1. KEY CONCEPT Behavior lets organisms respond rapidly and adaptively to their environment. Usually in a beneficial way. Examples?
Pufferfish inflates when threatened
Plant bends toward light
Toad releases poison when grabbed
Cat comes when you use a can opener

2. Behavioral responses to stimuli may be adaptive.
Detecting and responding to stimuli is key to an individual’s survival.
Internal stimuli tell an animal what is occurring in its own body.
hunger
thirst
pain

3. External stimuli give an animal information about its surroundings.
sound
sight
changes in day length or temperature

4. Specialized cells that are sensitive to stimuli detect sensory information.
information is transferred to the nervous system
nervous system may activate other systems in response
Animal behaviors help to maintain homeostasis.

5. Kinesis and taxis are two types of movement-related behaviors.
Kinesis is an increase in random movement.
Example: Pill bugs increase activity as they dry out to find moist areas
Taxis is movement in a particular direction either toward or away from a stimuli
Example: plants growing toward light, deer running away from rustling in the brush

6. Internal and external stimuli usually interact to trigger specific behaviors.
Most behaviors are a response to both internal and external stimuli
Combination, not just one stimuli
External stimuli may trigger internal stimuli.
Green anole reproductive behavior is triggered by internal and external stimuli.
External: males become aggressive and court females
Internal: females release hormones that make females receptive
How could internal and external stimuli cause you to wake up in the morning?

7. Some behaviors occur in cycles.
A circadian rhythm is the daily cycle of activity.
occurs over 24-hour period
run by a biological clock

8. Behaviors may occur daily, monthly, seasonally, or annually.
During hibernation, an animal enters a seasonal dormant state.
What kind of stimuli might trigger hibernation?

9. Behaviors may occur daily, monthly, seasonally, or annually.
During hibernation, an animal enters a seasonal dormant state.
During migration, animals move seasonally from one portion of their range to another.
What kind of stimuli might trigger migration?

10. Circadian Rhythms survey

11. KEY CONCEPT Nature vs. Nurture Debate
Both genes and environment affect an animal’s behavior.

12. Innate behaviors are triggered by specific internal and external stimuli.
An instinct is a complex inborn behavior.
Instinctive behaviors share several characteristics.
innate, or performed correctly the first time
relatively inflexible
Why would instincts be necessary?
Baby Swimming Reflex

13. Many innate behaviors are triggered by a releaser.
releaser is a simple signal
herring gulls chicks and red dot releaser
environmental factors can affect innate behaviors
Ex: Honey Bees

14. Many behaviors have both innate and learned components.
Learning takes many forms.
Habituation occurs when an animal learns to ignore a repeated stimulus.
Imprinting is a rapid and irreversible learning process.
critical period
Konrad Lorenz and graylag geese
Why might this person be wearing this costume?

15. In imitation, animals learn by observing the behaviors of others.
young male songbirds learn songs by listening to adult males
Children learning to talk
snow monkeys and potato-washing behavior…younger teaches older

16. Learning is adaptive.
Animals that can learn can better adapt to new situations.
In associative learning, a specific action is associated with its consequences.
Child with a hot stove
Birds with bad-tasting food
Conditioning is one type of associative learning.

17. There are two types of conditioning.
Classical conditioning: previously neutral stimulus associated with behavior triggered by different stimulus
Ivan Pavlov and salivating dog

18. There are two types of conditioning.
Operant conditioning: behavior increased or decreased by positive or negative reinforcement
B.F. Skinner and “Skinner boxes”

19. KEY CONCEPT Every behavior has costs and benefits.

20. Even beneficial behaviors have associated costs.
The benefits of a behavior are increased survivorship (# of individuals that survive from one year to the next) and reproduction rates.
both increase an individual’s fitness; favored by natural selection
both have costs

21. Behavioral costs can be divided into three categories.
energy costs: energy not available for other tasks
opportunity costs: time spent cannot be used on another task
risk costs: need food but risk getting eaten
Some behaviors seem harmful but are beneficial

22. Animals perform behaviors whose benefits outweigh their costs.
Behaviors evolve only if they improve fitness.
Territoriality refers to the control of a specific area.

23. Optimal foraging states that natural selection favors behaviors that get animals the most calories for the cost.
Ex: Oystercatchers eat mussels…too big and it takes too long and too much energy to open, too small and there’s not enough meat, so the most successful eat the medium mussels

24. KEY CONCEPT Social behaviors enhance the benefits of living in a group
KEY CONCEPT Social behaviors enhance the benefits of living in a group. If you had a choice would you rather live alone or in a group? Why do you think humans live in groups?

25. Living in groups also has benefits and costs.
Social behaviors evolve when the benefits of group living outweigh its costs.
benefits: improved foraging, reproductive assistance, reduced predation
costs: increased visibility, competition, disease contraction
Group living requires learning social structure and membership.

26. Social behaviors are interactions between members of the same or different species.
Animals use communication to keep in contact.
Visual: gestures or postures
Sound: Calls of alarm, distress, mating, etc.
Touch: antennae
Chemical: pheromones

27. Courtship displays are used to evaluate the fitness of a potential mate.
Defensive behaviors are used to protect the individual and/or the group.

28. Some behaviors benefit other group members at a cost to the individual performing them.
There are many types of helpful social behavior.
cooperation
reciprocity
altruism

29. In altruism, an individual reduces its own fitness to help other members of its social group.
inclusive fitness: total # of genes contributed by relatives to next generation
kin selection: natural selection acts on survival of close relatives

30. Eusocial behavior is an example of extreme altruism.
Eusocial species live in large groups of mostly nonreproductive individuals.
haplodiploid species: sex determined by # of chromosomes, social insects (wasps, bees, ants)
Minor worker
Major worker
Queen
diploid species: termites, snapping shrimp, naked mole rats
Eusocial behaviors likely evolve by kin selection.

31. KEY CONCEPT Some animals other than humans exhibit behaviors requiring complex cognitive abilities.

32. Animal intelligence is difficult to define.
Cognition is the mental process of knowing through perception or reasoning.
awareness
ability to judge
ability to solve complex problems
Other factors affecting an animal’s behavior may seem like cognition.
Clever Hans

33. Some animals can solve problems.
Insight is the ability to solve a problem mentally without repeated trial and error.
observed in primates, dolphins, and corvids
chimpanzee retrieving hanging bananas

34. Tool use helps an animal accomplish a task.
some dolphins use sponges to protect and hunt
crows and chimpanzees make probing sticks
capuchin monkeys use rocks to crack nuts

35. Cognitive ability may provide an adaptive advantage for living in social groups.
Intelligence in animals seems to be correlated with two characteristics.
relatively large brains for their body size
live in complex social groups

36. Cultural behavior spreads through a population by learning, not by selection.
taught to one generation by another
aided by living in close proximity
The smartest animal?