1. Behavioral Ecology Behavior
What exactly is “Behavior” and “Behavioral Ecology”?
Behavior
All observable or measurable muscular or secretory responses (or lack thereof) and related phenomena like changes in blood flow, surface pigments, etc., in response to changes in an animal’s internal or external environment

2. Animal Behavior Using this definition, behavior is broadly inclusive
Simply like sweating or panting
To more complex like
Courtship
Communication

3. Behavioral Ecology Behaviors are not random
Animals respond in specific ways to specific stimuli in their internal or external environment
For example,
Temperature
Response to predator
Response to hunger
Based on evolutionary history

4. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Background
Darwin (1859), Origin of the Species
Contains many anecdotal stories of animal behavior
Instinct Chapter- suggests ways in which natural selection may have acted gradually to shape rudimentary forms of instinctive behaviors into sophisticated instincts

5. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Background
Darwin’s 4 postulates (review)
1) Traits of organisms vary
2) Variation causes differences in survival and reproduction
3) This variation is heritable
4) Survival and reproduction are non-random
Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871)
First attempt to explain sexual behaviors

6. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Background
But in the 1800s behavior was often anthropomorphized
C.L. Morgan (academic grandchild of Darwin) spoke out against anthropomorphic attributes of behaviors
We should "endeavor to distinguish fact from observer’s inference”
“In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher physical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of one which stands lower in the psychological scale”
Oskar Pfungst’s 1907 study of the performance of Clever Hans- a horse reported to read numbers, spell, and to make calculations
Pfungst used trials in which the examiners did and did not know the answers to the questions
Hans could only correctly answer the questions when his examiners knew the answers
Hans had learned to respond to small involuntary movements of examiners and couldn’t actually read or perform calculations

7. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Ethology
Early-Mid 1900s
Ethology developed
The study of the evolutionary or functional significance of species specific behaviors
Konrad Lorenz
Ethology- study of the evolutionary or functional signficance of species specific behavior behaviors
-Most european scientists like lorenx or tinbergen
Niko Tinbergen

8. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Ethology
Investigated the idea that behavior could be approached evolutionarily
If so, then behaviors could be used to classify animals just as anatomical, morphological or physiological traits are used
i.e., instinctive behaviors are similar in more closely related species and differ more in less related species
But, even though they are similar in closely related species, they are still nonetheless different
Ethologists formed ethograms
A catalogue, list, or inventory of behaviors for a species
This ethogram would then be used to ask questions regarding the adaptiveness or function of the various behaviors

9. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Ethology
Konrad Lorenz
Famous for theory of imprinting

10. Tinbergen’s 4 questions (1963)
Form the basis for how many behavior studies are done today
Proximate causes of behavior
Causal explanations are concerned with mechanisms
How does something work or develop
1) Causation?
2) Development/Ontogeny?
Ultimate causes of behavioral diversity
Functional explanations focus on why these behaviors have been selected
Why did a behavior evolve? Why was it selected?
3) What is the adaptive advantage or function?
4) What is the evolutionary history of the animal which led to this behavior?

11. Tinbergen’s 4 questions (1963)
The four major questions of behavior classified by explanation type: a dog wagging its tail
Type of explanation
Question
Answer
Proximate cause
1a Causation
(physiological)
Sensory cells detect a human companion and the CNS sends impulses that activate the dogs muscles
1b Causation (cognitive)
Dog recognizes the human and decides to wag its tail
2. Ontogeny
Tail wagging is genetically programmed but dog learns to identify his companions
Ultimate cause
3. Function
Taig wagging signals the dog’s friendly intentions toward its social group, fostering its membership and its survival and reproduction
4. Evolutionary history
Long ago, tail wagging occurred sporadically when dogs interacted and overtime was modified into a signal during greetings

12. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Ethology
Ethologists also gave us concepts like
Appetive behaviors
Variable acts or behaviors
Not necessarily the same among members of the same species
For example, how an animal finds food or mates
Consummatory behaviors
Invariable acts always performed the same by all members of the species
Stereotypical behaviors repeated without variation
For example, mating, killing prey

13. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Ethology
Consummatory behaviors tend to be fixed
That is they represent a fixed action pattern (FAP)
A FAP is the behavior produced in response to a specific stimulus, the sign stimulus
The sign stimulus triggers some genetically coded innate releasing mechanism to produce the FAP
Sticklebacks -Stickleback video

14. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Ethology
Another Tinbergen experiment
Red spot on beak of herring seagulls stimulates pecking feeding behaviors by juvenile gulls
Spots of different color do not induce pecking
Movement is also a key stimulus

15. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Ethology
While there are FAPs, there are also modal action patterns
These may actually be more common
MAPs are the mode behavior
i.e., most of the individuals respond to the sign stimulus with a specific behavior, but not all individuals do
There is variation in response to the sign stimulus among individuals
Allows for evolution
Regardless, FAPs and MAPs result in species-typical behaviors
Behaviors broadly characteristic of a species and are performed by all members of the species

16. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Behaviorism
Comparative/Behavioral Psychology also developed in the early –mid 1900s
-Focused on behaviors that could be measured, trained, and changed in individuals (rather than the species)
All behaviors are acquired through conditioning (learning)
Developed to examine environmental requirements for behavioral development in the young
Championed by James Watson
“give me a dozen healthy infants, well -formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take anyone at random and train them to become any type of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggar man and thief , regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors”
Instrumental condition- a response of the animal is rewarded and reinforced with food

17. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Behaviorism
Classical Conditioning- Pavlov’s Dog
Dogs salivate when presented with food
If presented with food and a bell, the dog learns to associate food with the bell
After conditioning to predictive stimulus (bell), salivates at bell
Instrumental Conditioning- Skinner Box
Animal performs a behavior and is either rewarded or punished
B. F. Skinner

18. Ethology vs Comparative Psychology
Started the debate as to whether nature or nurture were more important in producing animal behaviors,
But in fact these two disciplines examine different behavior and very different way
“Nature vs Nurture”

19. But it is nature AND nurture
After 6 days, chicks prefer to peck at the model of their own species
the tendency to peck is probably innate, but the object that is pecked is modified as a result of experience

20. But it is nature AND nurture
Wells 1958
Cuttlefish latency to attack shrimp declines with or without conditioning
i.e. learning can take place without reinforcement
Counters the idea that conditioning is necessary for learning
Not Rewarded
Rewarded
Starved
Counters the idea that reinforcement conditioning is necessary for learning, some times it just takes practice
The interactions between the environment, genetics, and learning is something you should keep in mind throughout this course

21. But it is nature AND nurture
The experiment involved nine independent groups of chicks:
Tested their pecking accuracy in relation to maturity and practice
Chicks were kept naïve by keeping them in the dark

22. But it is nature AND nurture
Problems with ALL behaviors are innate
Genes do affect behavior, but not all behavior patterns are inherited
All animals develop within some environment that shapes their behaviors
Experiments which attempt to deprive an animal of an environment are still presenting an environment where learning can take place
Problems with ALL behaviors are learned
Learning is a process that changes pre-existing behaviors
There are several experiments that show that some behaviors can be learned or “trained” no matter the conditioning
Therefore, all behaviors are a product of both genes and the environment
Nature/ Nutre dichotomies have now really been abandoned

23. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Sociobiology
Developed in 1978
E. O Wilson (U of A graduate)
Merges ethology and social organization
i.e., looks at evolution of social behaviors
How and why certain social organizations have evolved

24. SocioBiology Examples: Why do animals act cooperatively?
Dolphins and other marine mammal act as a group to corral fishes
Cleaner animals
Cleaner shrimp and cleaner wrasse have “cleaning stations” in which they feed off invertebrate parasites on unrelated fishes

25. Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution: Conservation Behavior
The newest discipline to contribute to behavioral ecology: Conservation behavior
“In a world that is patently disturbed and as pristine environments that serve as scientific baselines disappear, it will be increasingly difficult to determine which behaviors are adaptive and which anachronistic.”

26. Keeping Behavioral Ecology Up to Date
Advocates for the application of animal behavior to wildlife conservation problems
Applies behavior to conservation, restoration, and management

27. Conservation Behavior
For instance, determining what habitat animal perceive as risky to reduce human disturbance
Conservation behavior is something we will talk about throughout this course