Lecture 14: Specific Behavioural System Flashcards
What are types of ‘behavioural systems’? Which ones have we already talked about?
-Ingestive behaviour (talked about as feeding behaviour)
-Parental/maternal behaviour
-Social behaviour (this lecture)
-Play behaviour (this lecture)
-Sexual/reproductive behaviour (this lecture)
-Sickness behaviour
-Locomotion/exploration
-Rest and sleep
What are social animals?
-Prefer to be near/interact with adults of own species than solitary or just in monogamous pair so they form groups or conspecific
-Adults are not just sexual partners (and indeed may only be members of the same sex)
What does being social involve? General
-Lots of sophisticated abilities, including learning who’s group-mate and who’s not, true individual recognition, and participating in group decision making etc
What is the definition of socialization?
-Learning about your group
-In social species, learning about potential allies and group-mates (not just mates)
ie wolf pups leaving den to learn about pack mates
ie kittens living nest to learn about colony members
Do animals have individual recognition?
-yes
-Form of recognition learning
-Familiar vs. unfamiliar –> individual differences (one individual fought me so I view you diff then one conspecific I like)
-Typically multi-modal (based on multiple properties like appearance, sound, smell etc)
-Demonstrated in rats, mice, horses, sheep, elephants, many primates etc
What is the multi-modal recognition in horses?
-Study in 2009 familiar horse led past a subject and then out of sight behind a screen
-From behind the screen, an equine contact call was played
-Call could be from the horse behind the screen (match) to from another individual (mismatch)
-Assessed ‘looking’ by the subject as a measure of into gain/ surprise at novelty
-If horses have ‘mule-model recognition’ the subjects should react differently if the call and visual appearance dont match
Result
-When there was a mismatch, subjects turned to look more quickly ad stared for longer
What are other elements of social behaviour?
-Social networks
-Tit-for-tat alliances (who groomed who, reciprocal-you did me a favour so I will give you a favour)
-Reading of conspecifics moods- social expressions, odour signals, postures, vocalizations to predict whether social interaction will be positive to negative
-Group decision making ie cooperative hunting (less applicable for ag species)
-Gorup hunting- lioness (Each lioness has same role in each hunt so they have positions and ability to coordinate a plan)
-‘Voting’ buffalo (herd Mae group decisions on where and when to move, see lecture slide 14 for more detail)
What does being social involve?
-Recognizing own species (socialization)
-Recognizing familiar individuals (group mates)
-Individual recognition
-Forming dominance hierarchies and/or reciprocal relationships and social networks
-Cooperation and/or social learning and/or group decision-making
How does social behaviour and oxytocin relate?
-Neurochemical systems involved in social behaviour are complex and widely distributed- involved in other non-social behaviours
-Some neurochemcials more involved than others ie Oxytocin is known as the ‘love hormone’ leads to warm feelings from others/connections, promotes social bonding on own and mixed with other hormones to get other social behaviours ex sex
What was the study that investigated social recognition in mice?
-One mouse was in a cylinder with peek holes at the bottom
-Then was introduced to different mice some they know others were new
-With all the mice that the test mouse has seen their levels of social infestation were somewhat consistent and same
-With new mouse the time spect investigating was way higher except in the test mouse where oxytocin was knocked out, so didn’t change
What are proximate functions of being social?
-For social species in isolation is stressful, social buffering during acute stress (ie some pets, best to buy more than 1)
-More highly preferred by social animals- presence reduces stress, absence enhances stress
What are the ultimate functions of being social and does it relate to evolutionary fitness?
-Yes
-Recall motivation lectures: things we are motivated to have are often very important for evolutional fitness
-So if social animals find social contact highly motivating, changes are its useful for evolutionary fitness
-Remember: sociality is the exception, not the norm in wild species most animals are not social, solitary species outnumber
-Essentially all domesticated species are descended from group-living ancestors, the ability to live in groups seems to have been a prerequisite for domestication
How can being social be bad?
-Social animals compete with each other for food
-Attract more predators
-Incubators for disease/parasites
What are the ultimate functions of being social?
-Winning resources (ie mates, territorial competition ie lions)
-Defence of vulnerable young / detecting danger (more adults help detect danger/protect)
-Better at foraging (individuals who go out and forage can benefit, mice who go out and eat something new other mice smell and are more willing to try stuff)
-information centres ie honey bee
-Collective cooperating foraging (ie hunting packs)
-The dilution effect
-ie horses avoiding flies (larger group effect might benefit you to have a lesser affect)
-Reducing predation risk
What are the social conclusions?
-Socialization and individual recognition are important in developing social relationships/behaviours
-Oxytocin (acting as neurotransmitter not hormone) plays key role here
-Despite the costs of sociality, being social is functional when it helps animals fight as groups; become better at finding/hunting food; and/or better avoid harms like biting flies and predators (fitness benefits magnified when group-mates are relatives)
-As ever, such ultimate functions are achieved by proximate mechanisms: social animals find social company rewarding and isolation aversive (while naturally non-solitary animals do not)
How do we define play?
- Voluntary, rewarding and motivated (remember motivation lectures)
- Different in form or timing from “serious” behaviour
- Incompletely functional in form or context (not food/mates)
- Performed repeatedly, but not stereotypically
- Performed by healthy, non-stressed animals without intense competing motivations (assumes if animal is stressed/sick won’t play but not necessarily the case)
What does play look like?
Main types in humans and non-human animals (can be combined not 1 or other)
-Locomotor
-Object
-Social
What is locomotor play?
-Exuberant bodily movements such as running, jumping, swimming, flipping, rolling etc (w/o any apparent need to do so) involuntary
-Can involve characteristic flourishes that identify these as play (not immature, clumsy adult behaviour) ie body twists, kicks, head tosses, eye closing
What is object play?
-biting, pawing, chasing, or otherwise manipulating objects
-ex dog with frisbee is object with locomotor play
What is social play?
-Play fighting, chasing, competitive object play etc
-Usually b/w juvenile conspecifics
-Play signals particularly important for social play- include facial expressions, vocalizations etc (species specific)
-When playing with animals on there own ‘level’ some animals make for faces bc can turn into aggression vs playing with younger individuals where less facial expressions
-Play signals also include postures to movements (some of these also likely serve as a self-handicapping manoeuvres which can make it more challenging if not on same level ex playing flat footed and lightly squatting)
What can explain play?
Development
-Hormonal influences (ie organization effects of testosterone)
-Life stage (ie frequency of certain play behaviours change over time) older don’t usually want to resell but will play with other things
Phylogeny -evolution
-Widespread in mammals and birds
-Larger brained mammals and birds play more, but same relationship not true within species
-Increasing reports of play-like behaviour in reptiles/amphibians, fish, and insects
Cause (external)
-Social environment: more playful partners (recall social learning) seems ‘fun’ to see others playing so more likely to do it
-Physical environment: more space, environmental enrichment, food providing, restraint stress, adverse conditions
-Pain reduces play (calves dehorned w/o anaesthetic)
-Corticosteroids reduce play in dogs, oxytocin increases
-Morphine increase play in rats (pain killer)
Function
-Its positive/fun (ie rats prefer playful companions, chimps prefer to play over other types of interaction)
-May help alleviate stress (ie play. reduces corticosterone in rats and dogs)
What was the study of the bee and objects investigating?
-Do bumble bees play?
-Bees had to walk from the nest through a tunnel then had to go through object area to feeding area, with either an unobstructed path or to the balls
-Unnecessarily go to balls when could go to balls
-Shows how behaviour all of the play behaviour criteria
Why can play be costly?
-Uses energy
-Ricks injury
-May attract predators
What is adaptation?
Adaptation (beneficial change)= process of evolution whereby living organisms develop traits to best equip them to survive and reproduce
-Traits that confer success become more and more common (populations diverge –> speciation)
What are the ultimate functions of play?
-Hypothesis propose that play has long term benefits (practice for fighting/hunting/mating? Crucial for motor development?)
-Some correlation evidence but not for sure cause
-ex juvenile brown bears that play the most have the highest yearling survival rate
-ex social play predicts improvement in motor skills and temperament in Belong ground squirrels
What are play conclusions?
-Play is ubiquitous in juvenile mammals, and common in large brained bird orders
-Heterogeneous, and its borders are rather unclear
-At least some forms are positive reinforcers, and may be stress reducing
-Studying its ultimate functions is challenging: play is assumed to have adaptive value, but what that is debated
