E.3 Innate and Learned Behavior

E.3.1: Distinguish between innate and learned behavior. Innate: Genetically determined/inherited from parents. No environmental input. No learning involved. No modification of behavior. Present in all members of the population. Learned: behavior develops of changed through experience. The animal develops the behavior through trial and error. New behavior developed. Old behavior modified. Specific behavior may not be naturally selected. Individuals of a population may show variation in the behavior.

E.3.2: Design experiments to investigate innate behavior in invertebrates, including either a taxis or a kinesis. Taxis: Planaria move towards food (chemotaxis) and Euglena move towards light (phototaxis). Kinesis: woodlice move about less in optimum (humid) conditions and more in an unfavorable (dry) atmosphere.

E.3.3: Analyze data from invertebrate behavior experiments in terms of the effect on changes of survival and reproduction. The behavior of the animals regardless of whether or not it is taxis or a kinesis moves the animals away from negative stimuli or towards positive stimuli. Having survived to reproduce because of these behaviors the animals reproduce and pass on the genes for the behaviors to the next generation. Conversely, animals whose behavior does not remove them from undesirable stimuli risk a reduction in their fitness, gene frequency for such behavior will decline due to poorer reproduction.

E.3.4: Discuss how the proves of learning can improve the chance of survival. Learning can improve the chances of survival because the innate characteristics can take generations of selection to change. Relying on this long process doesn’t provide optimal chances for survival. On the other hand, learning, the process by which behaviors can be acquired or modified during the course of a life cycles, provides the animal with an immediate increase in chance for survival. However, to become more frequent in the population “learning” behavior must have a genetic component.

E.3.5: Outline Pavlov’s experiments into conditioning of dogs. Pavlov  a Russian physiologist studying digestion When Pavlov presented unconditioned stimuli (original stimuli)- smell or sight of food to the dogs they salivated (their unconditioned original response). Every time Pavlov fed the dogs with food he rang bell, this is neutral stimuli (introduced stimuli). After repeatedly ringing the bell and giving the dogs food, the dogs began to salivate just when they heard the bell. This is a conditioned response, this has now become a reflex and is in response to the conditioning stimuli. In this experiment the reflex of salivation has had the stimuli changed from the smell of food to the ringing of the bell. This provides the animal with a flexible behavior which will allow the modification of the behavior which can improve survival chances.

E.3.6: Outline the role of inheritance and learning in the development of birdsong in young birds. Male birds use song as a means of communication whether singing to attract the attention of females of signaling their territorial boundaries. Each bird song is specific to a specific species. For a few birds to the ability to sing the right song is completely inherited. Most birds, however, are born with a “template song” which is a crude version of the adult song. The immature bird hatches with a template song, then these immature birds develop song through practice. They are forced to learn the song because there are “sensitive periods” when the adult song is required. There are also “silent listening phases” in which the immature bird hears the adult song and begins to be able to execute it as well. The innate part of this is that they are born with template song so that they don’t learn the wrongs species song. The learned component allows the bird to modify the song to the correct local dialect.