What exactly is “Behavior” and “Behavioral Ecology”?o Behavior

• All observable or measurable muscular or secretory responses (or lack thereof) and related phenomena like changes in blood flow, surface pigments, etc., in response toin response to changes in an animal’s internal or external environment

Using this definition, behavior is broadly inclusiveo Simply like sweating or

pantingo To more complex like

• Courtship• Communication

Behaviors are not randomo Animals respond in

specific ways to specific stimuli in their internal or external environment

o For example,• Temperature• Response to predator• Response to hunger

o Based on evolutionary history

Darwin (1859), Origin of the Specieso Contains many anecdotal stories of animal behavioro Instinct Chapter- suggests ways in which natural

selection may have acted gradually to shape rudimentary forms of instinctive behaviors into sophisticated instincts

Darwin’s 4 postulates (review)o 1) Traits of organisms varyo 2) Variation causes differences in survival and

reproductiono 3) This variation is heritableo 4) Survival and reproduction are non-random

Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871)o First attempt to explain sexual behaviors

But in the 1800s behavior was often anthropomorphized

C.L. Morgan (academic grandchild of Darwin) spoke out against anthropomorphic attributes of behaviorso We should "endeavor to distinguish fact from observer’s

inference”o “In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the

exercise of a higher physical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of one which stands lower in the psychological scale”

Oskar Pfungst’s 1907 study of the performance of Clever Hans- a horse reported to read numbers, spell, and to make calculationso Pfungst used trials in which the examiners did and did not know

the answers to the questionso Hans could only correctly answer the questions when his

examiners knew the answerso Hans had learned to respond to small involuntary movements of

examiners and couldn’t actually read or perform calculations

Early-Mid 1900so Ethology developed

• The study of the evolutionary or functional significance of species specific behaviors

Konrad LorenzKonrad Lorenz

Niko TinbergenNiko Tinbergen

o Investigated the idea that behavior could be approached evolutionarily

• If so, then behaviors could be used to classify animals just as anatomical, morphological or physiological traits are used

• i.e., instinctive behaviors are similar in more closely related species and differ more in less related species

• But, even though they are similar in closely related species, they are still nonetheless different

• Ethologists formed ethograms• A catalogue, list, or inventory of behaviors for a species

• This ethogram would then be used to ask questions regarding the adaptiveness or function of the various behaviors

Konrad Lorenzo Famous for theory of

imprinting

Form the basis for how many behavior studies are done today

Proximate causes of behavioro Causal explanations are concerned with mechanismso How does something work or develop

1) Causation?2) Development/Ontogeny?

Ultimate causes of behavioral diversityo Functional explanations focus on why these behaviors have

been selected o Why did a behavior evolve? Why was it selected?

3) What is the adaptive advantage or function?4) What is the evolutionary history of the animal which led to this behavior?

The four major questions of behavior classified by explanation type: a dog wagging its tail

Type of explanation

Question Answer

Proximate cause

1a Causation(physiological)

Sensory cells detect a human companion and the CNS sends impulses that activate the dogs muscles

1b Causation (cognitive)

Dog recognizes the human and decides to wag its tail

2. Ontogeny Tail wagging is genetically programmed but dog learns to identify his companions

Ultimate cause 3. Function Taig wagging signals the dog’s friendly intentions toward its social group, fostering its membership and its survival and reproduction

4. Evolutionary history

Long ago, tail wagging occurred sporadically when dogs interacted and overtime was modified into a signal during greetings

o Ethologists also gave us concepts like• Appetive behaviors

• Variable acts or behaviors• Not necessarily the same among members of the

same species• For example, how an animal finds food or mates

• Consummatory behaviors• Invariable acts always performed the same by all

members of the species• Stereotypical behaviors repeated without variation

• For example, mating, killing prey

o Consummatory behaviors tend to be fixed

• That is they represent a fixed action pattern (FAP)

• A FAP is the behavior produced in response to a specific stimulus, the sign stimulus

• The sign stimulus triggers some genetically coded innate releasing mechanism to produce the FAP

• Sticklebacks -Stickleback video

Another Tinbergen experiment

Red spot on beak of herring seagulls stimulates pecking feeding behaviors by juvenile gullso Spots of different color do

not induce peckingo Movement is also a key

stimulus

o While there are FAPs, there are also modal action patterns

• These may actually be more common

• MAPs are the mode behavior• i.e., most of the individuals

respond to the sign stimulus with a specific behavior, but not all individuals do

• There is variation in response to the sign stimulus among individuals

• Allows for evolutiono Regardless, FAPs and MAPs

result in species-typical behaviors

• Behaviors broadly characteristic of a species and are performed by all members of the species

Comparative/Behavioral Psychology also developed in the early –mid 1900so -Focused on behaviors that could be measured, trained,

and changed in individuals (rather than the species)• All behaviors are acquired through conditioning (learning)• Developed to examine environmental requirements for

behavioral development in the young

o Championed by James Watson• “give me a dozen healthy infants, well -formed, and my

own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take anyone at random and train them to become any type of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggar man and thief , regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors”

Classical Conditioning- Pavlov’s Dogo Dogs salivate when presented

with foodo If presented with food and a bell,

the dog learns to associate food with the bell

o After conditioning to predictive stimulus (bell), salivates at bell

Instrumental Conditioning- Skinner Boxo Animal performs a behavior and

is either rewarded or punished

B. F. B. F. SkinnerSkinner

“Nature vs Nurture”

After 6 days, chicks prefer to peck at the model of their own species

the tendency to peck is probably innate, but the object that is pecked is modified as a result of experience

Wells 1958o Cuttlefish latency to attack shrimp declines with or

without conditioning • i.e. learning can take place without reinforcement• Counters the idea that conditioning is necessary for

learning

Rewarded Not Rewarded

Starved

The experiment involved nine independent groups of chicks:o Tested their pecking accuracy in relation to maturity and

practice• Chicks were kept naïve by keeping them in the dark

Problems with ALL behaviors are innateo Genes do affect behavior, but not all behavior patterns are

inheritedo All animals develop within some environment that shapes their

behaviorso Experiments which attempt to deprive an animal of an

environment are still presenting an environment where learning can take place

Problems with ALL behaviors are learnedo Learning is a process that changes pre-existing behaviorso There are several experiments that show that some behaviors

can be learned or “trained” no matter the conditioning Therefore, all behaviors are a product of both

genes and the environment

Developed in 1978o E. O Wilson (U of A

graduate)o Merges ethology

and social organization

• i.e., looks at evolution of social behaviors

• How and why certain social organizations have evolved

Examples:o Why do animals act

cooperatively?• Dolphins and other

marine mammal act as a group to corral fishes

o Cleaner animals• Cleaner shrimp and

cleaner wrasse have “cleaning stations” in which they feed off invertebrate parasites on unrelated fishes

The newest discipline to contribute to behavioral ecology: Conservation behavior

“In a world that is patently disturbed and as pristine environments that serve as scientific baselines disappear, it will be increasingly difficult to determine which behaviors are adaptive and which anachronistic.”

Advocates for the application of animal behavior to wildlife conservation problemso Applies behavior to

conservation, restoration, and management

For instance, determining what habitat animal perceive as risky to reduce human disturbance