Lecture 15 And 16 Behavioral Ecology 1 Flashcards
What is the ethology?
The study of animal behavior from an evolutionary perspective
To gain understanding of a behavior, what should be understood?
Behavior patterns, proximate mechanisms, acquisition of behavior, ultimate causes of behavior
What are proximate mechanisms?
The name given to the neuronal, hormonal and anatomical mechanisms that underlie behavior
What are most behaviors the result of?
Complex interactions between inherited anatomical and physiological mechanisms and the ability to modify behaviors as the result of experience.
What are the ultimate causes of behavior?
The selection pressures that shaped its evolution
What describes most animal behavior?
Unlearned
Highly stereotypic
What is stereotypic behavior?
Always the same
Give an example of sterotypic, species specific behavior
Web spinning behavior of spiders- species can be identified by pattern of web
When may an animal fail to perform a genetically controlled behavior?
When environmental conditions needed to stimulate it are absent
Why might all individuals behave in the same way not due to genetically controlled behavior?
Because they all imitated the same teacher
How do genes cause a behavior?
Genes do not encode behavior
Gene products such as enzymes affect behavior by setting in motion interactions that underlie proximate mechanisms
How can genetic and environmental influences on the development of behavior be distinguished?
Deprivation experiments
Genetic experiments
What are deprivation experiments?
Investigators rear young so its deprived of all experience relevant of the behavior under study
What can be assumed if a behavior is still displayed during deprivation experiments?
The behavior develops without opportunities to learn it
What are genetic experiments?
Investigators alter the genomes of organisms by interbreeding closely related species, by comparing individuals that differ by only one or a few genes, or by knocking out/inserting specific genes
What were the conditions used for the deprivation experiment?
Newborn tree squirrel was reared in isolation on a liquid diet, in a cage without soil/particulate matter
What was the newborn squirrel given and what happened next?
A nut
Squirrel ran around cage and then resorted to stereotypic digging movements, then placed the nut in an imaginary hole and refilled the hole
What did the squirrel experiment show?
Heredity underlies food-storing behavior of this tree squirrel species, but is only expressed when environmental conditions allowed
What is selective breeding used for?
Select for anatomical traits and behavior
What does selective breeding provide an insight into?
Effects of genetic constitution on behavior
How did Konrad Lorenz investigate courtship displays of duck species?
Interbreeding/hybridization
What duck species are closely related and can interbreed?
Mallards, teals, pintails, gadwalls
How does the courtship displays of ducks work?
Male duck performs a choreographed water ballet typical of his species
Female accepts his advance only if entire display is successful and completed, skill judges quality
What happened when Lorenz crossbred different species of duck?
Hybrid offspring expressed elements of each parents courtship display in new combinations, as well as elements from neither species repitoire
What did Lorenz’s hybridization experiments show?
Stereotypic motor patterns of courtship displays are inherited
What did the observation that females are not interested in males performing hybrid displays give evidence to?
Sexual selection helped shape genetically determined behaviors
How have gene mutations that effect behaviors been studied?
On fruit flies and rodents using gene knockout and gene silencing techniques
What gene was studied in gene knockout experiments on rodents?
fosB gene
What behavior does a female house mice perform with an active fosB gene?
Gather her pups together, keep them warm and nurse them
What is the result of a mutated, inactivated fosB gene?
Mouse appears normal, but differs in how she treats new born pups
How do female house mice with inactivated fosB gene treat her new born pups?
Inspects them and then ignores them
How was the hypothesis that the absence of the fosB gene changes the maternal behavior of female mice tested experimentally?
Knock-out fosB gene in female mice, mate when mature
Immediately upon birth, separate mouse pups from mothers, three in opposite corners of the cage,
count the number of pups each mother retrieves within 20 minutes.
How does fosB gene influence maternal behavior?
Protein encoded by fosB is involved in stimulating neural changes in the hypothalamus of the mothers brain in response to olfactory molecules she encounters upon first inspection
Genetic control of behavior is ________ under many conditions.
Adaptive
Why are behavior patterns in many species so strongly influenced by genes?
Without opportunities to learn (particularly with non-overlapping generations) individuals might fail to acquire appropriate behavior
When mistakes are costly or dangerous
Give an example of behavior that does not have to be learned because mistakes are costly.
Kangaroo rats- avoid rattlesnakes by hearing them begin to strike and they hump through the air and out of the way
What is a releaser?
An object, event or condition required to elicit a behavior (such as the nut)
Give an example of a releaser triggering a behavior in birds.
Male robins: the sight of red feathers on an adult males breast during breeding season.
Male sings, performs aggressive displays and attack
How was the hypothesis that a wasp learns the location of her nest by visual cues tested experimentally?
Surround nest entrance with moveable visual cues and move them to another location after the wasp leaves and has surveyed her surroundings
What happened when visues cues around the wasps nest were moved?
The wasp orientated to the displaced cones and count not find entrance
What is it called when learning takes place only at a specific time in an animals development?
Critical period
What is the type of learning called when an animal learns a set of stimuli during the limited critical period?
Imprinting
What is an example of behavior learned by imprinting?
Recognition of offspring by their parents and of parents by their offspring
Give an example of imprint learning where the parent learns to recognize their offspring.
Emperor penguins- the father must find his chick after being away for weeks by recognizing its call
What can determine the critical period for imprinting?
Brief developmental or hormonal state
How does imprinting work in goats?
A mother goat must nuzzle or lick newborn in first 10 minutes or she will not recognize her own offspring
What causes the brief imprinting time in goats/ determines critical period?
High levels of the hormone oxytocin in the mother’s circulatory cyctem at the time she gives birth and olfactory cues from newborn kid
Give an example of an animal species that uses species-specific song in territorial displays and courship in which learning is an essential step.
White-crowned sparrow
How do hormones determine when a behavior is performed or learned?
Controlling influences on development and on the physiological state of the animal
What happened when investigators injected female songbirds with testosterone in the spring?
The females developed their species-specific song
What does an increase in testosterone in the spring do a songbirds brain?
Makes parts of the brain responsible for learning and developing song to grow larger
How do parts of a songbirds brain grow larger?
Individual neurons grow larger in size and longer extensions
Number of neurons increases
Why is selecting a place to live an important decision for an animal to make?
It influences survival and reproductive success
What cues do organisms use to select suitable habitats?
Predictors of conditions suitable for future survival and reproduction
What marine mollusk sticks to rocks and doesn’t move very far as an adult?
Red abalone
Where is the best place for a red abalone to live?
Coralline algae, its major food source
How do red abalone algae recognize coralline algae?
By a chemical the algae produces
Chemosensory cue
What other cues can be used to provide quality information?
Visual
Give an example of a species that use visual cues to asses quality of a potential habitat?
Collared flycatchers peer into nests of others to see how well neighbors are doing
What are conspecifics?
Other individuals of the same species
When might an animal establish a territory?
When high-quality habitats are in limited supply and competition is high
What approach is applied to understand territory behavior?
Cost-benefit approach- animal has limited time and energy
What are the three components of the total cost of a particular behavior?
- Energetic cost
- Risk cost
- Opportunity cost
On what type of lizard was cost-benefit territory behavior studied?
Male Yarrow’s spiny lizards
When do male Yarrow’s spiny lizards defend their territory from male conspecfics?
September and october
When did the lizard experiment take place?
June and july
How was the hypothesis that testosterone-induced agressiveness is too costly for Yarrow’s spiny lizards to maintain year round tested?
Insert testosterone capsules under skin of males during summer and observe behavior and survivalship
What were the results of the lizard experiment?
Testosterone-treated males were more active and displayed more territorial behaviors than untreated males
Treated males survived less well than untreated males
Name some other animals that display territorial behavior.
Tigers (defending multipurpose territory) Grouse species (defending mating territory) Seabirds (defending nesting site)
What name is given by applying the cost-benefit behavior to animals choosing what to eat?
Foraging theory