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Animal Behavior Exam 2 Study Guide

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)

Animal Behavior Exam 2 Study Guide

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)

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