Animal Behaviour Flashcards
what are the 4 reasons why a behaviour occurs?
- causation (mechanism)
- development (ontogeny)
- adaptive function
- evolutionary history (phylogeny)
what is a behavior the result of?
an action - for an animal to display it requires a muscle contraction
describe the mechanism of a behaviour
- Action → muscle contraction
- Muscle contraction due to nerves
- Nerves work because of biochemsitry
- Biochesmitry activated by genes
- Actions will affect the environment
- Environment is sensed → affects nerves and biohchemistry
- Complex system
what are innate behaviors?
behaviors that animal can perform without any previous experience (not learnt)
describe innate behaviour in moths.
Female moths release volatile chemicals into the wind (downstream) → called pheromone Male moths (with antennae) can detect these chemicals → fly up wind → eventually lead to a female moth This is all done innately
what is fixed action pattern (FAP) ?
starting stimulus required followed by a series of actions
describe fixed action patter in geese
Eggs need to be sat on to incubate → an egg can be knocked out of the nest and the geese roll the egg back in
- will carry on rolling even if the egg is removed
use frogs to describe feature detection
Female frog has to find a male of the same species
Has to recognise the right call
what is hormonal influence on behaviour?
hormones - tend to be involved in behviour that need to be expressed for a longer duration of time
use lizards to describe hormonal influence on behaviour
80% of the females are prepared for reproduction with egg follicles in their ovaries
A male displaying courtship behaviour causes 100% of females to become reproductively active
More than one male added to a group of females fight with each other instead of courting females → now only 40% of the females are reproductively active
If you put a castrated male with a group of females → doesn’t court and 80% are prepared for reproduction again
how do genes affect behvaiour?
- can be artificially selected
- therefore must be genes underlying these
what are sitters?
stay on yeast patch don’t leave
what are rovers?
more active, move around the petri dish and look for other food sources
describe a molecular technique to test the roles of genes in behaviour
- foraging of maggots
- in lab breed on yeast
- sitters
- rovers
are beahviours heritable?
genes that control behaviour in fruit flies play a similar role in other animals
what is “for”?
gene controlling behavior - codes for cGMP - dependent protein kinase and it affects brain activity
describe “for” mRNA in honeybees
Honeybees with low levels of for expression in their brain tend to stay in the hive (nurses)
High levels of for expression are likely to be foragers
levels of for mRNA were measured in honeybee nurses and foragers
The results showed that levels of for mRNA are significantly higher in foragers than in nurses
describe manipulation of cGMP to change behaviour
for gene encodes a cGMP-dependent kinase that phosphorylates other proteins
Honeybee nurses were treated with this - changed the behavior of nurses, causing them to forage
what is non-associative learning?
without specific outcome (reward/punishent)
what are some examples of non-associative learning?
sensitization
habituation
what is associative (conditioning) learning?
link two evernts
what are they types of associative learning?
- classical (stimulus/behaviour)
- operant (behaviour/response)
what is an example of classical conditioning?
- Pavlov’s dogs - associative learning of the salivation response
- when you present dogs with food they salivate
- will also start to salivate to stimuli that signals the future presence of food
describe Pavlov’s dogs
Unconditioned stimulus → food
Unconditioned response → salivate
Conditioned stimulus → eg light
Conditioned response → salivate
what happens in classical conditioning?
the stimulus changes
what happens in operant condition?
the response changes
what is an example of operant conditioning?
Thorndike → played with cats → put them in a box and allows them to escape
Give them a way to escape and then put them into the box → the cat would take a shorter and shorter time to escape from the box
describe throndike cats
Unconditioned stimulus - lever
Unconditioned response - ignore lever
Conditioned stimulus - lever
Conditioned response - push lever
what is imprinting?
when animals learn - timing of an experience can affect the degree to which an animal learns
describe imprinting in geese
when goslings hatch they learn to treat the first large moving object as a parent
what are the two types of orientation?
- random undirection movements (kineses)
- taxes
what are kineses?
- can be used by animals to get out of situations
- paramecium will turn and move more rapidly in hot water water
- displayed by organisms with low sensory perception thresholds
what are taxes?
- use a specific cue and move towards or away from that cue
- some even use the earth’s magnetic field
describe innate navigation in turtles
Lay eggs in the sand
Young turtles hatch in the sand and find the surface
Need to orient themselves to find the sea → orient themselves sea → sensitive to short wavelengths but less sensitive to longer wavelengths
move towards the light
what is meant by navigating home?
often have a home base - need to forage and then get back to it
describe ants navigation
Path integration
Outward path → has lots of pauses and wiggles about
Knows exactly what distance and what direction to go in to get home when it finds food
Ants use a compass → sun compass → know the direction they’re going in → know all the turns
They count every step → pedometer to estimate distance travelled
what happens to ants navigation if you alter legs before outwards trip?
same distance
what happens if you shorten an ants legs on homebound trip?
don’t travel far enough
how may organisms be aware of their surrounding?
- landmark learning
- multiple landmarks
- animal knows what to look for
what are cognitive maps?
use stored information to solve a problem
use morris’ experiments with rats as an example of cognitive maps
Rats can plot routes through the environment based on stored information
how is navigation and clock used together by animals?
Lots of the animals use the sun → for example as a compass → on a long journey the sun moves across the sky
In order to effectively navigate animals need to account for the time drift → need some kind of internal clock
If you shift a birds clock by six hours then they make a 90 degree error in navigation
What are the different biological rhythms?
- circadian rhythms
- circannual
- ultradian
- infradian
- infra annual
what is the circadian rhythm?
day/night (trout)
Whatever it is your measuring displays a 24 hour period
Corresponds to day and night rhythms
what are mammalian circadian rhythms?
Light/dark cycles
Sensed by our eyes → optic nerve → to the brain → suprachiasmatic nuclei which sit on top of hypothalamus
If the suprachiasmatic nuclei are destroyed the rhythms are lost
Circadian activity of per and tim genes (protein products)
Pineal gland produces melatonin
what is the circannual rhythm?
breeding, migration, hyperphagia (may have to eat more)
Seasons of the year → things that happen at certain times of year
what is the ultradian rhythm?
tidal swimming in shannys
Shorter than one day → tide rhythms of about twice a day
A lot of coastal organisms need to perform actions in harmony with the rhythm of tides
what is the infradian rhythm?
Palolo worm
Period that’s shorter than one year but longer than one day
Can be timed to the appearance of the moon
what is the infra annual rhythm?
- periodical cicada
- Longer than one year
what are the different types of signal?
visual, auditory, chemical, electrical, mecahnic
- fits the environment where they live
give an example of when you might need to use very specific signalling?
different alarm calls for different predators - will need a different response
what is communication?
- transfer of information
- have a sender and reciever
- need to think about the intention of the signaller
how do signals evolve?
- co-opting exisitng behaviours via ‘ritualisation’
what does ritualisation involve?
- more conspicous
- less variable so easily recognised
- different from original function
use scent marking in mammals as an example of ritualisation
Originally just waste elimination
Strategically placed
Makes intruder turn back → benefits the signalling
Becomes conscripted through natural selection → useful to the signaller → eg lay claim to a territory
why do animals need to asses each others strength?
- limited resources competition is common
- can lead to contests which would be costly to both parties (injuries)
- conflict often resolved in assessment displays
- decide whether or not they could win a contest
describe the red deer stage as an example of assessment of strength
A few males mate with lots of females
They asses their strength by roaring → larger animals possess a deeper throated roar
If 2 stags posses the same sort of roar → stags walk up to each other and size each other up → known as the parallel walk
how might the reciever not benefit from signalling?
if communication is dishonest
use the angler fish lure to show dishonest communication
Have luminescent fin
Mimic potential prey items of smaller fish so get attracted
Work even if they don’t glow in the dark → angler fish can flick it around to look like a small piece of plankton
reciever is not benefitting
describe song acquisition in the white crowned sparrow
Songs need to be learnt
Sensitive period (first 50 days) → song learned by imprinting even if the wrong song is heard
Animals that are deprived of hearing their own species they never learn to produce the full adult song
Never move past the twittering stage
From around 50 to 250 days the birds have twittering
300 days → have the structured song
Full song learned by mimicry
how do honey bees indicate where a food source is?
The distance to the food source is communicated by the length of time it takes to move up the middle of the circle (the waggle)
Makes a buzzing noise
The direction of the food source relative to the sun is communicated by the angle of the waggle run relative to vertical
Angle of the centre of the figure of 8 would change depending on where the food source was compared to the sun
The receiver mimics the dance of the sender → can work out what direction to fly at
what is sexual dimorphism?
2 sexes of the same species have very different forms eg a peacock
what do elaborate displays etc help with?
achieving mating success
what is sexual selection?
selection for traits that increase the probability of mating success
how might sexual selection run counter to natural selection?
Male peacocks → very obvious to predators so therefore may have a negative effect on survival even if its a positive effect to reproduction
what is sexual dimorphism the result of?
differences in investment in offspring by the sexes
describe how females tend to invest more in each offspring
- the female bares the burden of responsibility for looking after offspring
- easier for a male to abandon parental duty
how is female fitness limited?
- quality of resources and mates
- females are choosy about who they mate with
how is male fitness limited?
- by the number of mates
- want to mate with as many females as possible
describe the bowerbird
- has an extended phenotype
- physical manifestation goes beyon its body
- determined by genotype
what is inter-sexual selection?
leads to a mate choice in females for different males
what is intra-sexual selection?
males fight with each other - the winners of the fights are able to mate with the females
what is function?
what is the survival/reproductive/fitness value of the behaviour
use the examples of orcas and seals to descirbe the function of cooperative behaviour
Seals → need to rest and breed → haul themselves onto the ice → potential source of food for example orcas
How to get a seal when its on a piece of ice
Swim towards the ice in a group (a pod) creating a wave to wash the seal off the ice and the orcas can catch the seal
The wave can be much larger if the orcas work together
what could be a cost of cooperative behaviour to the orcas?
when the seal is knocked off the food source has to be shared
what happens during natural selection?
- entities reproduce
- inheritance
- variation
- descendants will differ in survival and reproductive success (fitness)
- compete for resources
- more favorable characteristics will spread
- overtime a population will become more adapted to their environment
what are the different levels of selection?
- individual genes
- individuals
- groups
- species
what do examples tell us about selection?
gene selection works - there are animal behaviours that can’t be explained in any other way
what are the theoretical issues with the levels of selection?
- speed of selection and coherence of entities
- species = takes a long time
- process is much faster in individuals and genes
- groups may not be coherent and might not display strong heritability
- how does the behavior help the persistence and replication of the gene
what is the most widely used approach of selection?
advocates a gene selection approach
use the example of infanticide to outline the theories of selection
- when a male takes over a pride commonly kills all the cubs
- species → not good, losing animals in the species
- pride → not good, dependent on the number of individuals in the pride for strength
- individual → good, when they kill all the cubs the female lions stop lactating and come into oestrus and can mate with the female producing offspring of his own
- gene → infanticide is benefitting because they’re are removing the cubs without that gene and then copies of this gene will be present
what is altruism?
extreme social/cooperative behaviour
what is Hamilton’s theory of kin selection?
gene for altruism will spread if it is also in the individual which benefits from the altruism
what is r?
Wright’s coefficient of relatdenss which states how likely a gene in the actor is also in the recipeint
- varies between 0-1
when does altruism spread?
if Br > C
what is B?
benefits recipient
what is C?
costs to actor
under what conditions will the altruism gene spread?
Under what conditions will the gene spread → will also be in the individual that benefits from the altruism → more likely if individuals are related
Little r will be bigger so Br will be higher
describe relatedness in ants (social insects)
Males are haploid → therefore male ants don’t have a father → develop from an unfertilised egg
All the descendants → commonly all females → all ant workers are female
Females are diploid
Probability that a worker has the red allele (for example) from her mother is 0.5
The probability that a worker has the purple allele (for example) from the father is 1
The probability that two sisters share the red allele is 0.5 → all share the fatheres allele
Therefore the average probability of sharing alleles among sister is 0.75
Its more efficient from a gene perspective to look after your sisters than your own offspring → extremely social situation
what is recriprocal altruism?
- individual gets its benefit back at some point in the future
what are the stages of developing functional ideas?
- Theoretical outcomes (best behaviours) can be predicted from fitness principles
- Fitness principles includes wondering how survival or reproduction can be maximized (assumptions)
- The predictions and assumptions can then be tested by experiments
what are the assumptions of the ideal free distribution?
- Patches vary in richness
- Individuals choose the patch which maximizes their rate of food intake
- There are no costs to movement and individuals are well informed
- Individuals are equal competitors
what are the predictions of the ideal free distribution model?
- Individuals will all have equal rates of food intake
2. Numbers in each patch are proportional to patch richness
what is food intake equal to?
food input rate/number of competitors
what happens if individuals ahve the same rate of food intake?
numbers are proprtional to patch richness
describe milinki’s fish experiment
6 fish in the tank → equal rates of food at each end
Decrease at one end
what is the ideal free ditribution model?
- optimization model
- individuals are predicted to behave in the way that maximises their fitness
- fitness currency is assumed: rate of food intake
what is the evolutionary stable strategy model?
- ESS models are optimisation models where the fitness of any given behavioural choice depends on the choices other individuals make
- At the evolutionary endpoint (the ESS) no individual can do better by changing its behaviour
describe the prey feature detector in the toad
- specialised cells in the optic tectum (TP1)
- it recognizes worm like forms
- activates TP2 cells which acivate prey catching
- TH3 cells inhibit TP2 cells
- activated by anti worms
describe the hormones in the Barbar dove.
- Testosterone induces courting in males
- oestrogen induces females to build nests
- prolactin induces production of crop milk in female
- gonadotropin induces ovary growth
What is a Skinner box?
A box which stimuli and rewards or punishment may be presented to an animal to train it to perform tasks
Give three examples of dishonest signals
Angler fish
Camouflage
Raised Heckles
Why do the females tend to be the choosier sex?
Females invest more in each offspring than males. Reproduction is limited by resources and mate quality.
What features of males does females choice account for?
Colour and size of displays
