Animal Behavior

What is behavioral ecology?

Behavioral

ecology studies how

behavior is controlled and how it
develops, evolves, and contributes to
survival
Behavior is everything an animal does
and how it does it

Nature vs. Nurture?

In

biology, its not an either/or scenario

Genes and the environment both influence
behavior
Innate behavior is behavior that is
developmentally fixed, regardless of the
environment

Directed Movements

Directed movements are controlled by genes

Kineses- change in activity in response to a stimulus (pill bugs)

Taxis

= a more or less automatic,

oriented movement toward or
away from a stimulus
Example: phototaxis= moths flying
toward a light

Migration

Fixed Action Patterns

A

FAP is a sequence of innate

behaviors that is essentially
unchangeable and, once started,
is usually carried to completion
Triggered by a sign stimulus
Example: A goose will roll an egg
(or egg-like object) back into her
nest. Even if the egg is removed,
she will continue the action until
she reaches her nest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWcadcVBXK
U

Imprinting

Imprinting is a type of behavior

that includes both learning and
innate components and is
irreversible
limited phase in an animals
development when certain
behaviors can be learned
Incubator-hatched goslings
imprinted on scientist
(Konrad Lorenz) during first
few hours of life and followed
him

Hibernation and Estivation

Hibernation: a period of dormancy to survive
the harsh, cold weather of winter.
Estivation: a period of dormancy to survive the
dry, hot weather of summer.

Learning
Learning

is the
modification of
behavior based
on specific
experiences
Habituation:

loss of
responsiveness
to stimuli that
convey little or
no information
crying wolf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLa-cXg8BwM

Associative Learning
Associative

learning is the
ability to associate one
feature of the environment
with another
Classical

Conditioning

an arbitrary stimulus is
associated with a reward or
punishment
Pavlovs Experiment
Operant

Conditioning

trial-and-error learning
skinner box
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy_mIEnnlF4

Social Behaviors

Territorial

10

Communication

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFDGPgXtK-U

11

Courtship

12

Altruism & Inclusive Fitness

Most social behaviors are selfish

Altruism = when an animal behaves
in a way that reduces its individual
fitness but increases the fitness of
the other individuals in the
population
Example:

squirrels, worker bees

Helps close relatives (children,

siblings, etc.), thereby increasing the
individuals genetic representation in
the next generation inclusive
fitness