Behavioural Ecology Flashcards
What is behaviour?
Everything an animal does involving action and/or a response to a stimulus - the way an animal acts
Five principles of behavioural ecology
- Learning and cognition
- Mating behaviour
- Social behaviour
- Communication
- Feeding behaviour
What are Tinbergen’s four questions?
- Function or adaption
- Evolution or phylogeny
- Causation or mechanism
- Development or ontogeny
What is function or adaption?
Why is the animal performing the behaviour and how does the behaviour increase the animals fitness?
Function or adaption example
Nurturing of young to increase their chance of survival, migrating to warmer habitats, escaping from predators
What is evolution or phylogeny?
How did the behaviour evolve? How has natural selection modified the behaviour over evolutionary time?
Evolution or phylogeny example
How fight in birds may have evolved from gliding in dinosaurs
What is causation or mechanism?
What causes the behaviour to be performed? Which stimuli elicit or what physiological mechanisms cause the behaviour?
Causation or mechanism example
Role of pheromones and hormones, such as increasing testosterone levels causing male display behaviour in many of birds species, beaks causing herring gull chicks to peck
What is development or ontogeny?
How has the behaviour developed during the lifetime of the individual? In what way was it been influenced by experience and learning?
Development or ontogeny example
How courtship behaviour improves with age in many birds, how predators learn to avoid dangerous prey
What is ethology?
The scientific study of non-human animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionary adaptive trait
3 things behavioural ecology needs to understand animal behaviour
- How it develops
- How it evolves
- How it contributes to survival and reproductive success
What is innate behaviours?
Innate behaviours that are developmentally fixed, under strong genetic influence and does not need practice
What is a fixed action pattern?
A sequence of unlearned, innate behaviours that are unchangeable
Triggered by an external sensory stimuli known as a sign stimulus
Once initiated, is is carried to completion
Fixed action pattern example (robin)
Male robins will attack bundle of red leathers in the territory, but will ignore juvenile (no red feathers)
What is learning?
Modification of behaviour based on specific experiences
5 types of learning
- Inprinting
- Sensitisation
- Habituation
- Classical conditioning
- Operant conditioning
What is imprinting?
Behaviour that includes both learning and innate components and is not irreversible
Distinguished from other types of learning by a sensitive or critical period
What is sensitisation?
Learned from a single stimulus experience
Increase in responsiveness to a stimulus
What is habituation?
Learned from a single stimulus
Repetition of stimulus causes a reduction in response
The animals are most likely to habituate in response to weak, less important, repeated or frequent stimuli
What is classical conditioning?
It’s associated with an involuntary response and a stimulus
Pavlov dogs
What is operant conditioning?
It’s associated with a voluntary behaviour and a consequence
Skinners box
What is mating behaviour?
Making behaviour is the product of a form of natural selection called sexual selection (individuals, with certain inherited characteristics are more likely than other individuals to obtain mates)
