week 5 + 6 - animal behaviour Flashcards
what is behaviour?
Niko Tinbergen
4 question
(proximate)
- Mechanisms
- Developmental
(ultimate)
- Evolutionary
- Survival value-reproduction
All of this comes back to natural selection
what is behaviour?
- Many different approaches
- How something interacts with its environment
what is behaviour?
- example: african wild dogs
- Hunting behaviour result of genetic makeup
- Evolutionary past
o Hunting as a group = more meat = more offspring - Group hunting allele increases in frequency
- Whole population hunts as groups
what forms behaviour
Arises from a combination of inherited traits, experience and environment
types of behaviour
innate
learned
types of behaviour
- innate
genetically programmed response to external stimuli
types of behaviour
- learned
relatively persistent behaviour that occurs as a result of experience
innate behaviour
- Heritable
- Intrinsic
- Stereotypical
- Consummate
e.g. birds feeding young
fixed action patterns
- Sequenced of unlearned behavioural acts
o Unique stimulus; unchanging; once initated carried out to completion; behavioural cascades can occur
learned behaviour
- Non heritable
- Extrinsic
- Permutable
- Adaptable
- Progressive
e.g. lions learning to hunt through play
not many behaviours are 100% learned - If raised in isolation cub can hunt but not to level to survive
supernormal stimulus =
exaggerated stimulus means a more vigorous response
e.g. a male stickleback fish attacks other males if they invade their nesting territory
* Because of the red belly
* Any red and the bottom will attack
Wont attack female with swollen belly
types of learned behaviour
- Habituation - learning to ignore something (e.g. ticking clock)
- Observational learning
- Conditional learning - reward / punishment
- Learning through play
- Insight learning - only in species that are more cognitively advance,,, learning through experience and applying to different situations
imprinting
Programmed learning
Combination of innate behaviour released in response to a learnt stimulus
* Critical sensitive period
* Establishes a preference or avoidance (e.g. to avoid mating with siblings)
* Irreversible (?)
* Stress increases strength of imprinting
social learning and culture
- Transfer of info form indiv. To indiv. Through social learning within and between generation
Must faster than natural selection
evolution of learning
The ability to learn is a trait with an underlying genetic basis
Ability often favoured in environments that change relatively often (no change or constant change = fixed as no point)
Learning from?
Solitary animals - mating/raising young
evolution of group living
- For the ‘good of the group’
- Altruism and cooperation
- Increase the fitness of another individual at a cost to yourself
o Must be a benefit to yourself to do this
inclusive fitness
- What is ‘fitness’?
o Can be achieved in one of two ways
Having your own offspring (direct fitness)
Helping relatives to raise their offspring (indirect fitness) - These together is inclusive fitness
o Must take both into consideration when helping others
Kin selection is….
the backbone of many cooperative or altruistic behaviours
Altruism
Hamilton’s rule (1964)
- Solved the paradox of altruism
rB > C
r= coefficient o relatedness
B = benefit gained by recipient
C = cost to the individual performing the act
People didn’t understand why it would exist for the longest time
Solved this by added in relatedness
- r is very important
altruism
- coefficient of relatedness
- % of genes shared by common descent between 2 individuals:
o Parent and offspring: r = 0.5 (50% of alleles from each parent)
o Full siblings: r = 0.5 (50% alleles from mother and 50% from father are shared)
o Grandparents: r = 0.225
o Uncles/aunts: r = 0.25
o Cousins: r = 0.125
In red squirrels mothers will adapot related orphaned pups but not unrelated ones - Invested interest in genes
maintenance of altruism in non-kin
- Reciprocity: ‘Tit-for-tat’
o E.g. warning calls, grooming - Mutualism: immediate synergistic benefits shared by all individuals
o E.g. group hunting
Pathways to groups
increasing direct fitness
increasing indirect fitness
delayed individual breeding success
Pathways to groups
- increasing direct fitness
o Leads to more fluid groups of non-related individuals
Mother only raises her own young, but benefit of being in a group
Lots of eyes looking out for predators
This means your young are more likely to survive
Doesn’t matter if related or not
