Review and Animal
Behavior
Animal behavior
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Examples?
Definition
Why study behavior?
How to study animal behavior
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Ethology: The study of animal
behavior in its natural environment
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Mid 20th century
Tinbergen, von Frisch, Lorenz
4 foundational questions
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Mechanistic basis of the behavior
How does development influence behavior
Evolutionary history of the behavior
How does the behavior contribute to its
fitness?
Behavioral ecology: Stems from
ethology, and attempts to explain how
animal behaviors are controlled and
why they developed
Proximate versus ultimate explanations
Proximate: the
mechanism (how)
 Ultimate:
Evolutionary
significance (why)
 With your partner,
write down a
proximate and
ultimate explanation
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Fixed action pattern (FAP)
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Sequence of unlearned
behaviors
Nearly unchangeable
Carried out to completion
Sign stimulus (releaser)
 behavior
Example of an innate
behavior
Imprinting
Generally irreversible
 Sensitive period
 Imprinting stimulus
 Innate and learning
components
 Lorenz
 Proximate, ultimate
explanations?
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Nature versus nurture
Can behavioral traits be treated like
physical traits?
 How do your determine whether genes,
environment, or both cause behavior?
 Example behaviors: intelligence,
musical/artistic talent, love?
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Directed movements
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Strong genetic influence
Kinesis versus taxis
Migration
 Migrating
blackcaps kept in captivity exhibited
behaviors of “migratory restlessness” at night
 Migratory and nonmigratory blackcaps mated and
subjected to both environments
 40% of offspring exhibited “migratory restlessness”
Signals and communication
Signal causes change in another
organism’s behavior
 Difference between communication and
language
 Pheromones (reproductive and
nonreproductive behaviors)
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Auditory communication
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Songs of birds are partly learned
 Critical
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period
Some insects, such as male Drosophila,
produce a song even when reared in
isolation
 Very
little variation, why?
Learning
Definition?
 How do we learn?
 Habituation: Loss of responsiveness
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Spatial learning and cognitive maps
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Spatial learning
(Tinbergen): experience
consists of spatial
structures of the
environment
 Use
of landmarks.
Reliable?
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Cognitive maps: Internal
representation of spatial
relationships
Classical conditioning (Pavlov)
Operant conditioning (Skinner)
How natural selections leads to
behavioral traits
Variation exists: fraction of the species T.
elegans (garter snakes) had ability to
recognize slugs by chemoreception
 Increased fitness: That variation has
higher chance to survive and reproduce
(genes passed on)
 Led to changes in the population over time
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1. Your friend Jim comes to you with a problem: His dog barks too much. He
tells you that it is getting worse and the only way he can get his dog to
stop barking is to give it a treat. Explain to your friend what kind of
learning the dog is exhibiting and what can be done about it.
2. Most birds cannot fly when they are first born, but only at a certain age. A
scientists decides to isolate 2 groups of birds after being born. One group
can practice flapping their wings at any point. The other’s groups wings
are tied so that they cannot practice flapping. At the expected age, both
groups are allowed to attempt to fly, and both groups do successfully with
no apparent difference. What would account for these results. Innate,
learned behavior? Both? Neither?
3. The magnolia warbler only breeds in spring/early summer. Propose a
proximate and ultimate explanation for this situation.
Lab 11: Animal Behavior
Lab 11: Animal Behavior
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Concepts
 innate
vs. learned behavior
 experimental design
control vs. experimental
 hypothesis
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 choice
chamber
temperature
 humidity
 light intensity
 salinity
 other factors
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Lab 11: Animal Behavior
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Hypothesis
 Tentative,
testable explanation
 It is the hypothesis in an experiment that is
tested
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Deduction
 If
hypothesis AND experiment THEN
prediction
Lab 11: Animal Behavior
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Hypothesis development
 Poor:
I think pillbugs will move toward the wet side
of a choice chamber.
 Better:
IF pillbugs prefer a moist environment, AND
they are randomly placed on both sides of a
wet/dry choice chamber and allowed to
move about freely for
10 minutes, THEN most will be found on the
wet side.
Lab 11: Animal Behavior
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Experimental design
sample size
Foraging behavior
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Optimal foraging
theory: behaviors
exist as a
compromise
between benefits of
nutrition and cost of
obtaining food
Predation must be a
factor
Mating behavior
Promiscuous
Strong bonds
Monogamous
(sex morphology similar)
Factors influencing evolution of mating
systems
-Need of young
-Paternity certainty
- certainty increases with external
fertilization
Polygamous
Polyandry
(dimorphic
Larger,
Showy males)
Polygyny
(dimorphic
Larger,
Showy females)
Sexual selection
Sexual selection (selective pressure) 
evolution of male behavior and anatomy
 Stalked-eyed flies
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 Females
more likely to mate with males with
longer eyestalks
 Why? Correlation between genetic disorders
and inability to develop long eyestalks
Agonistic behavior
Ritualized
 Winner gains access to resources
 Physical and behavioral characteristics
involved
 Usually harm is not done
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Game theory and behavior
Game theory evaluates alternative
strategies where outcome depends on
strategies of other individuals
 Why don’t less fit mating strategies
disappear?
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 Depends
on abundance of certain strategies
Prisoner’s dilemma (why
cooperative succeeds)
Columnman
Remains silent
Columnman
defects
Rowman
remains silent
3,3
0,5
Rowman
defects
5,0
1,1
Altruism
Cost/benefit of selfish vs. unselfish
behavior?
 Altruism reduces individual fitness but
increases fitness of others
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Inclusive fitness
Helping close relatives would
increase the inclusive fitness
(own offspring and survival,
reproduction of close
relatives)
 Hamilton’s rule
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 Natural
selection would favor
altruistic behavior when rB > C
Social learning
Experience involves observing others
 Culture: information transfer through social
learning
 Vervet monkey alarm calls
 Memes (Richard Dawkins)
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Sociobiology (E.O. Wilson)
Connects human culture to evolutionary
theory
 Social behaviors exist because they are
perpetuated by natural selection
 Does not mean all social behaviors are
hardwired (nature vs. nurture)
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