Animal Behavior Notes!
Behavior
• What an animal does & How an
animal does it!
• Think of all of the behaviors of your
pet...or a friends’ pet. List them and
classify them as either being
genetically “innate” or learned.
Behavioral Ecology
• Behavioral Ecology emphasizes evolutionary hypothesis.
• Based on the fact that animals will act in a way that will
increase their Darwinian fitness. What does “fitness” refer to
in Darwinian terms?
What questions can we ask?
• Proximate causes
– immediate stimulus & mechanism
– “how” & “what” questions
• Ultimate causes
– evolutionary significance
– how does behavior
contribute to survival
& reproduction
male songbird
 what triggers singing?
 how does he sing?
 why does he sing?
• adaptive value
– “why” questions
Courtship behavior in cranes
 what,…how… & why questions
 how does daylength influence breeding?
 why do cranes breed in spring?
P & E Practice
• Human Sweet-tooth
• Sonar Clicks in Bats
ETHOLOGY
Pioneers in the Study of An. Behavior
Karl von Frisch
Niko Tinbergen
Konrad Lorenz
Two Classifications of Behavior – Who cares???
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ADAPTIVE ADVANTAGE
1. innate behaviors
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automatic, fixed, “built-in”, no “learning curve”
despite different environments,
all individuals exhibit the behavior
ex. early survival, reproduction, kinesis, taxis
2. learned behaviors
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modified by experience
variable, changeable
flexible with a complex & changing environment
Innate behaviors
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Fixed action patterns (FAP)
– sequence of behaviors
essentially unchangeable
& usually conducted to completion once started
– sign stimulus
• the releaser that triggers a FAP
Innate: Fixed Action
Patterns (FAP)
Digger wasp
egg rolling in geese
Do humans exhibit Fixed Action Patterns?
Innate: Directed movements
Innate: Migration
Innate & Learned Behavior: Imprinting
Who???
I & L: Imprinting
CRITICAL PERIOD
Learned Behavior
• Associative learning
– learning to associate
a stimulus with a consequence
Operant Conditioning
Classical Conditioning
Learning: Habituation
Learning: Problem-solving
• Do other animals reason?
crow
Social Behavior
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Communication/Language
Agonistic Behaviors
Dominance Hierarchy
Cooperation
Altruistic Behavior
a. Language
Communication by song
Communication by scent
Spider using moth sex pheromones, as
allomones, to lure its prey
Female mosquito use CO2 concentrations to
locate victims
b. Agonistic behaviors
Lizard Behavior
c. Dominance hierarchy
d. Cooperation
e. Altruistic Behavior
kin selection
• increasing survival of close relatives passes
these genes on to the next generation
How can this be of adaptive value?
Warning Calls