1. Behavior

2. What is behavior?
Behavior can be considered any response to a stimulus.
More broadly behavior can be considered what an organism does and how it does it.
Niko Tinbergen defined behavior as “the total movements made by the intact animal.”

4. Bacterial “behavior”: Quorum Sensing
Aliivibrio vischeri is a bacteria that can either be found free living in the ocean, or within the mantle of the Hawaiian Bobtail Squid.
When large numbers of vischeri are concentrated together within the mantle of the squid, they glow (bioluminescence)
Free living vischeri do not glow.

7. Tropism – Plant “behavior”
Growth in a direction either towards (positive) or away from (negative) a stimulus
Photo- light
Gravi- gravity
Chemo- chemicals
Hydro – water
Thigmo – Touch or contact

9. Animal Behavior What an animal does and how it does it
Includes both motor components and concepts such as learning and memory

10. Every behavior has both an ultimate and a proximate cause
Proximate causes – the stimulus that activates a behavior
Ultimate causes – ask why a behavior originated, what adaptive benefit does it produce?

11. Nature or Nurture?
Which determines behavior, an organism’s genes or an organism’s environment?

12. Nature or Nurture?

13. Nature or nurture?
Both
All behavior is at least in part controlled by genetics and at least in part controlled by the environment an organism finds itself in.
A better question may be to what degree is a trait genetic or to what degree is a trait environmental?

15. Instincts are behaviors that are considered developmentally fixed
All individuals exhibit the same behavior despite environmental differences

16. Fixed Action Patterns
A behavioral act, initially by a sign stimulus, that is unchangeable.

17. Supernormal stimulus

18. Code breaking

19. The Four Questions Proposed by Niko Tinbergen
1. What are the stimuli that elicit the response? (Mechanism)
2. How does the behavior change over time and how is behavior affected by environment? (Development/Ontogeny)
3. How does the behavior impact survival and reproduction? (Adaptation)
4. How does the behavior compare with that of similar species? (Phylogeny)

20. The Four Questions
1. What are the stimuli that elicit the response? (Mechanism)
2. How does the behavior change over time and how is behavior affected by environment? (Development/Ontogeny)
3. How does the behavior impact survival and reproduction? (Adaptation)
4. How does the behavior compare with that of similar species? (Phylogeny)

21. Learning Modification of behavior from experience
Learning can affect the efficacy of instincts

22. Maturation
Maturation refers to refinement of an instinct with age, not with learning.

23. Habituation Simple learning
An organism stops responding to a stimulus if disturbed repeatedly with no payoff.