1963) and Slice in time(1963)

Historical Sequence:

-Evolutionary/evolution

-Developmental/ontology

Slice in time:

-Causation/mechanism

-Function/survival value

What questions does the Evolutionary/evolution concept ask

• Related to Ultimate explanations 

• How did trait evolve?

• Why did the trait evolve?

What questions does the Developmental/Ontology concept ask

• Related to Proximate

• How does the trait emerge across the lifespan?

What questions does the Mechanism/causation concept ask

-Related to Proximate 

-How does the trait work?

-How is the trait elicited or produced?

What questions does the Function/survival value concept ask

-It relates to Ultimate

Why is the trait adaptive?

Why does the trait persist?

What does this image tell us

That Tinbergsten questions are holistic and interconnected. 

• To understand a behavior all 4 questions  of Tinbergsten’s are required to understand it, NOT just 1, 2,3 BUT 4

• They also are all connected. The function of a monkey’s opposable finger is reliant on understanding the evolutionary history of grasping toe

Answer the question: Why do we eat? Using the causation, development, evolution, function

Causation: we eat because hormones/stimuli signals that we are hungry

Developmental: What you eat changes over time and the amount you eat changes too

Evolution: We have similar manners of eating to other animals. Like other mammals by birth we are feed with milk, so it is natural that as we  grow up we eat still

Function: We eat to survive and to bring back our blood sugar level up

Who was the first to discover that Honey-Bees have color vision

Charles Henry Turner

Who is Von Frish

• European Ethologists

• Would watch and observe honey bees

• Made the honey-bee square vision 

  • purpose: to prove honey-bees have color vision

What was the honey-bees square vision test about

Purpose: Prove honey bees have color vision

Results: Honey bees with color vision went to square with color/stood out. Honey bees without color vision went to square without color/did not stand out.

Made by Von Frisch 

What was the “Hive talking”/honeybees waggle dance about

Made by von frisch 

The direction/angle of dance correspond to where food is

The time of duration of dance tells how far away the food is 

What does this image tell us

• The direction of the dance is the direction of food

• The time of the dance is how far away the food is

• If the food is directly in line with the sun. The bee dances straight upwards

• If the food is at an angle to the sun, the dancing bee changes direction accordingly

Konrad Lorenz

-Ethologist in Europe

-studied imprinting through observations

• Imprinting: Lorenz was there when baby ducks hatched(there mother was not), so the ducks followed him as if he was their mother 

Did Ethology occur in Europe or America

Only Europe

What is Behaviorism

• Related to psychology 

• Focused on learned behaviors(foraging)

• Took place in labs and focused on controlling experiment variables 

• Focused on experiments 

• Took place in America

• During 1900s to 1950s

Who is B.F Skinner

• American Behaviorist 

• During 1900s-1950s

• He thought that “Pigeons, rat and monkeys” could be shaped into anything and they were boxes

• He coined the phrase, “Give me a child, I’ll shape him into anything”

• Gave no thought to evolution

Did B.F Skinner and Ivan Pavlov consider evolution or natural behavior in their studies

No, they did not consider evolution in their works

What does “Behaviorism” say about behavior

• Equipotentially: any two stimuli can be associated, regardless of their nature:

  • This was proven through Ivan Pavlov’s experiment with dogs. Classical and operant conditioning(punishment): A dog after some time began to associate food with a bell. Whenever they heard a bell they start salivating

• When it comes to behavior it is LEARNED and is not related to evolution or natural/innate behaviors

• All animal behavior should be studied through a labs to prove the point that behavior is learned. Animal behavior was a lab based science

Identify who out of these “5” fit into behaviors and ethology:

-Karl Von Frish, Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, B.F Skinner, Robert Yerkes

Ethology:

• Karl Von Frish(honey-bees)

• Konrad Lorenz(imprinting, part of nazi party)

• Niko Tinbergen(baby gulls and red pen)

Behaviorism:

• B.F Skinner(animals are boxes that can be shaped)

• Robert Yerkes(Eugenics)

Who is Margaret Altman

• 1900s to 1984s

• First women in ethology, psychobiology, and animal husbandry(cultivation/management) fields

• Studied large animals in their normal habitat

• Studied estrocyclics and sexual cycles in adult female mammals(especially sows)

• Studied the endocrine basis fluctuation in blood calcium in veins 

• Participated in study of predictors of offspring quality in dairy cattle

Who was Charles Henry turner

• 1867s to 1923s

• First person to discover that bees have color vision

• First person to discover that insects can hear and alter behavior based on previous experience(insects have memory and can learn and change behavior)

• Received PHD in Zoology from University of Chicago

• Showed that insects were capable of learning, to show that honey bees can see in color and recognize patterns(4 years before Van Frish discovered it)

Who first discovered that insects/bees can learn, store memory, and recognize patterns

• Charles Henry Turner first discovered it, then Van Frisch

What is Clever Hans and what does this tell us

• Clever Hans was a horse that kick its foot on the ground to the “right number” that the experiment wanted.

• The experimenter thought Clever Hans was truly smart. This was disproven

• The horse would stop kicking its foot when it saw the owners facee would light up.

Clever Hans tells use that we should AVOId assuming complexity. We should assume a behavior is simple before saying it’s complex.

What are the pitfalls to avoid when studying animals

• Assuming complexity

• Ignoring Umwelt

• ignoring natural proclivities/capabilities

• stasis

Explain why WE SHOULD NOT ignore umwelt

• Umwelt( a world in which an organism exists and acts as a subject): Animals have completely different sensors than we do.

• So it is important that WE DO NOT avoid UMWELT(that animals perceive environment different from us)

  • Ex: If we ignore Umwelt we might think that birds see colors in trichromatic vision like us. However, they view in UV colors

  • Also, if we ignore umwelt we might think Dogs have similar sense to us but they do not.

What does a dog’s ability to detect ½ teaspoon of sugar in olympic sized pool tell us about UMWELT

• They have sensitive noses

• We should not ignore their umwelt

Explain how the Dogs olfactory sense works

• When a dog creates in air, it goes into 2 separate paths

  • One red(going into olfactory), the other blue(going through lungs)

  • In the rear of the dog’s nose is the olfactory region(yellowish brown) with bristle like tissues that have TONS of smell receptor

  • When a dog breath in, it can feel which nostril an odor arrived in

  • When dog breathes out it it is through the side of the nose and NOT through the Nostril, it does so in a way that augments the new air coming.

Notes on how Dogs smell

• dogs have a moist nose that capture ANY sense the air carries

• Each nostril allows it to know the location of each sense

• The air goes into 2, one for breathing and one for smelling

  • The smelling one has several 300 millions of them, while humans only have 5 milions

  • Dogs breath out through slits in the side of their nose while we breath out through nostrils

  • The olfactory bulb in dogs takes up lots of space

  • Vomeronasal organ deters hormones that all animals release. So a dog knows if its near another dog or human and it can detect emotions

  • Its sense also tell who has been in thehere/picks up past sense

Why should we AVOID ignoring natural proclivites/capabilites(watch video on this)

Why should we avoid stasis(watch video)

Does Behavioral evolution differ from the progress of Human evolution (true/false).

False, the progress of Human Evolution is the SAME as Behavioral evolution.

There must exist diversity in a population, then a specific trait in the population must be selected for(the trait be favorable in relation to survival), the population then evolves

In short:

Steps-

1. Variation Occurs

2. Individuals are selected

3. Populations evolve

What does Behavioral Evolution tell us

• Almost every behavior is shaped by genes acting in a sequence or in coordinated fashion to produce a behavior

• Genetic control of any particular trait is dispersed over number of neural locations.

• Many neural elements= many genes

In short a behavior/trait s controlled by ANY GENES and MANY NEURAL ELEMENTS

What does the C.elegans(nematode) tell us about the interaction of genes on behavior 

• only has 302 neuron = 302 genes

• They have 100 different genes/100 neurons involved in its locomotion/wave-like movement

• 18 genes/18 neurons involved in its response to touch

This tell us that multiple genes/multiple neurons are shape a behavior = most behavior is controlled by many genes

Wolf domestication(watch video)

Is nature vs nurture a true diachomty

False, to understand behavior both nurture and nature are necessary to understand a behavior

Define epigenetic

• The interaction of genes and environment in terms of how they affect behavior

• the interaction of nature AND nurture

  • It results IN HERTIABLE CHANGES but IT DOES NOT INVOLVE HERTIABLE Changes in genotype/DNA Sequence

  • Changes phenotype without changing GENOTYPE

How does epigenetic work(2 ways))

Epigenetics changes phenotype and gene expression by changing(BUT NOT DNA SEQUENCE and NOT GENOTYPE)

• DNA Methylation- a methyl group is added to protein and it turns certain genes off

• Histone Modification- changes the way DNA is packaged, impacts gene expression

In relation to Genes what does Epigenetics say

Gene expression is influenced by experience and environment(nature and Nurture)

Which does Epigenetics change: Dna sequence or Genotype

Neither