Behavioral Ecology

1. Behavioral Ecology • Behavioral Ecology is defined as the study of animal behavior, • how it is controlled and • how it develops, evolves, and contributes to survival and reproductive success. • Behavior is usually referred to as the visible result of an animal’s muscular activity. • Behavior is defined as everything an animal does and how it does it.

2. Snuggly behaviors

3. Proximate and ultimate • Proximate: what is going on right now that stims a certain behavioral response. • Ultimate: tie this behavior to evolution (or how it effects, survival and reproduction)

4. Innate or learned • Not “Nature vs. Nurture”. Usually some of both • Behaviors that are NOT learned = INNATE • Strong genetic component • Fixed Action Pattern: • not learned • once started, goes to completion (stickleback fish attack red…like belly of other males)

5. Learned - Innate

6. Imprinting • Imprinting is referred to as a type of behavior that includes both learning and innate components and is generally irreversible. • Imprinting has sensitive period. Sensitive period is a limited time when certain behaviors can be learned. May be 1 or 2 days. • May imprint on anything that meets certain criteria. In geese it was “moving away from” the geese

8. Directed Movementsstrong hereditary control • Kinesis: a simple change in activity level in response to a stimulus (or environmental conditions). • Taxis: oriented movement toward or away from some stimulus. • Migration has been studied, and determined that migratory behavior is largely genetically programmed.

10. Animal Signals and Communication • A signal is a behavior that causes a change in another animal’s behavior. • Communication is the transmission of, reception of, and response to signals. • Animals communicate using • Visual • Auditory: bird song • Chemical: pheromones • Tactile • Electrical signals.

12. Habituation • Habituation a loss of responsiveness to stimuli that convey little or no information. • Habituation may increase fitness by allowing an animal’s nervous system to focus on stimuli that signal the presence of food, mates, or real danger instead of wasting time or energy on a vast number of other stimuli that are irrelevant to the animal’s survival and reproduction.

13. Spatial Learning • Spatial Learning: The modification of behavior based on experience with the spatial structure of the environment. This including: locations of nest sites, hazards, food, and prospective mates. • Landmark: Location indicator. The use of landmark is a more complex cognitive mechanism than a taxis or kinesis, because it involves learning.

15. Associative Learning • Associative Learning: The ability to associate one thing with another. Avoid eating something that tastes bitter. • Classical conditioning: an arbitrary stimulus, is associated with a reward or punishment. • Operant conditioning: Trial-and-error-learning. An animal learns to associate one of its own behaviors with a reward or punishment and then tends to repeat or avoid that behavior.

17. Mating Systems and Parental Care • In many species, mating is promiscuous: with no strong pair-bonds or lasting relationships. • Monogamous: One male mating with one female. • Polygamous: An individual of one sex mating with several of the other. This usually occurs with one male and multiple females.

19. Mate Choice • Mate preference by females may play a key role in the evolution of male behavior and anatomy. Intersexual • Males usually compete for their mates. Male competition for mates is a source of intrasexualselection. • Agonistic behavior: A contest that determines which competitor gains access to a resource. The outcome of these contests are determined by: strength, size, or the form of teeth, horns, and other physical parts of the animal.

20. Altruisim • Altruisimis referred the behavior that reduces an individual’s fitness while increasing the fitness of another individual. Inclusive fitness (some of your peeps will survive.) • An example of this is in bee societies, where the workers are sterile. The workers do not ever reproduce, however they labor on behalf of a single fertile queen. The workers sting intruders, a behavior that further helps defend the hive, but however results in the death of those workers.

22. Social Learning • Social Learning: learning through observing others. Social learning forms the roots of culture, which can be defined as a system of information transfer through social learning or teaching that influences the behavior of individuals in a population.

23. Behaviors can evolve • Natural selection favors behaviors that increase survival and reproductive success. • Can only influence the genetic component … • Genetic component of behavior can be STRONG.