Exam 1 Flashcards
What is animal behavior?
Any observable, external activity. A response to stimuli
Example: females being attracted to a certain trait is a behavior
Angler fish
attract prey with their light and wait for awhile before eating their prey
Ethology
Study of a behavior as an adaptation to the natural environment.
- shaped by natural selection
- Has genetic basis
- Focused on genetic components of behavior (aspects of behavior have to be genetic so that they can be passed from one generation to another)
Proximate questions
immediate causes. What actually triggers the behavior? Genetics? Hormones? etc
Ultimate Question
Evolution. What is the benefit behind this? Has it evolved once/twice?
What are Timbergen’s four questions/four levels of analysis?
Proximate levels: development, mechanism (causation
Ultimate levels: Evolutionary history, adaptive function
Development
understanding how behaviors change ontogenetically over the course of an animals life
Evolutionary history
such as understanding how a shared ancestry influences variation in behavior
Mechanisms (causation)
determining the physiological, neurobiological, hormonal, or genetic correlates of behavior (What part of the body causes this behavior to happen? Brain, hormones, etc…?)
Adaptive function
How the behavioral trait has been shaped by natural selection to contribute to survival and reproductive success. The function of the behavior. (What is the benefit of that behavior? Why does this happen?)
Sexual/genetic recombination
is the production of offspring with combinations of traits that differ from those found in either parent. Result of crossing over, independent assortment and fertilization.
Darwinian Puzzle
Traits that appear to reduce rather than raise an individual’s reproductive success.
Example: in experiments where parent birds are given extra nestlings to rear the adults usually rear larger numbers of youngsters to fledging that then they do naturally. The puzzle is based on this, why don’t parents have one more baby?
Infanticide
Eating or killing babies. This is due to there being too many babies to care for so the mother eats a few of them in order to be able to better care for the remaining ones (hamsters). This can also occur when a male wants to mate with a female who is preoccupied with babies from another male. The male will kill the babies from the other male so he can mate with the female (lions).
Anthromorphism
applying human qualities (emotions or actions) to non-human animals.
What determines a particular phenoytpe?
Nature AND nurture
How do genes influence behavior?
Differences based on time (development
How is it determined which genes are associated with which behaviors?
Evolutionary genetics and functional genomics
Evolutionary genetics
DNA sequence variation across species, or individuals with different behaviors. For this we are looking for traces of natural selection in the genomes
Functional genomics
Gene or protein expression compared across species or individuals with different behaviors. Here we are looking for changes in gene activity, may change rapidly in the same individual or be different in different cell types.
Microarrays in animal behavior
allows us to determine differences in gene expression between different behaviors. (nurse vs forager bee example)
How to determine how active a gene is in a particular tissue or at a particular time?
mRNA. More mRNA, higher level of gene expression
Polytheism
as an adult worker ages, it passes through a series of behavioral, physiological and genetic changes
What are the three major types of studies in Animal Behavior?
Observational, experimental and comparative analysis
Observational study
define and record behaviors and relate them to a feature of the environment. Nothing is manipulated, everything is natural. Example: birds in the city vs birds in less populated areas. Correlational.
Experimental Study (field, lab)
researcher manipulates features of animal or the environment to see how it affects behavior
Comparative study
look for patterns across many species
Do different environments cause changes in genetic expression?
yes
Epigenetics
the study of how cells control gene activity without changing the DNA sequence. Epigenetic changes are modifications to DNA that regulate whether genes are turned on or off
Behavioral continuum
behavior occurs on a continuum and ALL behavior has both innate and learned components
Types of behaviors
innate, time sensitive learning, unrestricted plastic learning
Innate behaviors
genetically determined - animal doesn’t learn it. Environment STILL plays a role!
Time sensitive learning
ex: imprinting
Unrestricted (plastic) learning
ex: taste aversion; spatial learning
Imprinting
occurs early in life, irreversible, often influences species identity and mate choice as adults
