BI4118 Animal Behaviour - Early Studies

Introduction to Animal Behaviour

Dr. Jodie Gruber's introductory lecture covers early studies in animal behavior.

Module Overview

The session will cover the following topics:

  • Introduction to the module.

  • Strategies for succeeding in the module.

  • Exploration of early studies and theories in animal behavior.

The theme revolves around the types of scientific questions asked in Animal Behaviour and the methods used to address them.

Tools for Live Sessions

  • Vevox is used for anonymous chats, polls, and surveys.

  • Padlet is used for Q&A outside of session times.

  • Padlet serves as a collaborative noticeboard, timeline, map, and list.

How to Succeed in this Module

  1. Attend lectures and make useful notes. The Academic Skills department can provide assistance with note-taking.

  2. Participate in group activities.

  3. Review lecture notes to check understanding and look up unfamiliar content.

  4. Engage in suggested background reading and search for related material using Web of Science and Google Scholar.

  5. Create short notes in your own words for exam revision and coursework.

  6. Allocate sufficient time for coursework, collect quality observation data, and start early in the year.

  7. Create a list of deadlines for all modules and plan accordingly.

  8. Utilize services provided by Academic Skills (ASk).

  9. Revise for multiple-choice questions (MCQ) by creating good summary notes from lectures and background reading.

  10. Read through notes after lectures and practice MCQ questions later in the year.

Vevox Exercise

The first poll assesses the current understanding of Animal Behaviour on a scale of 0-100. The second poll explores ideas for future careers.

Early Studies of Animal Behaviour

Theme

What kinds of scientific questions do we ask in Animal Behaviour, and how do we ask them.

Topics

  • Context: a brief history of animal behaviour

  • Key Concept: Niko Tinbergen’s Four ‘Whys’

  • Context: Different approaches/subfields within animal behaviour

Why Study Animal Behaviour?

  • Intrinsic value – understanding & predicting behaviour

  • Improve welfare of captive animals

  • Applications to conservation (e.g. reintroductions)

  • Resolve human-animal conflict issues

  • Understand human behaviour?

These reasons have historical significance.

Historical Significance of Animal Behaviour

Animal behavior has always been important to humans for:

  • Hunting

  • Avoiding Predation

  • Domestication purposes

  • Cultural significance, as evidenced by cave paintings in Lascaux dating back 17,000 years.

Early Thinkers in Animal Behaviour

  • John Ray (1627-1705): English naturalist who attempted to define a biological 'species'.

  • Charles-Georges Le Roy (1723-1789): French essayist who wrote on behavior and discussed the inheritance of acquired traits.

  • Charles Darwin (1809-1882): British naturalist & geologist known for his theory of evolution by natural selection.

  • Charles O. Whitman (1842-1910): American zoologist & ethologist; wrote an early Animal Behaviour textbook (1899).

  • Oskar Heinroth (1871-1945): German ethologist, one of the first to employ comparative morphology

  • Wallace Craig (1876–1954): American experimental psychologist, early proponent of integrative study of behaviour

Pioneers often Ovelooked

  • Charles Henry Turner (1867-1923)

    • Elected as member of Entomological Society of America in 1907

    • Denied a professorship, most likely due to his ethnic origin

    • First researcher to show that insects can distinguish pitch, possess memory and problem-solving skills

  • Margaret Morse Nice (1883-1974)

    • American ornithologist, ethologist, and child psychologist

    • Known for her extensive study of song sparrows and field studies of birds in North America

  • Roger Arliner Young (1889-1964)

    • Studied the effects of radiation on sea urchin eggs and structures controlling salt concentration in paramecium

    • Faced limited research facilities due to racial and gender biases

    • First African-American woman to professionally publish a scientific research article

Scientific Roots: Charles Darwin

  • British Naturalist and Geologist.

  • Five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle.

  • On the Origin of Species (1859): Introduced the mechanism of natural selection.

  • The Descent of Man (1871): Discussed sexual selection and human evolution, laying the foundation for evolutionary psychology.

Early Behavioral Studies

  • The natural history approach of Darwin evolved into animal ecology and ethology.

  • Animal ecology focuses on interactions between animals and their environment.

  • Ethology is the biological study of animal behavior, with early ethologists exploring behavior in select vertebrate species under laboratory conditions (e.g., Ivan Pavlov with dogs, B.F. Skinner with birds).

The Beginning of Modern Animal Behaviour

Key figures:

  • Karl von Frisch (1886-1982)

  • Julian Huxley (1887-1975)

  • Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989)

  • Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907-1988)

Their work emphasized the importance of studying behaviour in the natural context to understand it fully and moved away from narrow observations on ‘model’ species in unnatural lab conditions.

Niko Tinbergen

  • Emphasized field observations of animals in natural conditions.

  • Received the Nobel Prize in 1973, shared with Konrad Lorenz & Karl von Frisch.

  • Recognized the importance of both instinctive and learned behavior for survival.

  • Viewed animal behavior as a basis for understanding human violence and aggression.

Tinbergen's Four Questions

Tinbergen identified different question categories for explaining behavior, which are complementary. A comprehensive understanding of behavior requires identifying and understanding all of them.

  1. Causation – the mechanistic ‘how’ internal/external stimulus leading to behaviour

  2. Function – survival and reproductive value – how behaviour contributes to fitness (i.e. how it is adaptive – natural selection)

  3. Development – how behaviour changes from birth to adulthood (ontogeny)

  4. Evolutionary history – phylogenetic approach, or how has it changed over evolutionary time?

These questions are a framework to understand the ‘why’ questions relating to behavior, also referred to as four ‘levels of analysis’.

Type of Explanation

Contemporary (Now)

Historical (Development)

Proximate (How)

1. Causation (Mechanism)

3. Development (Ontogeny)

Ultimate (Why)

2. Function (Adaptive value)

4. Phylogenetic (Evolutionary history)

Example: Stickleback Behaviour

Male sticklebacks build nests and court only certain females.

Why do males build nests?

  1. Causation: Spawning occurs in spring/summer (seasonal cues).

  2. Function: To attract females to lay eggs, which the male fertilizes. Ultimate cause = pass on more genes, increase fitness

  3. Development: Social learning or innate?

  4. Evolutionary history: Do closely related species build nests? When and how did nest-building evolve?

Why do males only court certain females?

  1. Causation: Large, red belly acts as a stimulus.

  2. Function: Large females have more eggs; red belly indicates eggs are ready to be laid. Ultimate cause = pass on more genes, increase fitness

  3. Development: Is this a learned or innate behaviour? How might you test this?

  4. Evolutionary history: Do closely related species show this behaviour?

Example: Starling Song

Why do starlings sing in the spring?

  1. Causation:

    • Increasing daylength triggers hormone changes (external).

    • Air flows through syrinx & vibrates membrane (internal).

  2. Function: To attract mates for breeding, increasing reproductive success.

  3. Development: Learned songs from parents and neighbors.

  4. Evolutionary history: Song evolved from avian ancestors; most primitive living birds make simple sounds.

Recap: Proximate and Ultimate Causes

  • Proximate: Causation (trigger) and Development (how the individual got that way) - HOW?

  • Ultimate: Function (adaptive value) and Evolutionary history (how the species got that way) - WHY?

Approaches to the Study of Animal Behaviour

  • Ethology

  • Comparative psychology

  • Behavioural ecology

  • Evolutionary psychology

These approaches come from different perspectives and focus on different types of questions, making them often complementary.

Discipline

Focus

Key Figures

Ethology

Mechanism, Function

Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen

Comparative psychology

Development

Ivan Pavlov

Behavioural ecology

Evolution

William Hamilton

Evolutionary psychology

Evolution

N/A

Ethology (in the narrow sense)

  • Founded by Niko Tinbergen, Karl von Frisch, and Konrad Lorenz in Europe (1930s).

  • Emphasizes the diversity of species and the importance of the natural context in interpreting behavior.

  • Relates behavior to the natural environment where it is assumed to be adaptive.

  • Mostly used hypothesis-driven experiments i.e. designed an experiment to find evidence for one explanation over another alternative/to rule out alternatives

  • Developed theories about internal control mechanisms & extent to which behaviour genetically hard-wired (innate) and stereotyped (consistent) within species

Comparative Psychology

  • North American psychologists (e.g. T.C. Schneirla and Norman Maier).

  • Sought comparable/general laws of behavior, especially relating to development.

  • Applied across all species, including humans.

  • Utilized rigorously controlled laboratory experiments involving a small number of species, mainly rats and pigeons, believing in universal laws.

Contrasting Approaches

  • Comparative Psychologists: Record lab behavior.

  • Ethologists: Record natural behavior.

Behavioural Ecology (1960s)

  • Arose from the fusion of ethology, ecology & evolutionary biology.

  • Concentrates on questions of function & evolution of behaviour (from Tinbergen’s 4Qs).

  • The study of the evolutionary basis for animal behaviour due to ecological pressures.

  • Largest field in modern animal behaviour.

Evolutionary Psychology

  • The evolutionarily informed study of human mental attributes. Interested in cognitive processes common to both humans and other animals.

  • Arguably an extension of behavioural ecology.

  • Has roots back to Darwin, but only popular more recently (especially since 1980s).

Summary

  • Diverse reasons for studying animal behaviour, many important both historically and in modern times

  • Slow development of ideas, accelerating after Darwin

  • Modern Animal Behaviour was founded in the 1930s by Tinbergen and others, who refocused on wild behaviour

  • Behaviour can be examined in terms of either proximate or ultimate explanations

  • Tinbergen’s four ‘questions’(or types of question): causation (trigger), function (adaptive value), development (how the individual got that way), evolutionary history (how the species got that way)

  • Different approaches to studying behaviour: ethology, comparative psychology, behavioural ecology, evolutionary psychology"