Animal and Behavioral Ecology

I. Behavioral ecology—studies how animal behaviors is controlled, and how it develops,

evolves, and contributes to survival and reproductive success.
A. Proximate and Ultimate Questions:
–proximate focus on environmental stimuli, if any, that trigger the behavior, as well
as genetic, physiological, and anatomical mechanisms underlying a behavioral act.
-usu. “how” questions; Ex. How does day length influence breeding by red-
crowned cranes?
-ultimate address the evolutionary significance of a behavior
-Ex. Why did natural selection favor this behavior and not that one?

B. Causes—they reflect fitness in some particular way; behaviors that have evolved.

C. What is behavior/ethology?

*behavior—what an animal does and how it does it

*ethology—the scientific study of how animals behave, particularly in their natural

environments; came to existence in the mid-20th century

-Types:

-FAP/Fixed Action Pattern—a sequence of unlearned, innate behaviors that is

unchangeable; follows a regular, unvarying pattern.

-sign stimulus, Ex. Male stickleback fish defend their territory against
other males. The red belly of males is the stimulus for aggression.
However, as ethologist Niko Tinbergen noted, any object with a red
underside initiates the same aggressive FAP.

-When a graylag goose sees an egg outside her nest, she will methodically
roll the egg back into the nest with a series of maneuvers using her beak.
An egg outside the nest is the stimulus. However, she will also retrieve
any object that resembles her egg, and once the FAP has begun, she will
continue the retrieval motions until she has completed the motions back
to the nest. Even if the egg slips away or is removed, she completes the
FAP by returning an “imaginary” egg to the nest.

-Instinct is behavior that is innate, or inherited.

-In mammals, care of offspring by females is innate.

 -Imprinting is an innate program for acquiring a specific behavior only if an
appropriate stimulus is experience during the critical/sensitive period (a limited
time interval during the life of the animal). Once acquired, the behavior is
irreversible.

-Ethologist Konrad Lorenz discovered that during the first day of life,
graylag goslings will accept any moving object as their mother. When
Lorenz himself was the moving object, he was accepted as their mother
for life. Any object presented after the critical period, including their real
mother, was rejected.

-Salmon hatch in freshwater streams and migrate to the ocean to feed.

When they are reproductively mature, they return to their birthplace to
breed, identifying the exact location of the stream. During early life, they
imprinted the odors associated with their birthplace.

-Cranes also imprint as hatchlings. Young whooping cranes imprinted on

humans in “crane suits” have been taught by these “parents” flying ultralight aircraft along
migration routes. And importantly, isolated young whooping cranes mate with other whooping
cranes, whereas whooping cranes raised by sandhill cranes never formed a mating pair-bond
with another whooping crane.

II. Genetic component

A. Movement (directed)
1. Kinesis—a simple change in activity or turning rate in response to a stimulus.
The animal slows down in a favorable environment or speeds up in an
unfavorable environment. As a result, the animal remains longer in favorable
environments.
- Ex. Wood lice become more active in dry areas and less active in humid areas
b/c they survive best in moist environments.
- When a log or rock is lifted, animals will suddenly scurry about. These
movements are kineses in response to light, touch, air temperature, or other
stimuli recognized as unfavorable.
2. Taxis—an automatic, oriented movement toward (positive) or away from
(negative) some stimulus.
- Movement toward light is called phototaxis; moths move toward light at
night.
- Sharks move toward food when food odors reach them by diffusion or by
bulk flow (ocean currents).
- Trout exhibit positive rheotaxis; they automatically swim in an upstream
direction.