Lecture 8: Orientation, Navigation, Migration, and Dispersal

Navigation cues with case study examples:

• Navigation: Use of cues for directions during migration.

  • Migration Cues:

    • Position of the sun.

    • Position of the stars.

    • Landmarks.

    • Odor.

    • Magnetic field.

• Monarchs and Sun Navigation Study:

  • Monarchs migrate from N. America to Mexico—6,000 miles+.

  • Rely on sun position for guidance (and magnetic cues).

  • Experiment changed light-day cycle in monarchs (shifted non-control group by 6 hours).

  • Control group followed the normal path south.

  • The other group migrated due west.

• Indigo Bunting and Star Navigation Study:

  • Nocturnal migratory species.

  • Captive species placed under an artificial star-lit sky.

  • Using an ink pad to track orientation.

  • Buntings always oriented toward artificial star placement.

Differences in migratory vs nonmigratory birds and their defenses

• Birds' Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): Minimum maintenance energy requirement of an endotherm.

  • Significantly higher in migrating species.

  • Birds that migrate are more likely to live in colder environments; require more energy to keep warm.

• Migration and Parasites:

  • Energy required for migration decreases energy for immune function.

  • Long-distance migrants face new parasites and diseases at the migratory endpoint.

  • Adaptation: Larger spleen and lymphoid organs.

Issues in conservation biology related to migration

• Conservation Biology Issues:

  • Loss of Stopover Sites:

    • Stopover: A resting/refueling site visited during migration.

  • Climate Change:

    • Rising sea levels covering island stopover sites.

    • Trophic mismatch.

    • Increased competition at the destination.

  • Urbanization:

    • Habitat fragmentation.

    • Reduced resources as stopover sites.

    • Impaired navigation.

    • Window collisions.

• Bird Window Collision Study:

  • 1 billion birds die annually in North America from collisions.

  • Drivers of Collisions:

    • Outdoor/interior lighting.

    • Direction of window.

    • Size of window.

    • Wind direction.

    • Seasonal patterns of migration.

  • Solutions:

    • Darkening windows/adding pattern.

    • Blackout curtains.

    • Turning off lights during high-risk nights.

What is the survival value of migration?

• resource availability

• predator avoidance

• reproductive success

• energy efficiency

• avoiding competition

• climate adaptation

• Migration: The movement of organisms over long distances; the seasonal movement of animals from one region to another.

  • Migration, Temperature, & Basal Metabolic Rate: Long migration requires greater energy needs, increased foraging, and building body fat.

  • Migration helps animals access different environmental conditions, resources, and mates, or avoid predators and extreme weather.

  • Obligatory Migration: Seasonal movement that is a necessary part of their life cycle (e.g., warblers, monarch butterflies, cuckoos, swallows).

  • Facultative Migration: Occurs only when conditions are poor (based on environmental conditions or resource availability) (e.g., snowy owls, siskins, redpolls).

  • Partial Migration: Only a portion of the population migrates (e.g., many freshwater fish).

How orientation and dispersal behavior is affected by anthropogenic pollutants

Orientation: An organism's preferred direction of movement.

• What Are Animals Orienting Toward?:

  • Food/water.

  • Shelter.

  • Preferred environmental conditions.

  • Safety (predator avoidance).

  • Other resources.

• Orientation Cues:

  • Light.

  • Odor.

  • Visual markers.

  • Other sensory inputs and stimuli.

• Urbanization: Habitat fragmentation and reduced resources as stopover sites impair navigation.

• Anthropogenic Pollutants: Increased light pollution or habitat disruption can affect orientation and dispersal behavior in animals.

Different types of dispersal plus examples

• Dispersal: Movement of individuals from one location to another.

  • Migration: Can be considered a type of seasonal dispersal.

  • Emigration: Out of a subpopulation.

  • Immigration: Into a subpopulation.

  • Active Dispersal: Mobile organisms (walking, flying, swimming, etc.).

  • Passive Dispersal: Dispersal with the aid of another organism.

    • Seen in mostly stationary organisms, insects, aquatic invertebrates, and larvae.

  • Dispersal Agent: A mobile organism or another environmental feature (wind and water currents) that facilitates passive dispersal of another organism.

• Assisted Dispersal: Human activity expands the range of a species (intentionally or unintentionally).

  • Sometimes a type of passive dispersal.

• Invasive Species: A non-native species introduced into a new habitat that often adversely affects numerous species in the new habitat.

  • Free from native competitors, predators, parasites, and diseases.

  • Can alter the behavior of native species OR native species have not learned how to deal with invasive species.

• Dispersal Behavior
  • Varies by environmental conditions
  • Two dispersal strategies seen in Erigone spiders:
  rappelling and ballooning behavior.
  • Both require silk threads
  • Rappelling: spiders use silk thread to create a bridge
  that they can move along for short dispersals
  • Ballooning: the spiders rely on the silk threads to
  sail long distances, often hundreds of yards. A riskier
  strategy, in which spiders have little control where
  they land
  • More likely to balloon in poor conditions
  • Trade-off: silk production is costly but need access to
  food

Survival value of dispersal

• Survival Value of Dispersal:

  • Different parts of the life cycle require different environmental conditions or resources.

  • Mates/reproduction.

  • Establishing territory.

  • Max carrying capacity.

  • Reducing competition.

  • Farther from family members/increasing genetic diversity.

Gene flow and what it’s affected by

• Gene flow- migration of individuals out of their population (emigration) into a new population (immigration)

  • affected by:

    • organisms mobility

    • landscape barriers

Gene Flow and Genetic Diversity

• Inbreeding Depression- a reduction in survival or viability of offspring produced when relatives mate with each other

  • increases chance of recessive, homozygous alleles

  • increases chance of birth defects

  • increases chance of lower cognitive function and ability to learn

Lecture 9: Learning and Cognition

Learning Subcomponents

• Filtration: Separate useful information from unnecessary information.

• Focused Learning: Information with critical immediate survival value (“burned into memory”).

• Generalized Learning: Conditions future behavior, problem-solving.

• Short Term: Memory stored and available for a short time (seconds to minutes, 6-7 bits).

  • Survival Value: Energetic efficiency.

• Long Term: Memory stored over an extended time (weeks to months).

  • Selective Attrition: Retain relevant information (filtration).

  • Reinforcement: Increases probability of behavior.

  • Periodic Reinforcement: Unpredictable reinforcement of behavior.

• Long-Lasting: Memory stored for months to a lifetime, triggered by the strength of stimuli and association.

  • Memory Consolidation: Transfer from long-term to long-lasting.

• Habituation: Learned reduction in response to a stimulus that has proven repeatedly to be harmless.

  • Survival Value: Energetic efficiency.

• Sensitization: Increase in responsiveness to a stimulus due to experience with that stimulus.

Pavlov conditioning, associative learning, classical conditioning

• Associative Learning: Learned association between 2 events where certain conditions are associated with certain outcomes.

  • Increases efficiency and survival value (resource selection, mate selection, predator avoidance).

• Classical (Pavlovian) Conditioning: Animal associates a relevant stimulus (unconditioned stimulus) with an irrelevant stimulus (conditioned stimulus) to generate a conditioned response.

  • Appetitive and aversive.

Thorndike’s Law of Effect case study

• Cat in the box experiment: Cat learned how to open the box for treats quicker as it did it more often.

• Any behavior followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and any behavior followed by unpleasant consequences is likely to be stopped.

• “Instrumental Learning”: Predecessor to operant conditioning.

Aversive stimuli

• Locust Case Study:

  • Locusts are known for phenotypic plasticity (different phenotypes depending on environmental conditions).

  • Phase-Dependent Aversive Learning: The process of gregarization temporarily impairs the acquisition of aversive associative memories (impairs recognition of toxin-treated plants).

  • Aversive Learning: Process of associating stimuli with unpleasant or negative experiences (e.g., aversive associative memories in locusts during phase change).

Cognition and markers of cognition in animals with examples; what are signs that an animal is cognizant?

Cognition: Ability of an animal to separate itself from the moment, contemplate the past and future, and adjust present actions.

• Cognitive Skills:

  • Self-Recognition.

  • Gaze Following.

  • Tool Use.

  • Abstract Concepts.

  • Insight: Sudden realization of the solution to a problem without repeated trials or continuous practice.

  • Foresight: Using past information to inform future actions and decisions.

    • Mental Time Travel—thinking about the past and using that information to inform future plans/actions.

  • Chronesthesia: Life in the present shaped by the past.

  • Self-Consciousness: Ability to judge one’s own actions in the context of values/traditions within a social community.

    • Requires knowledge of normative behavior and realization of how others view an individual’s behavior.

  • Theory of Mind and Intelligence:

    • Theory of Mind: Individual can form a hypothesis about the thoughts of surrounding animals.

    • Social Intelligence: Predict outcome of future interactions in a social group.

    • Empathy: Cueing into emotions/thoughts of others—emotion cognition?

Extinction learning

• Forgetting: Loss of learning/memory due to failure to reinforce a memory.

• Extinction (Pavlov): When expression of a learned response is suppressed (dissociation).

• Extinction Learning: Gradual decrease in response to a conditioned stimulus when the stimulus is presented without reinforcement.

Lecture 10: Play and Aggression

Characteristics of play behaviors

• Engagement of an animal in seemingly purposeless activity that has no immediate apparent survival value.

• Typically incomplete sequences of other behavior patterns, often exaggerated.

• Promotes physical training, coordination, socialization, cognitive skills learning, and survival skills.

Types of play

• Object Play- Inanimate objects

• Locomotor Play-

  • Vertical leaps, bucks, somersaults, handstands, etc..
    • Functions:
    • Motor skill development
    • Endurance & strength (muscle fiber development)
    • Cerebellum synapse development (limb coordination, movement, etc...)

• Social Play

  • forging social bonds (social cohesion)

  • fine-tuning motor skills

  • development of cognitive skills

Purpose of play? Benefits of animals playing?

• Play Function: Allows animals to develop physical and psychological skills to handle unexpected events in which they experience a loss of control.

• Prepares animals for unexpected events.

• Role Reversal: Helps animals understand alternative positions in a hierarchy.

• Kinematic Improvisation: Developing new movement patterns.

• Emotional Flexibility: Learning to adapt emotionally to different situations.

• Decreased Play: Evidence of stress (e.g., rats deprived of play experience long-term changes in opioid receptors and permanent changes in dopamine levels).

Play Markers

• Signals to initiate, continue play state

• signals to adults that they’re not in danger

Types of Aggression

• Aggression

  • Behavior intended to inflict noxious stimulation or destruction on another organism.

• Agonism

  • Conflict between conspecifics (threats, submission, chase, combat).

  • Differs from aggression because it includes aggressive and submissive behaviors and occurs only between conspecifics.

Purpose of weaponry

• Male-Male Competition: Competing for mates.

• Defense of Resources: Protecting valuable resources such as food or territory.

• Defense of Kin: Protecting family members.

• Maintain Dominance: Asserting dominance within a group.

Possible outcomes of aggressive interactions

• War of Attrition

  • Display aggression but do not actually fight.

• Sequential Aggression

  • A series of "bouts" involving continual assessment (sampling) and sequential increases in aggression.

• Winner Effects

  • Winning a past aggressive interaction increases the probability of future wins.

• Loser Effects

  • Losing a past aggressive interaction increases the probability of future losses.

• Bystander Effects

  • An “eavesdropper” individual observes an aggressive interaction among others and changes their assessment of the individuals observed.

  • Key to Dominance Hierarchy Dynamics.

• Audience Effects

  • Individuals engaged in aggressive interactions change their behavior if they know they are being watched.

Siblicide and examples

• Goal: Secure greater resources (via parental care).

• Obligate vs. Facultative: Whether siblicide is required for survival or only occurs under certain circumstances.

• In Birds: 5 characteristics of siblicide include resource competition, food provisioning in small units, weaponry, spatial confinement, and competitive disparities (size, age).

  • Examples: Nestling pushing out of the nest, head pecking.

• Siblicide in spotted hyenas

  • facultative

Siblicide in spotted hyenas
• Facultative• Typically one member of eachtriplet litter (and often onetwin)• Scarring suggests siblicide• Littermate aggressionincreased as maternal rankdecreased/cub growth ratedecreased

How dominance/hierarchy plays a role in aggression

• Dominance Hierarchy: Individual animals are physically or chemically dominant over other individuals in the group.

• Benefits of Dominance: Access to resources, mates, and territory.

• Costs of Dominance: Energy expenditure, risk of injury, and maintaining control over subordinates.

Lecture 11: Personality and Decision Making

Shyness to boldness continuum of personality traits

• Hyena personality case study

Five aggregate personality traits:

• Assertiveness

• Excitability

• Human-directed agreeableness

• Sociability

• Curiosity

How personality can be applied to wildlife research; elk example

• Seven behavioral metrics –shy →bold continuum

• Reactions to approaching humans, novel objects, novel sounds

• Position within herd, herd leading, vigilance

• Outcome of dominance interactions

• Results: Shyer elk migratory tendency, bolder elk year-round residency

lLecture 12: Communication

Types of communication and when each type is most beneficial

• Chemical Communication

  • Likely the first type of signal to evolve.

  • Pheromone: chemical compound evolved to send a signal.

  • Useful in visual/auditory-limited environments and for signals meant to stay in the environment.

  • Disadvantage: relies on passive movement (slow/varying).

• Tactile Communication

  • Useful in obscured environments and for social signaling.

  • Alternative communication in cases of predation risk.

  • Disadvantage: proximity requirement.

• Audible Communication

  • Useful in light-limited settings.

  • Disadvantages: sound does not linger (requires immediate communication), energy-intensive.

  • Distance traveled determined by medium, frequency, rate of dissipation, absorption, reflection, refraction.

• Vibration Communication

  • Infrasound vibrations travel through solids.

  • Animals may rotate bodies in direction of their “foot hearing,” indicating they may use timing and intensity of infrasound similarly to how other animals use their ears.

  • Elephants sense infrasound via skin sensors, amplified by fatty deposits in feet.

• Visual Communication

  • Patterns of colors and/or movement may signal danger, predator defense, or reproductive quality.

  • Bioluminescence: production and emission of light by a living organism, useful in the presence of ambient light and absence of visual blockages.

• Electrical Communication

  • Primarily found in aquatic animals; environments with limited visual clarity combined with water as a good medium for ion conduction.

  • Useful for defense and location of prey.

  • Electro-receptors: sensitive electrical canals at the skin surface, leading to cavities lined with specialized nerve receptors.

Evolution of Communication (With Deer Rutting Example)

1. Co-opting

   • Evolution of something the animal already does or has for use in communication.

2. Ritualization

   • Association through evolution of a meaning with a signal.

3. Stereotypy

   • Selection over time favors reduction in variation in the signal (meaning of the signal clearly communicated).

4. Redundancy

   • More than one signal, offered in different modes, to communicate the same message (multi-modal).

Waggle Dance

• Aristotle observed unique communication in bees locating food over 2,000 years ago.

• Bees use olfaction regularly, but it appears the waggle dance indicates distance (waggle duration), direction (waggle orientation), and resource quality (waggle vigor/speed).

Survival Value of Communication

• Communication evolves to enhance survival and reproductive success.

• Signal: any act or structure that carries a specific meaning and alters the behavior of other organisms.

• Communication helps in predator-prey interactions, mating, and resource location (e.g., bees’ waggle dance).

• Signals may improve the fitness of both sender and receiver, increasing group or individual survival.

What is signaling? honest vs. dishonest signaling and when each is beneficial

• Signal- any act or structure which carries a specific meaning and alters the behavior or other organisms- evolved specifically for communication

1. Honest Signaling

   • Information being sent and received is true.

   • Beneficial when there is mutual interest/benefit between sender and receiver.

   • Honest signaling occurs when the signal cannot be faked or when it is costly to fake.

2. Dishonest Signaling

   • Information being sent and received is false.

   • One organism exploits another (sends inaccurate signal) to improve its fitness.

   • Quick selection for deceitful individuals if it improves fitness.

Hoes does noise, light, and chemical pollution interfere with communication in ways that affect survival and reproduction

• Noise pollution interferes with audible communication, making it harder for animals to send and receive signals, leading to reduced mating success or failure in predator detection.

• Light pollution disrupts visual communication, especially for animals that rely on patterns or bioluminescence for reproduction or predator avoidance.

• Chemical pollution can interfere with the effectiveness of pheromones, affecting mating, territory marking, or foraging behaviors, reducing overall survival and reproductive success.

Lecture 13: Cultural Transmission and Social Learning

Modes of cultural transmission

• Oblique cultural transmission

  • Transfer of information across generations (not parent to offspring).

• Horizontal cultural transmission

  • Transmission of information among individuals of the same age group (peers).

• Vertical cultural transmission

  • Information is transmitted across generations from parents to offspring.

3 critical phases of social learning in primates

• Imitation

  • Acquisition of topographically novel response through observation of a demonstrator.

  • New behavior learned from others.

  • New spatial manipulation.

  • Achievement of some goal.

• Copying

  • Observer repeats what a model does, but does not need to be novel nor involve learning (something already learned).

• Tradition

  • When a new preference emerges and becomes commonplace within a group.

Social learning vs. teaching

• Social Learning (Observational Learning)

  • Learning facilitated by observation of/or interaction with another individual or its products.

  • Example: Social transmission of novel foraging behavior in vervet monkeys (2-option puzzle boxes with apple slice reward).

• Teaching

  • Learning in which one individual instructs and at least one other individual is a student.

  • Teacher must provide immediate benefit to the student at potential cost to the teacher.

  • Students must be naive to what is taught and learn faster than would alone.

Mate-choice copying with guppies examples

Cost benefit to teaching

1. Benefit to follower

   • Faster resource acquisition.

   • Returned to nest faster.

2. Cost to teacher

   • Leader ant slowed by 4x in tandem run.

   • Waited for follower ant when removed.

Survival Value of Cultural Transmission

• (E.g., beneficial to group survival; passing knowledge valuable to
  survival and reproduction, fitness/survival of the whole population / indirect fitness)