Dat - Biology - Animal Behavoir

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Instinct

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behavior that is innate, or inherited.
• In mammals, care for offspring by female parents is innate.

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Fixed action patterns (FAP)

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innate behaviors that follow a regular, unvarying pattern. An FAP is initiated by
a specific stimulus. Typically, the behavior is carried out to completion even if the original intent of the behavior
can no longer be fulfilled.
• When a graylag goose sees an egg outside her nest, she will methodically roll the egg back into the nest with a
series of maneuvers using her beak. An egg outside the nest is the stimulus. However, she will also retrieve any
object that resembles her egg, and once the FAP has begun, she will continue the retrieval motions until she
has completed the motions back to the nest. Even if the egg slips away or is removed, she completes the FAP
by returning an “imaginary” egg to the nest.
• Male stickleback fish defend their territory against other males. The red belly of males is the stimulus for aggressive
behavior. However, as ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen discovered, any object with a red underside initiates the
same aggressive FAP.

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Imprinting

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an innate program for acquiring a specific behavior only if an appropriate stimulus is experienced
during a critical period (a limited time interval during the life of the animal). Once acquired, the behavior is
irreversible.
• Ethologist Konrad Lorenz discovered that, during the first day of life, graylag goslings will accept any moving
object as their mother. When Lorenz himself was the moving object, he was accepted as their mother for life.
Any object presented after the critical period, including their real mother, was rejected.
• Salmon hatch in freshwater streams and migrate to the ocean to feed. When they are reproductively mature,
they return to their birthplace to breed, identifying the exact location of the stream. During early life, they
imprinted the odors associated with their birthplace.

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Associative learning (association)

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when an animal recognizes (learns) that two or more events are connected.
A form of associative learning called classical conditioning occurs when an animal performs a behavior
in response to a substitute stimulus rather than the normal stimulus.
• Dogs salivate when presented with food. Physiologist Ivan Pavlov found that if a bell were rung just before
dogs were given food, they would, after repeated experiences, salivate in response to the bell ringing alone.
Dogs associated the ring of the bell (the substitute stimulus) with the presentation of food (the normal stimulus).

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Trial-and-error learning (or operant conditioning)

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another form of associative learning. It occurs when an
animal connects its own behavior with a particular environmental response. If the response is desirable (positive
reinforcement), the animal will repeat the behavior in order to elicit the same response (for example, to receive a
reward). If the response is undesirable (for example, painful), the animal will avoid the behavior. This is the basis
for most animal training by humans.
• Psychologist B. F. Skinner trained rats to push levers to obtain food or avoid painful shocks.
Learning acquired by association can be forgotten or reversed if the performed behavior no longer elicits the
expected response. The loss of an acquired behavior is called extinction.

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Spatial learning

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another form of associative learning. It occurs when an animal associates attributes of a location
(landmarks) with the reward it gains by being able to identify and return to that location.
• Nikolaas Tinbergen observed that wasps were able to associate nearby markers (pinecones) with the location
of their nests. When Tinbergen removed the markers, the wasps were unable to locate their nests.

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Habituation

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a learned behavior that allows the animal to disregard meaningless stimuli.
• Sea anemones pull food into their mouths by withdrawing their tentacles. If the tentacles are stimulated with
nonfood items (a stick, for example), the tentacles will ignore the stimulus after several futile attempts to capture
the “food.”

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Observational learning

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when animals copy the behavior of another animal without having experienced
any prior positive reinforcement with the behavior.
• Japanese monkeys usually remove sand from a potato by holding the potato in one hand and brushing sand
away with the other hand. One monkey discovered that she could more easily brush the sand away if she held
the potato in water. Through observational learning, nearly all of the other monkeys in the troop learned the
behavior.

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Insight

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when an animal, exposed to a new situation and without any prior relevant experience, performs a
behavior that generates a desirable outcome.
• A chimpanzee will stack boxes so she can climb them, providing her with access to bananas previously beyond
reach.

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maturation

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Some behaviors that appear to be learned may actually be innate behaviors that require maturation. For example, birds
appear to “learn” to fly by trial and error or by observational learning. However, if birds are raised in isolation, they will
fly on their first try if they are physically capable of flying. Thus, the ability to fly is innate but can occur only after the
bird has physically matured.

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Kinesis

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undirected (without direction) change in speed of an animal’s movement in response
to a stimulus. The animal slows down in a favorable environment or speeds up in an unfavorable environment. As a
result, the animal remains longer in favorable environments.
• When a log or rock is lifted, animals will suddenly scurry about. These movements are kineses in response to
light, touch, air temperature, or other stimuli recognized as unfavorable.

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Taxis

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directed movement in response to a stimulus. Movement is directed either toward or
away from the stimulus. Movement toward light is called phototaxis.
• Moths move toward lights at night.
• Sharks move toward food when food odors reach them by diffusion or by bulk flow (ocean currents).
• Female mosquitos find mammals (on which they feed) by moving toward CO2 and lactic acid.

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Migration

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the long-distance, seasonal movement of animals. It is usually in response to seasonal availability of
food or degradation of environmental conditions (they usually occur together).
• Whales, birds, elk, insects, and bats are examples of animals that migrate to warmer climates.

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releaser pheromones

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Chemicals that cause immediate and specific
behavioral changes

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primer pheromones

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Chemicals that cause physiological changes

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Herds, flocks, and schools provide several advantages, as follows:

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• Concealment. Most individuals in the flock are hidden from view.
• Vigilance. In a group, individuals can trade off foraging and watching for predators. Further, it is easier to detect
predators if many individuals are watching.
• Defense. A group of individuals can shield their young or mob their predator.

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Packs enable

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members to corner and successfully attack large prey

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Search images

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help animals find favored or plentiful food. Birds can easily find food they are accustomed to eating
because they seek a specific, perhaps abbreviated, image of the target. When a new food item must be sought,
additional scrutiny and thus additional time to locate the food are required until a new search image is formed.
Humans commonly use search images to find a book on a bookshelf (looking for color and shape without reading
the title) or to spot a police car (a black-and-white search image) in the rear view mirror

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Agonistic behavior

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(aggression and submission) originates from competition for food, mates, or territory.
Because most agonistic behavior is ritualized, injuries and time spent in contests are minimized.

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Dominance hierarchies

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indicate power and status relationships between individuals in a group. Established hierarchies
minimize fighting for food and mates.
• Pecking order is a more or less linear order of status often used to describe dominance hierarchies in chickens.

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Territoriality

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the active possession and defense of the territory in which an animal or group of animals (often
related) lives. Territories insure their owners adequate food and a place to mate and rear their young.

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Altruistic behavior

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seemingly unselfish behavior that appears to reduce the fitness of the individual. It commonly
occurs when an animal risks its safety in defense of another or sacrifices its reproduction to help another individual
(of the same species) rear its young

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inclusive fitness

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altruistic behavior actually increases inclusive fitness, the fitness of
the individual plus the fitness of relatives (who, in fact, share a percentage of identical genes with the altruist).

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kin selection

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apparent strategies in evolution that favour the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction