MT

Animal Behavior Notes chapter 51

Definition of Behavior: An action performed by muscles under the control of the nervous system. Example: Birds producing songs using their throat muscles.

Natural Selection: Behaviors and anatomical structures related to them evolve under natural selection.

Tinbergen's Four Questions
Niko Tinbergen proposed four fundamental questions to study animal behavior:

  1. Stimulus: What stimulus elicits the behavior, and how do body systems bring it about?

  2. Development: How does the animal's experience during growth influence the response?

  3. Survival: How does the behavior aid survival and reproduction?

  4. Evolution: What is the evolutionary history of the behavior?

Proximate vs. Ultimate Causation
Proximate Causation: Addresses how behavior occurs.
Ultimate Causation: Addresses why behavior occurs in relation to natural selection. This forms the basis of behavioral ecology.

Fixed Action Patterns (FAPs)
Definition: Unlearned acts directly linked to an external cue called a sign stimulus. Example: Male stickleback fish attack behavior is triggered by the red underside of an intruder.
FAPs are invariant and, once initiated, are usually completed regardless of changes in circumstances.

Migration and Behavioral Rhythms
Migration: Regular, long-distance movement of animals, guided by environmental cues like the sun, the North Star, or Earth’s magnetic field.
Circadian Rhythms: Daily cycles affecting animal behavior, regulated by the circadian clock. Effects can include rhythms related to season changes (circannual rhythms). Seasonal behaviors link to food availability and are influenced by day length.

Communication and Signals
Signal: Stimuli generated by one animal that influences another's behavior (e.g., male fiddler crab signaling females).
Modes of Communication:

  • Visual

  • Chemical (Pheromones)

  • Tactile

  • Auditory
    Example: Honeybees use waggle dances to communicate food location. Dance Details: Angle relative to hive indicates direction; duration of waggle indicates distance to food.

Learning and Behavior
Types of Learning:

  • Innate Behavior: Unlearned behaviors present in all individuals (e.g., web-building in spiders).

  • Cross-Fostering Studies: Examine environmental influence on behavior (e.g., aggression in California vs. white-footed mice).

  • Imprinting: Long-lasting behavioral response established during a sensitive developmental period (e.g., gulls imprinting on parents).

Cognition and Problem Solving
Cognition: Involves awareness, reasoning, and judgment; previously thought limited to primates, now known in other species as well. Example: Ravens perform complex problem-solving tasks and demonstrate cognitive skills.

Foraging Behavior
Foraging: Food-obtaining behaviors including searching, capturing, and consuming food.
Optimal Foraging Model: Balances nutrition benefits against the costs of obtaining food, influenced by predation risks.

Mating Behavior and Systems
Mating Systems: Refers to relationships between males and females, can be promiscuous, monogamous, or polygamous.
Sexual Dimorphism: Differences in appearance between males and females in polygamous relationships.
Mating behavior impacts reproductive success and can influence partnership dynamics and parental care.

Selection for Behaviors
Altruism: Behaviors that reduce an individual's fitness while increasing others' fitness (e.g., alarm calls in Belding’s ground squirrels).
Inclusive Fitness: Considers an individual's own offspring and aiding relatives to produce offspring.
Reciprocal Altruism: Non-relatives may engage in altruistic behavior if such acts are reciprocated later, found in stable social groups.
Key Examples of Altruism:

  • Belding's Ground Squirrels: Give alarm calls, risking their own lives to protect the group.

  • Honeybees: Workers defend the hive even at the risk of dying when stinging intruders.

  • Naked Mole Rats: Non-reproductive members protect the queen and kings despite personal risk.

Proximate causation addresses how behavior occurs, focusing on the mechanisms that lead to a specific action or behavior, such as physiological and psychological processes. Ultimate causation, on the other hand, delves into why a behavior occurs in the context of evolution, explaining the evolutionary pressure that shaped that behavior through natural selection.
Fixed Action Patterns (FAPs) are unlearned acts that are directly linked to a specific external cue, known as a sign stimulus. They are invariant, meaning they occur in a similar way each time they are triggered, and typically, once initiated, they will complete regardless of changes in the environment. An example of FAPs includes the aggressive behavior of male stickleback fish when they see a red underside of an intruder.
Migration is the regular, long-distance movement of animals, driven by environmental cues such as the sun and Earth's magnetic field. Behavioral rhythms, including circadian rhythms, indicate daily cycles that regulate behaviors. For instance, migration patterns can be affected by seasonal changes in the environment, like food availability and optimal conditions for breeding.
Animal communication involves signals that influence another animal's behavior. Four common modes of communication include:

  • Visual

  • Chemical (Pheromones)

  • Tactile

  • Auditory
    Pheromones are chemical signals that affect the behavior of other animals, often used in mating signals or territory marking.
    Learning and experience shape animal behavior in various ways, including:

  • Imprinting: A long-lasting behavioral response that occurs during a sensitive period (e.g., young ducks following their mother).

  • Spatial learning and cognitive maps: Allow animals to navigate their environment effectively.

  • Associative learning: Involves linking a stimuli to a response (e.g., dogs salivating at the sound of a bell).

  • Cognition and problem-solving: Animals engaging in tasks that require thinking (e.g., ravens solving puzzles).

  • Learned behavior development: Refers to changes in behavior based on experience.

  • Social learning: Learning behaviors by observing others.
    Foraging behavior encompasses the strategies animals use to obtain food, including:

  • The optimal foraging model, which balances the nutritional benefits of food against the costs involved in obtaining it.

  • Analyzing the risk and reward of foraging decisions to maximize food acquisition while minimizing predation risk.
    Mating behavior includes various systems and parental care strategies. Mating systems can be:

  • Promiscuous: Multiple mating partners.

  • Monogamous: A pair bond between one male and one female.

  • Polygamous: One sex mates with multiple partners.
    In selecting mates:

  • Females often select mates based on traits that indicate genetic fitness.

  • Males may demonstrate their fitness through displays or territorial behaviors.
    Finally, evolutionary behavior investigates how behavioral phenotypes are influenced by genetics. This includes:

  • Game theory, which studies strategic decision-making behaviors in animals.

  • Genetic variation affecting behaviors such as foraging and mating.

  • Altruism and inclusive fitness, considering behaviors that improve the survival of relatives at a cost to the individual, such as alarm calling in Belding’s ground squirrels or the cooperative behaviors seen in honeybees and **naked