BIO CHP 36

• Main pioneer in the field of animal behavior
• -obseved animals in their natural conditions, then manipulated, or varied the conditions to see how animals responded.

• Proximate: involve physiology; triggering causes
• -hormones
• -messages from nervous system
• -"proximate" means close

• causes linked to survival, reproduction, and evolution
• *eltimate means furthest or utmost

Behaviors are a result of genes, learning, and environment and the interaction among the three

• Reflexes
• action patterns
• orientation behavior: taxis
• Biological Rhythms: internal clocks
• hormones

• Rapid, automtic responses to stimuli
• the epitome of an internal influence
• -animals do not have to learn anything to be able to perform them
• -are sterotyped: performed in exact same way each time by all members of a species

complex behaviors that are always performed the same way by a species of animal

• also sterotyped: repeated same way and performed to completion each time
• ---------------------
• RELEASERS: critical element that triggers an action pattern.
• example: red underbelly of fish will stimulate a threat posture

A genetic predispostion to move twoard or away from a stimulus is called a taxis

can be learned but often have strong gentic component

• ------------TAXIS---------
• positive: moves towards stimulus
• negative: moves away from stimulus

• animals have internal clocks that can:
• -function indpendently of environmental signals
• -help regulate such behaviors as migration and mating

• Circadian rhythms
• -internal cycles that last about a day

(some animals also have annual internal clocks)

Substances that, when released in one part of an organism, prompt physiological activity in another part

can be powerful internal influence on animal behavior

• The acquistion of knowledge through experience
• -yet still always has a genetic component to it

Process of learning that results in one animal referentially associating with another

- young animal learns to associate with a parent figure

-usually takes place during a sensative period (time interval during which an animal can learn to respond to a given stimulus)

some animals live in almost complete isolation from other members of their species

others are never far from other members of their species

• a common feature of social living is the dominance hierarchy:
• -power ranking in an animal population
• -gives thouse of higher rank the ability to control some aspect of the behavior of those of lower rank

• efforts on the part of one animal to keep other animals from entering a given area
• Animals generally are trying to keep members of their own species from entering a given area

either constant or seasonal (depends on species)

• "truly social" species
• -divsion of labor in a population
• -young raised through cooperative care: provided by many members of the ggroupe
• -eusocial species include honeybees, ants, and naked mole rats

• Queen: births all members
• Workers (mainly sterile females): carry out certain behaviors
• -either through environmental conditions (such as a change in the temperature of the hive)
• -or through signals they recieve from the actions of other bees
• Drone: used in reproduction of other hives

Costly or risky behavior carried out by one animal for the benefit or a second

• more closely two animals are related more likely they will act altrusitcally
• -this is because of inclusive fitness: an individual's relative genetic contribution to a succeeding generation

an exchange of altruistic acts by individuals over time

• usually only in species whose member's:
• -depend on each other for support
• -stay together long enough for altruistic acts to be "paid back"

• one simple form of learning
• -reduction in a response based on repeated exposure to a stimulus that has no positive or negative consequences
• -allows an organism not to react to a stimulus

• A more complex for of learning
• -learning to respond to a new stimulus that has been paired with an existing stimulus
• (dog drool, bell, drools with bell)

or trial-anderroring learning

animals learn to associate their own actions with a particular outcome

copying a behavior they are observing in another animal

• animal makes assoiations between objects or events that it has previously regarded as unrelated
• -considered more sophisticated form of learning