Chap.01 Principles of
Animal Behavior
鄭先祐 (Ayo) 教授
國立台南大學 環境與生態學院
生態科學與技術學系
環境生態研究所 + 生態旅遊研究所
Text book
Principles of animal behavior
 2nd. Ed.
 Author: Lee Alan Dugatkin
 2009, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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Preface
The heart, an examination of the
empirical, theoretical, and
conceptual foundation upon which the
field of animal behavior rests.
My aim is to explain underlying
concepts in a way that is scientifically
rigorous but, at the same time,
accessible to students.
The goal is to produce a book that
instructors can use in their courses as
well as in their research programs.
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Major features
1. A balanced treatment of proximate and
ultimate factors
2. Learning and cultural transmission
presented alongside natural selection and
phylogeny.
3. A thorough integration of proximate factors,
including neurobiology, endocrinology,
development, and molecular genetics.
4. An extensive discussion of phylogeny
5. Interviews of prominent researchers at the
end of every chapter.
6. The Norton animal behavior DVD
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Contents in brief (I)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
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Principles of animal behavior
The evolution of behavior
Proximate factors
Learning
Cultural transmission
Sexual selection
Mating systems
Kinship
Cooperation
Contents in brief (II)
10. Foraging
11. Antipredator behavior
12. Communication
13. Habitat selection, territoriality,
and migration
14. Aggression
15. Play
16. Aging and disease
17. Animal personalities
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Chap.01 principles of animal behavior
 Introduction
 Types of questions and levels of analysis
 Three foundations
1. Natural selection
2. Individual learning
3. Cultural transmission
 Conceptual, theoretical, and empirical
approaches
1. Conceptual approaches
2. Theoretical approaches
3. Empirical approaches
 Interview with Dr. E. O. Wilson
 An overview of what is to follow
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Ethology
Although ethology overlaps with
ecology, they are different disciplines,
with ecologists focusing on the
interaction of organisms with their
environment, and ethologists
investigating all aspects of animal
behavior.
The study of animal behavior appears
to have been so fundamental to
human existence that the earliest
cave painting tended to depict animals.
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Almost
everyone is
familiar with
the roach,
often a pest in
households
around the
world.
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This pendant (垂飾)
from the
Chrysolakkos
funeral complex in
Crete.
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The drawing my depict a
“lateral intimidation” during
an aggressive encounter
between antelopes.
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Types of questions and levels of analysis
 Four types of questions
1. Immediate stimuli (cue factors) (致使因素)
2. Development (發展、發育)
3. Survival function (Natural selection)
4. Evolutionary history (phylogeny)
 Two levels
1. Proximate analysis (近因分析)
2. Ultimate analysis (極因分析)
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Three foundations
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1
Natural selection (天擇)
2
Individual learning (學習)
3
Cultural transmission (文化傳承)
Foundation 1 – Natural selection
(A) a field cricket with normal wings
(B) a field cricket with flat wings.
(C) Sandfly larvae in a parasitized cricket.
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Xenophobia: a fear of strangers
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Foundation 2– Individual learning
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Foundation 2– Individual learning
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Not only did
grasshoppers in the
learning condition
approach the
balanced diet dish
more often, but this
translated into
quicker growth.
Growth rate in
grasshoppers is
positively correlated
with egg size and
number.
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Foundation 3– Cultural transmission
(A)When a rat scavenges in the trash, it may encounter new food items
that are dangerous or spoiled and that can lead to illness or even death.
(B) smelling another rat provides olfactory cues about what it has eaten.
This transfer of information from one rat to another about safe foods is a
form of cultural transmission.
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Information center hypothesis
Observer rats had
a tutor
(demonstrator)
who was trained to
eat rat chow
containing either
(CO) or cinnamon
(CIN) flavoring.
Once the observer
rats had time to
interact with a
demonstrator rat,
the observer rats
were much more
likely to add their
tutor’s food
preferences to
their own.
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Conceptual, theoretical, and empirical
approaches (觀念、理論與實驗途徑)
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In many species, like the vervets shown here, mothers go to extreme
lengths to provide for and protect their young offspring. W. D. Hamilton’s
kin selection ideas provided a conceptual framework for understanding
the special relations that close genetic relatives share.
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Theoretical approaches (理論途徑)
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Empirical approaches (實驗途徑)
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Interview with E. O. Wilson (i)
 Sociobiology is the study of the biological
basis of all forms of social behavior and social
organization in all kinds of organisms,
including humans, and organized on a base of
ethology and population biology.
 Not in 1975 book (sociobiology), but in 1971
paper (Sociobiology: The New synthesis.
 I added the vertebrates to the social insects
and suggested that sociobiology could serve
as a true scientific foundation for the social
sciences.
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Sociobiology: the new synthesis
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Interview with E. O. Wilson (ii)
Animal behavior is a fundamental and
extraordinarily interesting subject in its
own right.
it is also basic to other disciplines of
biology, all the way from
neuroscience and behavioral
genetics to ecology and
conservation biology.
Is crucial to conservation biology and
its applications.
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Contents in brief (I)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
36
Principles of animal behavior
The evolution of behavior
Proximate factors
Learning
Cultural transmission
Sexual selection
Mating systems
Kinship
Cooperation
Contents in brief (II)
10. Foraging
11. Antipredator behavior
12. Communication
13. Habitat selection, territoriality,
and migration
14. Aggression
15. Play
16. Aging and disease
17. Animal personalities
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Discussion questions (i)
1. Why do we need a science of
ethology? What insights does this
discipline provide both the scientist
and the layperson?
2. Imagine that you are out in a forest,
and you observe that squirrels there
appear to cache their food only in the
vicinity of certain species of plants.
Construct a hypothesis for how this
behavior may have been the result of
(a) natural selection, (b) individual
learning, and (c) social learning.
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Discussion questions (ii)
3. What are the primary differences between
individual learning and social learning?
4. What is the key difference between
observational and experimental studies in
ethology? What are some possible
advantages to each type of each type of
study?
5. Why do you suppose that mathematical
theories play such a large part in ethology?
Couldn’t hypotheses be derived in their
absence? Why does mathematics force an
investigator to be very explicit about his or
her ethological hypotheses?
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問題與討論
Ayo NUTN website:
http://myweb.nutn.edu.tw/~hycheng/