Animal BehaviorAP Biology

Innate Behaviors Innate behaviors are behaviors that are genetically inherited. Behavior influenced by genes can be selected on by natural

selection, so these behaviors should increase the fitness of an organism in some way.

Types of Innate Behaviors Instinct

EX: In mammals, care for offspring by female parents is instinctual

Fixed Action Patterns (FAP) Imprinting

Fixed Action Patterns Follow a regular, unvarying pattern Initiated by a specific stimulus Behavior is usually always carried out to completion Examples:

When a graylag goose sees an egg outside her nest, she will roll it back into the nest. She will also retrieve any object that resembles her egg. Even if its removed completely she’ll go through the motions of moving an egg back into the nest.

Male stickleback fish defend their territory against other males. The red belly of males is the stimulus for aggression. Any object with a red underside will be attacked.

Imprinting

An innate program for acquiring a specific behavior Requires an appropriate stimulus during the critical period Once acquired, the behavior is irreversible Examples:

In the first two days of life, graylag goslings will accept any moving object as their mother for life. Even a real mother introduced after the critical period will be rejected

Salmon hatch in freshwater streams and migrate to the ocean to eat. When they are ready to mate, they return to their birthplace to breed, identifying the exact location of the stream. During early life, they imprint the odors of their birthplace.

Learned Behaviors Behaviors acquired through a process of

learning Types of Behavioral Learning

Associative Learning Habituation Observational Learning Insight

Associative Learning

When an animal learns that two events are connected. EX: Dog learns that the smell/sight of food leads to

eating (they will then begin to salivate) Types of Associative Learning

Classical Conditioning Operant Conditioning Spatial Learning

Classical Conditioning A form of A.L. in which

an animal responds to a

substitute stimulus Example

Psychologist Ivan Pavlov found that if after repeated experiences in which a bell were rung before a dog was given food, the dog would salivate when the bell was rung alone

(no food present). Dogs associated the

bell with food.

Operant Conditioning

Also known as trial and error learning

Occurs when an animal connects its own behavior with a particular response.

This is how we train animals- positive and negative reinforcement.

Example: Psychologist Skinner trained rats to push levers to obtain food or avoid

painful shocks. Extinction: when a learned behavior no longer exhibits the

expected response, the learning can be reversed or forgotten

Spatial Learning When an animal associates attributes of a

location with the reward it gains by being able to identify and return to that location Tinbergen observed wasps using pinecone

markers to return to their nests. If the markers were removed, wasps could not find the nest.

Habituation It allows an animal to disregard a meaningless

stimuli The stimuli in question triggers an innate behavior,

not a learned one (different from extinction) Example:

Sea anemones pull food into their mouths. If they are stimulated repeatedly with non-food items (sticks, for example) they will then begin to ignore the stimulus.

Observational Learning

Occurs when animals copy

the behavior of another animal w/o any previous + reinforcement of the behavior

Example: Japanese monkeys usually remove sand from food by

brushing them with their hands. One monkey discovered that dipping food in water more easily rid the food of sand. Through observational learning, many of the other monkeys began to use water to clean their food.

Insight When an animal, exposed to a totally new situation

and without prior experience or observation, performs a behavior that generates a desirable outcome.

Example A chimpanzee placed in a

room with food beyond their reach will stack boxes up to get to the food.

Kinds of Behavior

Innate

Instinct

FAP’s

Imprinting HabituationObservational

LearningInsight

Associative Learning

Operant Conditioning

Spatial Learning

Classical Conditioning

Learned

Animal Movement Kinesis- undirected change in activity level/turning rate of

animal in response to a stimulus. Example: when bugs scurry when a rock is lifted.

Taxis- directed movement towards or away from a stimulus. Phototaxis is movement towards light, chemotaxis is towards a

chemical. Example: moths fly towards light.

Migration- long distance, seasonal movements to find food or better environmental conditions. Example: whales, birds, elk, insects, and bats all move to warmer

climates during the winter.

Animal Communication Chemical- pheromones are chemical animals secrete to

communicate. Example: ants mark their trail, urine spraying, primer pheromones in

queen bees and termites Visual- animals will make displays to show aggression or

courtship. Example: Wolves will threaten each other by showing their teeth or

show submission by lying on their backs Birds of Paradise

Auditory- making sounds. Example: frog calls, whale songs

Tactile- touching Example: Monkeys will groom each other, wolves will greet

dominant males with a lick

Foraging Behaviors Feeding: Goal is to maximize amount of food eaten while

minimizing energy used and risk of injury or attack Herds, Flocks, & Schools provide advantages:

Concealment: Most individuals are hidden in the middle. Vigilance - Individuals can trade off foraging and watching for

predators- two eyes are better than one! Defense

Packs Cooperation in catching prey

Search images Learning to search for an abbreviated image of the target or goal

EX: searching for a book, seeing a cop car

Social Behaviors Agonistic Behaviors- specific aggressive and submissive ritualized

behaviors that exist to establish dominance hierarchy but minimize injury Dominance hierarchies- where there is a pecking order indicating status

and power Minimizes fighting for food and mates

Territoriality- defending an area for food and/or mating. Altruism- seemingly unselfish, fitness-lowering behaviors where an

organism helps another animal. Usually occurs between relatives. This is called kin selection

Leads to inclusive fitness (the fitness of the group with similar genes) EX: Belding’s ground squirrels give alarm calls when predators are near. This risks that

squirrels safety but protects the group, which not coincidentally, is made of closely related females