experiments Flashcards
Observational Study: Elephant Ethogram
What behaviors to captive Asian elephants exhibit?
- every 5 minutes for 1 day for a week for 11 months – observed elephants behavior
- they show stereotypical behavior of spending 1/4 of their time eating (boredom)
- clumped vs. spaced feeding sights
- less bored when paced out
Observational Study: Why do crab eating macaques use special sleeping trees
- not a food source
- no evidence for predator avoidance
- an explanation was that they slept in trees opposite to other groups
- advertisement theory supported
Spallanzani’s 1st experiment
owls in complete darkness
- owls could not fly well
C - owls need sight for light
Spallanzani’s 2nd experiment
bats in complete darkness
- bats flew fine
C- bat’s don’t need sight for flight
Spallanzani’s 3rd experiment
black hoods on bats
- black hooded bats couldnt fly
C- bats need sight for flight
Spallanzani’s 4th experiment
transparent hoods on bats
- clear hooded bats couldn’t fly as well
C - hood was trouble whether or not light got in
Spallanzani’s 5th experiment
blind bats without covering ears
- flew just fine
C - bats don’t really need sight for successful flight
Spallanzani’s 6th experiment
plug ears wtih grease or cotton
- deadened bats couldnt fly well and didnt feed
C - bats need good hearing for successful flight
Spallanzani’s 7th experiment
control
deafened bats were distressed by objects in ears, placed hollow brass tubes
C - need good hearing
Hilara maura
gift wraps…random object
Hilara sartor
gift wraps…nothing at all
hilara quadrivattata
gift wraps dead prey in silk (to make it look bigger)
hilara thoracica
large cocoon, small prey
Trinidadian Guppies
upstream: low predation
downstream: high predation
– look different/diff puberty
Experiments: 200 guppies from high-predation site transferred upstream to low-predation sight
Result:
In 11 years (30-60 generations), the manipulated population evolved schooling and predator inspection behaviors more similar to the ancestral population
Fixed Action Pattern - Triggering Territorial behavior in Stickelbacks
- As long as the models had an eye and a red belly → could get them to show the territorial behavior
Experiment doesn’t suggest that they don’t react unless there is color → only tested gray/red
Fixed Action Pattern - Grey Goose’s Egg Retrieval
All female gray goose have egg retrieval
Whenever she notices that an egg is not in the nest – she uses her beak to roll it back to the nest
Was described originally as the mother’s love for the baby – but soon discovered it was a deep rooted behavior
- every female goose did this behavior in the same way
Stickleback Courtship behavior (Chain Rxn - FAP)
- female with eggs
- make responds with zigzag swim
- female follows
- male shows nest entrance and female enters nest
- male then prods females tail while making tremblig movements
- female spawns and leaves; male then enters the nest and also spawns
Tinbergen
Manipulation of environment to understand mechanism
(DIGGER WASP)
Digger wasp - visual cue changed (pine cones were no longer circled around the burrow)
returning wasps followed the visual cue: first searched firs in area with pine cones
Digger wasp - cue conflict vs. scent vs. vision
returning wasps followed the visual cue: searched first in area with pine condes
Begging in Black -headed gulls (4 steps)
1.) Chick approaches parent
2.) opens and closes beak several times
3.) chick turns its own head, positions own bill and graps parent’s bill
4.) chick pushes up with body and pulls down bill
Black-headed gulls experiment
- raised some chicks in incubators with no chance to properly beg, other chicks were raised normally
result: both sets did steps 1&2, but almost none of the incubator babies did steps 3 and 4 properlly
conclusion: 3&4 are nurture and 1&2 are innate
Stabilizing Selection in Cichlid Fish
wanted to compare growth rate of fish in different-sized patches of food
- focal fish trying to defend its food patch from 4 competitors
When measuring defensive behavior – defending larger territories required more work (more chases per minute)
When measuring growth rate of fish defending the different sized patches - medium sized territories had the best balance of cost and benefit
So: stabilizing selective pressure for intermediate territories
Directional Selection in Hawaiian Crickets
between 1991 and 2001 – sound of crickets almost disappeared
WHY - parasitic fly appeared and would listen for cricket calls then lay its eggs on the back of cricket for maggots to attack and eat
- downside to being a calling male cricket (sexual selection – females still prefer calling males)
- rapid evolution (directional selection) for crickets to become quiet – a mutation caused males to lose the sound-producing parts of their wings (did not get attacked and survived better)
What about Sexual Selection
- silent males would hang around calling males and try to intercept females
- silent males evolved to move around more
- females evolved to be less picky
Disruptive Selection in Spadefoot Toad Tadpoles
Detritivores: consume detritus and small invertebrates
Carnivores: consume invertebrates
intermediates: are rarer but generalists
Observed growth of different morphs when given detritus as food source
Result —- Detritovores did better than intermediates which did better than carnivores
Observed ability to catch shrimp
Result —- Carnivores did better than intermediates which did better than detritovores
Did a mark and recapture study
Results: intermediate morphs survived less well (10%) and they were also much smaller
Conclusion: Individuals with specialized traits on either end of the spectrum have higher fitness than individuals with intermediate traits
Digger Wasps - Mixed ESS
use 2 strategies to obtain burrows
1- “diggers” dig their own burrows
2 - “borowers” use abandoned burrows
Which strategy a wasp uses is genetic –> diggers always dig and borrowers always borrow
Sexual Selection in House Finches
males are red, females are greyish brown
– coloration of male ranges from red - orange - yellowish (mostly due to diet)
TESTABLE PREDICTION: if females perfer to mate with red males, than red males should get mates more easily
EXP 1
followed females behavior w 4 males – most peferred reddst male (no diff between middle male)
EXP2
male feathers were dyed more or less red
Result – females perferred reddest male
Conclusion – red plumage is a sexually selected trait in house finches
Do lemmings commit suicide – group selection
- spotted diving off cliffs into water when food is scarce
- idea is that they can sacrifice themselves for the greater good
Since Natural Selection works in individual genes, group selection can only work if the sacrifice increases the level of sacrifice gene in the remaining population
Difficulties with group selection
- Cheaters would win
- suicidal genes would be lost
ACTUALITY
- when population numbers are high, lemmings disperse to reduce intraspecific competition
Maze Running in Rats
Can study effect of environment on genetically influenced behavior y raising some strain in DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS
- environments difference in the amount of novelty the animals experienced while growing up (how enriched their environment was)
offspring of dull or bright
RESULTS:
Restricted: Dull and Bright made around the same amount of errors
Normal: Dull made almost the same amount as restricted, bright made about half
Enriched: Both dull and bright made a lot less errors, bight made slightly less
Classical Genetics: Hygienic Behavior in Honeybees
Exp 1: Identified hives that bred true – crossed hygienic with unhygienic
Result – all offspring unhygienic
Conclusion – unhygienic behavior dominant AND hygienic hive must be homozygous recessive and the unhygienic hive is homozygous dominant as well
Exp 2: Backcross the heterozygous unhygienic offspring with hygienic homozygous recessive parents
Result: 4 different types of behavior seen
Ultimately
-Behavior was split into 2 diff behaviors: uncapping and removal
- some bees did both
- some did neither
- some only uncapped
- others removed (if someone else already uncapped)
Cannot explain with only 1 gene
U - no uncapping
u - uncapping
R - no removal
r - removal
Salamanders - relatedness and animal personality
- obtained 10 sets of 4 sibling larval salamanders
- raised each larva along on an aquarium with a hiding place so that they did not interact with others
put salamander in tank with regular water (low predation) pumping in , then with water from a tank with predatory fish (high predation risk)
- measured how much time spend in the refuge
- “low risk” larvae spent less time in refuge than the “high-risk” larvae
linear correlation between time spent out of refuge ‘safe’ and when it was ‘risky’ bold when safe still bold when risky
Implies that the phenotypic expression can be due to genetics
Siblings were similar to each other - implying that the phenotype of being bold or shy has an underlying genetic basis (they didn’t interact with each other – suggest
Knock-out and Knock - in –> spacial learning in RATS
EXP 1: makeing knock-out mice that lacked NMDA gene - then tested for ability to remember spacial arrangement of a swimming chamber (hidden platform test)
Result — knock-out mice were slower than normal than the controls for learning position of platform
EXP 2: over-expressed NMDA - “knock-in” mice
Result — learned more quickly than normal controls
CONCLUSION — NMDA is involved in learning and memory – not expressed all the time bc it can be associated with increased pain perception and neurodegenerative problems
Genone-level Analysis – Scouting Behavior in Bees
when bees leave to go find food, only 25% act as food scout to find NEW food sources – rest are followwers
Q – what makes a scout be a scout
Liang et. al 2012
- put a series of diff. feeders in a huge flight cage, those that found multiple sources were called scouts — then conducted a whole-genome RNA analysis on scouts and non-scouts
RESULTS
16% of mRNA transcrips exhibited signifiant diff between scouts and nonscouts
– many of genes related to neurotransmitters associated with novelty-seeking behavior in vertebraes
POINT – behavior is likely influence by which genes are active
worker ants
in the picture of all the ants – all could be genetically identical
- difff shapes and sizes reflect gene expression triggered by chemicals i the foods that worker ands feed to the larvae
paramecium avoidance behavior
1.) object contact triggers Ca 2+ channels to open
2.) Ca2+ enters cell and triggers biochemical event leading to reversal of cilila
3.) rxn follows lenth of cell, all cillia are reersed
4.) after tiem Ca2+ channels close
Locust flight: control of patterned movements
Locusts have 2 sets of wings arising from the thoraz
– flight is powered by “indirect” flight muscles
what to know how NS is organized – ex: command center or response to sensory feedback or central pattern generator
CONTROL –> put locust on a stick and test for flight control using a rigid tether
1: test command center by removing brain – 2— test requirement for sensory feedback by removing sensory structures in wings — 3— only nervous structures in thoracic ganglia – which must somehow turn the system on and keep it going –»> definition if central pattern generator
Nerve Control Escape Behavior – Tritonia
recordings from neurons that are active when Tritonia swims: the DFN are the dorsal flexion neurons and the VFN are the ventral flexion neurons
^^ MOTORNEURONS that cause muscles of the body wall to contract (alternating firing)
Central pattern generator kes the DFN and VFN fired alternately
2 sets of 3 DSI
2 sets of 1 C2
2 sets of 1 VSI
sensory info comes into the DRI (processes all the info )
Interpreting Sensory Input
toads have a stimulus filter that allows them to detect worms in an environment full of other things
hunting in toads
1 - wait until prey moves close
2 - turn to face the prey
3- zap with their long sticky tongues
- measured the rate of turning toward an image as image was moved
— all had to be moving
mostly eat long horizontal
inhibitory photoreceptor and excitatory photorecptor send signal to ganglion cell (filters/balances amount) – sends info to optic tectum of toad brain (more visual processing)
outer photoreceptors – tend to inhibit ganglion cell and the inner ones excite it
Bat detection by Noctuid moths
Why sometimes the moth dives and other times it simply gets out of the way
noctuid moth eats have 2 nerve cells in the ear, and the thin tympanum vibrates in response to a sound (when a sound is near)
2 paths the info can follow
1.) reflex path goes from the ear to the flight muscles, bypassing the brain
2.) a path to the brain via interneurons in the thoracic ganglia along the nerve cord
A1 and A2 cells respond to same sounds differently
low intensity: A1 has a gradient respnse, A2 doesnt really respsons
Moderate intensity: A1 inc action potential, A2 still doesn;t really respond
High intensity: Both give a strong response
^^ A2 is not gradient
Habituation in the A1 cells allows stilulus filtering of background sound
— if sound stays the same (tune out)
— of sound is pulsed – BAT — doesn’t ignore
HOW THEY RESPOND
– if sound is really loud – A2 cell responds (loud means close by) == PANIC – reflex to close wing
– A1 can only tell if sound is from above
Quiet Bats – evolutionary arms race
A1 cells responded when bat was 2 ft away and A2 cells responded when bat was there
synapse
1.) action potential arrives at the axon terminal and Na+ enters area – area becomes positive
2.) causes Ca2+ channels to open, Ca2+ rushes in
3.) causes synaptic vesivles containing neuotransmitters to fuse with cell membrane - dump neurotransmitter into synaptic cleft
4.) neurotransmitter binds to receptors on surface of post-synaptic cell and causes ion channels to open
loss of Ca2+ going in causes
- no neurotransmitter release
- no signal recieved by motorneuron
- no signal sent to muscles so no gill withdrawl
Leeches
ADDING substance of interest
- bathe hungry and satiated leeches in serotonin
- analyze behavior and physiological responses
RESULT: satiated leeches acted hungry - stimulate the serotonergic neuron in the leech brain – natural source of serotonin
- analyze behavior and physiological responses
RESULT: satiated leeches acted hungry
REMOVING substrate of interest
- block action of seretoniin with 5,7
- DHT
- analyze
RESULT: hungry leeches acted satiated
interaction of feeding behavior and brain
– matched leeches in paires according to size and allowed on of each pair to feed till satiated
- measured amount of serotonin in brains of hungry vs. satiated leeches
RESULT – satiated leeches had less serotonin
Green anole, Carolina anole
- reptile where gonads shrink outside of breeding season
- testes regrow in response to warm temperatures in the spring
- growth of testes casues increase of testosterone
Mating behavior in absence of testosterone in red-sided garter snakes
- reptile in which testes shrink at end of breeding season and grow back after hibernation
- hibernation needed because this subspecies found in cold areas of upper midwest, US, central canada
- when male emerges from hibernation, it carries out courtship and mating even though testes have not grown back yet and testosterone is at zero
EXPERIMENT: captured animals at end of summer when T levels still high
THEN
- half were left intact as controls
- half were castrated so that there was no source of T
- followed for 4 years
RESULTS (during next 3 years)
- %. of intact males who courted femals stayed high
- % of castrated males who courted decreased each year
CONCLUSION:
in years 2 and 3, intact males had testosterone in the previous summer while castrated ones did not – it looks like testosterone affects behavior months later
Added testosterone to the castrated males and courtship retuened
Prolactin and Incubation in Penguins
Massaro, Seitawan, and Davis 2007)
An increase in prolactin is associated with egg incubation behavior in female penguins
wanted to know if prolactin levels were affected by
1.) the sight of an egg (visual stimulus) OR
2.) the feel of an egg (tactile stimulus)
2 kinds of stimules
- provided visual stimulus – fake egg near nest
- provided tactile (and visual) stimulus in nest
RESULTS
Birds than could only see eggs did NOT have elevated levels of prolactin (prior and visual were not sig diff)
Birds that had eggs added to nest DID have higher prolactin levels than controls
CONCLUSION
presence of an egg in nest results in increased prolactin production in these birds – hormones are altered by experience
Sexual Behavior in Rats
male behavior = mounting
female behavior = lordosis
- testosterone during days 1-5 has an ORGANIZATIIONAL effect
- days 1-5 represent a CRITICAL PERIOD for that organizational effect given that castration has no effect during days 6-10
- Testosterone has an ACTIVATIONAL affect in adulthood
males that were castrated and not given testosteron during the critical period showed signs of lordosis
Female brain does not respond to testosterone in adulthood - so there is no activational effect
Monogamy and Polygyny in voles
Polygynous males mate with a female and then move on to seek another female, while the female builds a den and raises her pups alone.
Prairie voles are typically monogamous. Male and female mate, form a social bond, and build a den together. The male helps care for the pups, often ‘huddling’ with them to keep them warm while the female seeks food.
Medow voles: polygynous
Prarie voles: monagamous
Cross-Fostering Experiment:
- Baby meadow voles put into a nest of praire voles
- prairie vole adults accepted them as onw
CONTROL - baby meadow put into best of other meadow vole
RESULTS - cross-fosterd female meadow voles spent more time than controls cuddling and nursing young
4 of 8 cross-fosterd MALE nested with their mates and were monogamous
CONCLUSION
parental behavior is highly influenced by environemt BUT 4 of 8 cross-fostered males were still poly – GENES still can play a role
HORMONE: vasopressin – released in males when having sex w same female (feelings and pleasure center) avpr1a
Testing role of avpr1a in praire voles
Made 3 hypo praire lines
1.) avpr1a-VP: had an extra copy of avpr1a expressed in the ventral pallidum (reward center)
2.) Avpr1a-CP: an extra copy was expressed in a different brain area, caudate putamen (not related to reward center)
3.) lacZ-VP/CP: bacterial lacZgene was expressed in VP and CP as control
RESULTS
- males that had extra vasopressin receptors in the ventral pallidium spent mpre time with female
Meadow voles do not usually have receptors in the ventral pallidium – dont feel reward
Development of worker behavior in honey bees
- anaimals don’t stat life with all possible behaviors
- some are acquired
- packing pollen and really foraging ae acquired
Correlation of (for) gene expression with nurse/forager transition in brains of nurses and foragers in three honey bee colonies
role of JH in the nurse-forager transition
correlation: JH is low in nurse bees, but higher in foragers
Add JH - become precocious foragers
Remove JH - transition to forager delated
when Jh added back after removed - normal behavior
social interaction can change development of behavior
added bees at an age that should normally be nurse bees to bees that were already foragers
- if you added more young bees - resident young bees switched to being foragers
when older bee provides food to younger bees, transfers a compound called ethyl oleate – slows down forager transition (acts as pheromone)
Marsh Tits: Environment can influence development of nervous system
birder were either fed
1.) whole sunflower seeds (could be stored for later)
or
2.) powdered sunflower seeds (which had to be consumed at the feeder)
- birds recieving whole seeds and storing them had a larger hippocampus - learns location (NS actially changing structure in response to environment)
London Taxi
had to learn and be able to map out 25,000 locations in London
- hippocampys was diferent: larger in posterior and smaller in anterior
did a study –> trainees who passed the test had substantial growth of the hippocampus compared to those who did not
developepment of songbird
genetics of being male leads to estrogen production in male brains during emryogenesis
estrogen masculinizes the brain by triggering growth of the song areas
brains start out the same but diverge over time
role of estrogen in masculinizing the female brain
- add estrogen pellets of nestling female zebra finch – show same growth in song areas as males do
- 15/18 treated females produced male-like songs
White-crowned sparrow (WCS) - role of learning
- young male needs to hear his song during listening phase in order to preproduce it later on CRITICAL PERIOD
10-50 days after hatchign
FoxP2 gene is expressed in Area X during “listening phase”
resarchers used knockdown technique to reduce expression of FoxP2
—– didn’t sing as well — FoxP2 is required for normal developent
matching phase
- listening to itself
experiment: deaf son –> can’t match father’s tone
Role of Social Interactions
own species biase —-
played WCS and Song Sparrow recording – bird learned its own species song
but
play WCS recording and house the bird w a living song sparrow male – will use live bird as a tutor
Brown-headed cowbird
brood parasite – lay egg in other nest
- no listening phase
- born knowing full song
male cowbirds learn place
- they do not learn their own song (inate) but they can learn to modify song to produce a particular dialect
born knowing notes of borth versions - alter depending on audience
imprinting
Konrad Lorenz
- critical period
- triggerd by spcific stimuli
- is more or less permanent
role of sound and movement
