Chapter 35: Behavioral Adaptations to the environment

Monogamous• Animals form a bond with a

single partner and both partners care for the offspring

• Ex. Prairie vole: after they mate they associate with each other exclusively/ relationship begins when the female sniffs the scent of a potential male partner, the smell causes her to become sexually receptive

Promiscuous

• Animals mate with multiple partners and form no last bonds

• Example: meadow voles- do not form a memory of the hormones released by their mate

Behavior

• An action carried out by muscles or glands under the control of the nervous system in response to an environmental cue

• Example: courtship dances, aggressive posture

• Behavioral ecologists-study behavior in a n evolutionary context

• More examples: chemical communication

Ultimate and Proximate questions

Proximate questions• Concerns the immediate reason

for a behavior• How it is triggered by stimuli and

what physiological or anatomical mechanisms play a role

• Ex: how do voles choose their mates?

• Help to understand how a behavior occurs

• Proximate causes: answers to the questions

Ultimate questions• Why a particular behavior

occurs• Look at phenotypes and

adaptive behaviors• Ultimate causes: answer

ultimate questions and use evolutionary explanations for behavior

Innate behavior

• Under strong genetic control

• Performed the same way by all individuals of the same species

Fixed Action Patterns (FAPs)• An unchangeable series of actions

triggered by a specific stimulus• Once initiated the sequence is

performed in its entirety• Ex: graylag goose-if the goose

bumps into one of her eggs out of the nest she always retrieves it in the same manner-she stands up, extends her neck, uses a side-to-side motion to nudge the egg with her beak, sits down on the nest again, if the egg slips away, the goose still continues with the sequence

FAP

• Baby bird- sense that an adult bird is near, it begs for food by raising its head, opening its mouth and cheeping

• Adult bird-stuffs food in the gaping mouth

Ultimate causes of FAP

• Automatically performing certain behaviors may maximize fitness so much that genes that may cause variants do not persist in populations

• Ex. Kittiwakes show an innate aversion to cliff edges

FAP for reproductive behaviors• Each king penguin takes a

turn incubated the egg while their mate feeds

• Standing face to face the pair must execute a delicate series of maneuvers to pass the egg from the tops of one penguin’s feet to the tops of its partner’s feet, if one of them misses the egg may roll onto the ice and freeze to death

Behavior is the result of genetic and environmental factors

• Experiments with fruit flies have led to the discovery of genes that govern learning, memory, internal clocks and mating behaviors

Cross fostering experiment

LearningHabituation Loss of response to a stimulus after

repeated exposureImprinting Learning that is irreversible and limited to

a sensitive time period in an animal’s lifeSpatial Learning Use of landmarks to learn the spatial

structure of the environmentCognitive mapping An internal representation of the spatial

relationships among objects in the environment

Associative learning Behavioral change based on linking a stimulus or behavior with a reward or punishment, includes trial and error

Social Learning Learning by observing and mimicking others

Problem Solving Inventive behavior that arises in response to a new situation

Imprinting requires both innate behavior and experience

• Learning often interacts closely with innate behavior

• Imprinting: learning limited to a specific time period in an animal’s life and is generally irreversible

• Sensitive period-limited phase in an animal’s development when they can learn certain behaviors

Imprinting

• Male birds memorize the song of their species during a sensitive period

• They do not sing during this phase but several months later they being to practice the song and eventually reproduce it correctly

Kinesis

• Random movement in response to a stimuli

• May be starting or stopping, changing speed or turning more or less frequently

• Sow bugs: live in moist habitats, in dry areas they exhibit kinesis to the moist areas

Taxis

• A response directed toward or away from a stimulus

• Trout-exhibits positive taxis in the current they automatically swim or orient themselves upstream

Spatial learning

• Animals establish memories of landmarks in their environment that indicate the locations of food, nest site, prospective mates and potential hazards

Cognitive map

• An internal representation or code of the spatial relationships among objects in an animal’s surroundings

Migration• The regular back and forth

movement of animals between two geographic areas

• Enables many species to access food resources throughout the year and to breed

• Ex. Gray whale-feast on small, bottom-dwelling invertebrates that live in northern oceans, in autumn they leave their feeding grounds an begin a long trip south, females give birth before migrating back north with their young

Migration • Many birds migrate at

night using the stars to find their way

• Ex. Indigo bunting seems to avoid the need for a timing mechanism by fixing on the North Star

• Some only migrate using innate environmental cues

Trial and error learning

• Associative learning is the ability to associate one environmental feature with another

• Trial and error learning is when an animal learns to associate one of its own behaviors with a positive or negative effect

Social learning• Learning by observing the

behaviors of others• Predators learn basic hunting

skills from their mothers• Vervet monkeys: give distinct

alarm calls when they see leopards, eagles or snakes all of which prey on vervets, vervet sees the leopard, it gives a loud barking sound when it sees an eagle it gives a short two syllable cough and the snake alarm is a chutter

Cognition• The process carried out by

an animal’s nervous system to perceive, store, integrate and use information gathered by the senses

• Problem solving-the process of applying past experience to overcome obstacles in novel situations

Foraging

• Food obtaining behaviors

• Search, recognize, capture

• Crows-generalists• Koala-specialist

Search image

• Enables animal to find particular food efficiently

• Optimal foraging theory-an animal’s feeding behavior should provide maximal energy expense and minimal risk of being eaten while foraging

Wagtails and dung flies