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)
