AP Biology
Semester Two
 3.e.1
– Individuals can act on information and
communicate it to others (51.1).
 2.e.3 – Timing and coordination of behavior
are regulated by various mechanisms and are
important in natural selection (51.1 and
51.2).
 2.a.1 - All living systems require constant
input of free energy (51.3).
 Behavior,
for animals, is essential to survival
and reproduction
 Behavior is an action carried out by muscles
under control of the nervous system in
response to a stimulus
 One of the characteristics of living
organisms!
 Animals
“singing” a song
 Releasing a scent to mark territory
 Waving a claw
 What other animal behaviors do you know?
Niko Tinbergen, a pioneer in the study of animal
behavior, suggested four questions that must be
answered to understand animal behavior:
1. What stimulus elicits the behavior, and what
physiological mechanisms mediate the
response?
2. How does the animal’s experience during
growth and development influence the
response?
3. How does the behavior aid survival and
reproduction?
4. What is the behavior’s evolutionary history?

 Read
about the three-spined sticklebacks on
page 1119.
 This response is an example of a fixed action
pattern

A sequence of unlearned acts directly linked to a
simple stimulus – in this case, the color red.
 The
trigger for the behavior is a sign stimulus
(an external cue)
A
regular, long-distance change in location
 Animals use environmental stimuli to guide
their migration
 Stimuli can include:



Earth’s magnetic field
North star
Sun (Circadian clock)
 Circadian
clock is normally synced with light
and dark cycles of the environment

Can also maintain under constant conditions like
during hibernation
 Migration
and reproduction have a longer
cycle than circadian rhythm
 Rhythms linked to the yearly cycle of seasons
are called circannual rhythms

“circ” – around; “annual” – year
 Not
all biological rhythms linked to light and
dark cycle

Some develop due to the way the organism
developed in early stages of life
 Signal
– stimulus transmitted from one
animal to another
 Communication – transmission and reception
of signals
 Four common modes of animal
communication:




Visual
Chemical
Tactile
Auditory
 Read
about the Honeybee “dances” on pg.
1121/Fig. 51.5
 Chemical
substances secreted by animals
that communicate through odors or tastes
 Used to induce steps of reproduction, to
warn other organisms of danger, etc.
 Developmentally
fixed behavior that is seen
in most individuals of a species throughout
their lives
 Experiences affect behaviors
 Table 51.1, page 1123
 Certain learned behaviors can be passed on
to progeny
 Learning
is the modification of behavior
based on specific experiences
 Think about things you’ve learned to do
 Several types of learning:






Imprinting
Spatial Learning and Cognitive Maps
Associative Learning
Cognition and Problem Solving
Development of Learned Behaviors
Social Learning
 Formation
at a specific stage in life of a
long-lasting behavioral response to a
particular individual or object

Includes both learned and innate components
 Differs
from other types of learning by having
a sensitive period in which the imprinting
must occur
 Environment provides imprinting stimulus to
direct young to imprint
 See examples of greylag geese and whooping
cranes on pg. 1124

Spatial learning – establishment of a memory
that reflects the environment’s spatial structure
Location of nest sites, hazards, food, prospective
mates, etc.
 Study figure 51.8 on page 1125 and relate to spatial
learning


Cognitive maps – representation in the nervous
system of the spatial relationships between
objects in an animal’s surroundings

Nutcracker bird stores up to 30,000 pine seeds over a
35km2 area and finds them in the winter using an
innate “Seed caches are found halfway between
particular landmarks” geometric rule

The ability to associate one environmental
feature with another
Blue jays vomit after eating Monarch butterflies, so
they learn to stay away from them and other species
resembling Monarchs
 Be able to contrast classical and operant conditioning


Some animals can’t make particular associations
Pigeons can associate danger with a sound, but not
color, but can associate a color with food
 Normally based on evolution of behavior; certain
associations can’t be made because they’re not
evolutionarily advantageous

 Cognition
is the process of knowing that
involves awareness, reasoning, recollection,
and judgment

Fig. 51.10 on page 1126
 Problem
Solving – cognitive activity of
devising a method to proceed from one state
to another in the face of real or apparent
obstacles

Highly developed problem solving in mammals,
esp. primates and dolphins
 Read
and summarize these sections on pages
1126 - 1128 of the Campbell text
 Differences
in foraging (food-obtaining)
behaviors (page 1128)
 Two genes in Drosophila melanogaster for
food-search behavior

Low density populations carry the gene for short
distance foraging; high density populations carry
the gene for long distance foraging


WHY?
What does that mean in terms of energy expenditure?
 Essential
knowledge 2.e.3 – Timing and
coordination of behavior are regulated by
various mechanisms and are important in
natural selection (51.1 and 51.2).
 Essential knowledge 2.a.1 – All living systems
require constant input of free energy (51.3).