Quick Tour Through Animal Behavior The transition Realize
Quick Tour Through Animal Behavior
The transition • Realize that animal behaviors are responses made by organisms…responses to stimuli detected by nerves. • And those responses are the result of signaling cascades. •
Behavior • Individually: An action carried out by muscles or glands under the control of the nervous system in response to a stimulus • Collectively: sum of an animal’s responses to external and internal stimuli
AP Standard • Organisms respond to changes in the environment through behavioral and physiological mechanisms.
Responses physiological behavioral • Shivering • Sweating • • Hibernation Migration Aestivation Nocturnal vs diurnal – circadian rhythms • Taxis • Kinesis
Earthworms • segmented nervous system • brain is located above the pharynx and is connected to the first ventral ganglion
lab • What kinds of receptors does a worm have (ie – to what kinds of stimuli does it respond)? • Can a worm respond to an “isolated” stimulus?
• Each segmented ganglion gets sensory information from only a local region and controls muscles only in this local region • Earthworms have touch, light, vibration and chemical receptors all along the entire body surface.
Chapter 43 – Behavior: any action that can be observed and described • Stimulus vs response • Innate vs learned – Behavioral ecology: studies how behavior is controlled, how it develops, evolves, and contributes to survival and reproductive success.
AP Standard: • Natural selection favors behaviors that increase survival and reproductive fitness.
Innate behavior • • What you are born knowing how to do developmentally fixed under strong genetic control Exhibited in the same form in a population despite external and internal environmental differences
Examples: • Kinesis: change in activity in response to a stimulus • Taxis: automatic, oriented movement toward or away from some stimulus
Tinbergen: Fixed Action Patterns • Sign Stimulus – external cue • Triggers sequence of unlearned acts
reflexes
How would innate behaviors increase fitness? • Some things you just have to get right on the first try…
AP Standard • Internal and external signals regulate a variety of physiological responses that synchronize with environmental cycles and cues.
Circadian Clock • Internal mechanism that maintains a 24 -hour activity rhythm or cycle – How do they “know” what time it is?
External Signals • • Temperature Day length Position relative to the sun Moon phases
Migration • Regular, long distance change in location
• Why • When: Timing – Innately controlled • How?
Migration: how – Sun’s position – Landmarks – Stars – Magnetic fields • The “where” seems to be learned
Impacts on Migration… • Humans are impacting the migration of organisms… – Pick an organism – Discuss this organism’s normal migration patterns – Discuss the human impact(s) to the migration route – What can be done about it? Alternate solutions?
• http: //www. takepart. com/article/2015/03/31 /migration-and-threats
AP Standard • Individuals can act on information and communicate it to others. – What is communication? – Reliability of signal – Recipient – Mode
AP standard • Living systems have a variety of signal behaviors or cues that produce changes in the behavior of other organisms and can result in differential reproductive success
Visual
• Crab courtship behavior • • https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=y. Cn 6 g 3 p. Xc 1 s&ebc=ANy. Px. Kov. Cyn. UTGj. Kyuhz. UXy 5 f. W 5 eizzj. Kgi. U 6 Lyh 8 AC 2 IOj_Yf 5 tg 7 s. HQi. HJDgn. Tl. Bwv 3 w. OWz. Ao 7 eoh. G-1 s. Uklqitw_Yus 22 Q https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Gwet 0 JLuq. WY
Electrical • Animal Minds Video Clip: Sharks
Tactile • Location of food sources – Round dance – Waggle dance – – https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=b. FDGPg. Xt. KU&ebc=ANy. Px. Kr 5 X 1 fls 1 I 0 yueqdc 2 LWzjq. Vwq 9 YPV 5 KWj 8 Gy. PCZx. Mitc. Rs. Ogqf. PG 8 CXrts. O 2 Twp 5 p 2 YU 3 c. B 0 m. Vfwd 5 z 73 ZD 2 c. Tvtv_g https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=-7 ij. I-g 4 j. Hg
Tactile continued • Grooming • Triggers release of endorphins and oxytocin • Social bonding – esp important in cooperative situations • • https: //www. mpg. de/6858847/oxytocin-social-grooming http: //knowingneurons. com/2013/02/20/social-grooming-its-not-just-for-monkeys-and-prairie-voles/
Chemical
Auditory
Improvement with performance • Instinct to alarm call • Learn difference between genuine predators and innocuous neighbors • Different alarm calls used for different predators • Social confirmation
learning • Behavioral change resulting from experience/interactions with environment and other organisms • Durable changes • Examples: – Habituation – Spatial learning – Conditioning – Trial and error
Habituation • Learn not to respond to a situation if the response has neither positive nor negative consequences – or to stimuli that carry little to no info
Spatial Learning • Acquiring a mental map of a region by inspecting the environment • “cognitive maps” • Landmarks
Classical Conditioning • Associate an automatic, unconditioned response with a novel stimulus that does not normally trigger the response • Arbitrary stimulus = reward/punishment
Trial and Error Learning • Associates voluntary activity with its consequences • Strengthening of stimulus-response connections
Back to the standard… • Organisms are going to behave in ways that are favored by natural selection – Benefits MUST outweigh the costs – Sometimes its not so obvious…
AP standard • Cooperative behavior tends to increase the fitness of the individual and the survival of the population. – Benefits must outweigh costs
Herds, flocks, and schools • What’s the benefit?
Swarming Behavior • http: //www. bbc. co. uk/nature/adaptations/Sw arm • http: //io 9. com/this-video-of-a-honeybeeswarm-reveals-why-humans-cant-1522411422 – This article highlights bee social structure
Pack Behavior • http: //www. discovery. com/tvshows/life/videos/cheetahs-hunt-ostrich/ – Benefits?
Predator Warning • http: //www. animalplanet. com/tv-shows/wildkingdom/videos/prairie-dogs-sound-thealarm/ • https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=jc. B 5 ky. SU x. WA – Benefits?
Take a prairie dog for example… • Prairie dogs live in colonies (called towns) • When a predator is sighted, a prairie dog will stand on top of its mound and start vocalizing (give an alarm call) • Essentially, alerting the predator to its presence and exact location. • Why would an individual do this? This behavior seems counterintuitive…
Behavioral Ecologists design experiments to test hypotheses • http: //video. nationalgeographic. com/video/pr airiedog_alarm • So why do they do it?
• How does it increase the fitness of the individual? • Sacrificing yourself “for the good of the group” (altruism) does not work as an explanation unless there are genetic relationships…and strong ones at that…
AP standard • Living systems have a variety of signal behaviors or cues that produce changes in the behavior of other organisms and can result in differential reproductive success
Example: territorial marking • https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=_eb. TTQo Am. DU • Lions mark territory with scent and vocalizations • Interspecific (with hyenas and leopards) and intraspecific (with neighboring lion prides) competition deterred
What is this elephant saying? • How does this behavior improve the success of this elephant?
AP Standard • Animals use visual, audible, tactile, electrical and chemical signals to indicate dominance, find food, establish territory and ensure reproductive success.
examples • • • Bee dances (tactile – for finding food) Fireflies (visual – for mating) Bird songs (territory and mating) Territorial marking (scents and vocals) Pack behavior (dominance vs submissive displays) Rutting season (competition/sexual selection) – Animal Minds Video: we watched in class 3/3 – http: //www. pbs. org/wgbh/nova/nature/inside-animalminds. html
AP Standard • Organism activities are affected by interactions with biotic and abiotic factors. • Cooperative behavior within or between populations contributes to the survival of the populations.
Niche and Resource Partitioning
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