Animal Behaviors that Enhance Survival

1. Animal Behaviors that Enhance Survival

2. Behavior: Inherited vs. Learned Response to stimuli Ecological behaviors Protective behaviors What We Are Going To Learn:

3. What is behavior? Write down on your own paper what you think is a good definition and an example of behavior. • When the teachers tells you to, share your definition with your neighbor. • Discuss what you both have written down and re-write your definition if you and your partner come up with something better.

4. What Is Behavior? • Behavior is what an animal does and how it does it. • Learning is also considered a behavioral process. • Ethology: The scientific study of how animals behave, particularly in their natural environment • Let’s focus on the two types. Innate and Learned

5. Ethology: The pioneers in the study of animal behavior – 1973 Nobel Prize Karl von Frisch Konrad Lorenz Niko Tinbergen

6. Innate vs. Learned • What do we mean when we say inherited/innate? • Whom are traits inherited from? • How are they passed down? • Give some examples of things you inherit: • Looks… • Behaviors…

7. innate • Behavior that is genetically passed on to offspring. • Example: Sea turtle hatchlings provide one of the best examples of innate behavior. They hatch never having seen their parents, so there is no opportunity for acquiring learned behavior. Yet, sea turtle hatchlings instinctively dig their way out of the buried hatchery. Even though this digging can take days, the hatchlings time themselves so that they emerge at night, when they are safest as they struggle toward the sea. There is no parent present to tell them they must wait for nightfall or that they must get to the sea. It is simply an innate knowledge, an instinct that drives them to action.

8. Fixed Action Patterns • This is a type of innate behavior. • A fixed action pattern (FAP)is a sequence of unlearned, innate behaviors that is unchangeable. • Once initiated, it is usually carried to completion.

9. What are Some of the Inherited Traits Seen Here and What are They Used for?

10. Learned Behaviors • What are some things you are NOT born knowing? • List some items you must learn and share with a partner to see if you come up with some similar or different ideas. • Share your thoughts with the teacher.

11. Learning • Learning is the modification of behavior based on specific experiences. • Learned behaviors range from very simple to very complex. • Let’s review the following types of learned behavior: Imprinting, conditioning, cognitive, trial and error.

12. Imprinting • Imprinting is a type of behavior that includes both learning and innate components and is generally irreversible.

13. Imprinting • Imprinting is distinguished from other types of learning by a sensitive period – a limited phase in an animal’s development that is the only time when certain behaviors can be learned.

14. Imprinting • An example of imprinting is young geese following their mother.

15. Imprinting • Konrad Lorenz showed that when baby geese spent the first few hours of their life with him, they imprinted on him as their parent.

16. Imprinting • Conservation biologists have taken advantage of imprinting in programs to save the whooping crane from extinction.

17. Imprinting • Young male white-crowned sparrows learn their song by listening to their father. • A bird raised in isolation will have an abnormal song. • If he hears a recording of the song during a critical period, he will learn it – even the local dialect. • He can only learn the song of his species.

18. CLASSICAL CONDITIONING • An animals reflexes are trained to respond to a new stimulus. • Learning by association • Experiment- Dog and Bell.

20. OPERANT CONDITIONING • Takes place when an animals learns to behave in a certain way through repeated practice, in order to receive a reward or avoid punishment. • Trial and Error • “Skinner Box” Look!

21. Trial and Error • A type of learning in which an animal receives a reward for making a particular response

22. Insight Learning • Is the ability to do something right the first time with no prior experience. It requires reasoning ability – the skill to look at a problem and come up with an appropriate solution.

23. Animal Behaviors:Learned vs. Instinct: Discuss the following pictures and label them on your paper as learned or instinct. Some may be both, be able to explain. Be able to share your thoughts on how or why you labeled them.

24. A Few More Behaviors to Discuss: • How would you explain the last three pictures on this page? Instinctive or Learned behaviors? • Why?

25. Other Instinctual Behaviors: • Fight or Flight response: • When startled by an outside stimulus the animals instinctive behavior will be triggered. • Those behaviors can be to run, hide, or stand your ground and fight

26. Behavioral Differences Between Male And Female Animals? • Female animals: tend to take care of the young, can lead the herd/pack and be the hunters/gatherers of the pack/herd and watch/listen for danger. • Male animals: In some cases lead, watch for danger but in most cases they must fight off other males who may want the females of the pack/herd for reproducing and thus the passing on of his traits. The stronger male wins, which means the stronger traits get passed on. There are Alpha males and females in all packs/herds. What is the difference between them and non-alpha animals?

27. Ecological behaviors We now look at ecological behaviors • Competitive • Agnostic • Dominance • Territorial • Foraging • Migratory • Biological Rhythm

28. Competitive Social Behaviors

29. Ecological behaviors There are different type of competitive behaviors. These behaviors allows animals to establish dominance without serious injury or death to other individuals. • Agonistic • Dominance/submissive • Territorial

30. Agnostic behavior– a contest between two individuals of the same species to determine which competitor gains access to resources (food, mates, etc.)

31. Dominance hierarchy - a linear social organization within a group. The top ranked animals are assured access to resources. Low ranked animals do not waste energy or risk harm in combat.

32. Territorial boundaries are proclaimed by scent, song, howling, or other vocalization.

33. Territory– a territory is an area an animal defends, keeping out members of their own kind (species). Territories are used for feeding, mating, and rearing young. Redwing blackbird

34. Foraging • Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animal's fitness because it plays an important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce. 

35. Migratory/Migration • Complex behavior, but still under genetic control – cyclic movement of animals over long distances according to the time of year Bird Migration – Migrating Sandpipers

36. Biological rhythms Many animals have cycles in which their bodies will perform certain functions. • Circadian rhythm-is a cycle that tells our bodies when to sleep, rise, eat--regulating many physiological processes. This internal body clock is affected by environmental cues, like sunlight and temperature.

37. Animal Communication Social behavior depends on effective communication.

38. COMMUNICATION Many behaviors that animals do involve interactions with other animals---Communication Animals communicate using visual, auditory, chemical, tactile, and electrical signals. • Humans-Language • Sound • Body Language • Smell…Pheromones

39. PHEROMONES • Chemicals released by many different animals as a form of communication • Mating • Warning • Protection

40. Language of Honey Bees • Honey bees use dances to communicate the location of food resources. • Round dance – conveys information about food close to the hive. • Waggle dance– indicates that a rich food source is farther from the hive and uses the position of the sun relative to the food source. The tempo conveys information about distance.

41. Communication by Displays • Animals frequently use ritualized displays to communicate. • Blue-footed boobies use pair-bonding displays. • Intense after a period of separation. https://youtu.be/oYmzdvMoUUA

42. Visual Communication • Communication through the use of visual cues • Ex: Tail feather displays of male peacocks

43. Bird song: Mixed learned and innate Most have a critical learning period Insect Song: Innate, genetically controlled Frogs croaking in the spring Auditory Communication Red winged blackbird

44. Tactile communication • Communication through the use of touch • A major form of primate tactile communication is grooming A subordinate monkey grooming a dominant monkey.

45. Reproductive behavior

46. Courting • A courtship display is a set of display behaviors in which an animal attempts to attract a mate and exhibit their desire to copulate. • These behaviors often include ritualized movement ("dances"), vocalizations, mechanical sound production, or displays of beauty, strength, or agonistic ability. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/worlds-weirdest/videos/peacock-courtship/

47. being fully present in your interactions with children (verbally and non-verbally), validating their feelings, providing physical affection and comfort when sought, laughing and playing games, providing safe mental, physical and social challenges that promote healthy growth and development. Nurturing

48. The End