Chapter 51

Behavioral Ecology

PowerPoint Lectures for

Biology, Seventh Edition
Neil Campbell and Jane Reece

Lectures by Chris Romero

Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings
 Ethology

• The study of ethology is a field of biology that focuses on the

behaviors of diverse organisms in their natural environment.
• Broadly speaking, animal behavior includes all the ways animals
interact with other members of their species, with organisms of
other species, and with their environment.

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 • Behavior can also be defined more narrowly as a change in the
activity of an organism in response to a stimulus, an external or
internal cue or combination of cues.
• For example, when presented with food (the stimulus), a dog will
drool.

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 Fixed Action Patterns

• A fixed action pattern (FAP) is a sequence of unlearned,

innate behaviors that is unchangeable. Once initiated, it is
usually carried to completion.
• A FAP is triggered by an external sensory stimulus known as a
sign stimulus.
• For example, in the spring, male sticklebacks fish change color,
establish a territory and build a nest. They attack other male
sticklebacks that enter their territory.
– Research by Niko Tinbergen showed that male sticklebacks
automatically attack any intruders that exhibit a red belly.
– When presented with unrealistic models, as long as some
red is present, the attack behavior occurs.

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Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings
 • Another example of FAP is observed in the egg-retrieval
behavior of the graylag goose.
• Like many ground-nesting birds, if an egg becomes displaced
from the nest, the greylag rolls it back to the nest with its beak.
The sight of the displaced egg is the sign stimulus and elicits the
egg-retrieval behavior.
• If the egg is removed from the goose during the performance of
egg-rolling, the bird often continues with the behavior, pulling its
head back as if an imaginary egg is still being maneuvered by
the underside of its beak.
• The greylag will even attempt to retrieve other egg-shaped
objects such as a golf ball and door knob.

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Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings
 Imprinting

• Imprinting refers to a critical period of time early in an animal’s

life when it forms attachments and develops a concept of its own
identity.
• Imprinting can occur only during a specific period of time during
which certain behaviors can be learned.
• Austrian naturalist Konrad Lorenz became the first to codify and
establish the science behind the imprinting process. He found
that when young birds came out of their eggs they would
become attached to the first moving object they encountered.
Usually it would be their mother that they imprint to, but he
discovered that they would just as easily attach to inanimate
objects such as a white ball or toy train as long as it was
presented at the right time.

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 • For centuries in rural China, rice farmers have imprinted newly
hatched ducklings to a special stick, which they then use to
bring the ducks out to their rice paddies to control the snail
population.
• In the Nature documentary, My Life as a Turkey, Joe Hutto
documents how a brood of wild turkeys imprinted on him as they
came out of the egg. Henceforth, Joe Hutto became the young
turkeys mother.

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 • Conservation biologists have taken advantage of imprinting to
save the whooping crane from extinction, mostly due to loss of
habitat.
• In the 1940s, whooping crane population was less than 30
individuals, but as of 2010, their numbers are estimated to be
somewhere around 500 to 600. This success is partly due to
how whooping crane chicks are raised in captivity.
• From the moment the eggs hatch, handlers wear white gowns
and masks so that the birds imprint on something resembling an
adult crane. Using crane puppets and MP3 devices that play
recordings of whooping crane calls, the handlers teach the
chicks to eat, and lead them on walks for exercise.

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 Imprinting Whooping Crane

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 Movements

• Movements in animals can be categorized as directed

movements or kinesis.
• Directed movement is purposeful and intentional, moving toward
a goal.
• Kinesis is random movement that is initiated by a stimulus. For
example, in sow bugs, humidity is the stimulus. If humidity is
low, they will move faster whereas if humidity is high, they will
move less or stop moving completely.
• In other words, dry conditions stimulate sow bugs to move
randomly and rapidly whereas moist conditions causes them to
move less and slower or stop moving completely.

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Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings
 Taxis

• Taxis is purposeful or intentional movement, moving either away or

toward the stimulus. It is an automatic or innate response to the
stimulus. There are many different kinds of taxis including the
following:
– Phototaxis which is movement toward or away from light.
Some moth exhibit positive phototaxis as they generally fly
toward light whereas cockroaches exhibit negative phototaxis
as they generally scurry away from light.
– Rheotaxis which is movement toward a current or upstream of
a current. Fishes like salmons and zebra will position their
body to face the current. It’s believe their lateral lines is
involved in this behavior.
– Chemotaxis which is movement toward or away from an
attractant or repellent. The bacteria E. coli have been observed
to show chemotaxis for the sugar lactose.
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Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings
LE 51-7b

Direction
of river
current

Positive rheotaxis keeps trout facing into the current, the direction
from which most food comes.
 Genetic and Hormonal Influences on Mating and
Parental Behavior
• Studies of two North American vole populations, the prairie voles
and the meadow vole, suggest that mating and parenting
behaviors are linked to genes and hormones.
• Male prairie voles are generally monogamous and good dads
whereas male meadow voles are promiscuous and more akin to
a deadbeat dads.
• These species are 99% genetically identical except for one key
difference. Prairie voles have oxytocin and vasopressin
receptors concentrated in areas of the brain associated with
reward and addiction whereas these receptors in meadow voles
are more scattered throughout the brain.
• When the gene for these receptors were transplanted into the
meadow voles, they exhibited similar bonding/pairing behaviors.

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Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings
 Innate vs Learned Behaviors

• When we are trying to understand how a behavior develops and

how it arose evolutionarily, one important question is whether
the behavior is genetically preprogrammed or acquired through
learning and experience.
– Innate behaviors are genetically hardwired and are
inherited by an organism from its parents.
– Learned behaviors are not inherited. They develop during
an organism's lifetime as the result of experience and
environmental influence.
• Behavioral biologists have found that many behaviors have both
an innate and a learned component. So, it's generally best for us
to ask, to what extent a behavior is innate or learned?

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 Habituation

• Habituation is a form of learning in which an organism

decreases or ceases its responses to a stimulus after repeated
or prolonged presentations.
• Essentially, the organism learns to stop responding to a stimulus
which is no longer biologically relevant.
• For example, a hydra contracts when disturbed by a slight
touch, but it stops responding if repeatedly disturbed without
further consequences.
• Another example of habituation is when a turtle pulls its head
back into its shell when its shell is touched. After being touched
repeatedly, the turtle realizes it’s not in danger and no longer
hides.

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 Associative Learning

• In associative learning, an animal connects a response with a

particular stimulus. For example, bears might associate garbage
cans (stimulus) as sources of food and thus actively seek out
garbage (response).
• There are two major types of associative learning:
– Classical conditioning in which an arbitrary stimulus is
associated with a reward or punishment. For example, a
dog salivating because it has associated the ringing of a
bell with meal time or food. Over time, just hearing the bell
ringing causes the dog to salivate.
• Classical conditioning basically involves forming an association
between two stimuli (bell ringing and food) resulting in a learned
response.

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 • Operant conditioning is a type of associative learning in which
an animal learns to associate one of its behaviors with a reward
or punishment.
• It is also called trial-and-error learning
• Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through
rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant
conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a
consequence for that behavior.
• For example, if you take your dog’s biscuits away every time it
barks inside the house, then the dog learns to not bark inside
the house if it wants the biscuit.

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Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings
 Mating Behavior and Mate Choice

• Mating behavior is the product of a form of natural selection call

sexual selection
• In most species, mating is promiscuous, with no strong pair-
bonds or lasting relationships
• In polygyny, one male mates with many females. In such
cases, the males are often more showy and larger than the
females
• In polyandrous systems, one female mates with many males
– The females are often more showy than the males

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LE 51-25b

Among polygynous species, such as elk, the male (left) is

often highly ornamented.
LE 51-25c

In polyandrous species, such as these Wilson’s phalaropes,

females (top) are generally more ornamented than males.
 Paternal Care

• Among animals that care for their young, it is often assumed that
the mother will raise the young. However in animals in which
there is certainty of paternity (the male is the father), paternal
care of the young is much more likely than if the paternity is in
question.
• Certainty of paternity is much higher when egg laying and
mating occur together, such as the external fertilization observed
in fish and amphibians.
• In species with external fertilization, parental care is as likely to
be by the father as by the mother.

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 • The most famous example of paternal care is that of the male
seahorse, who carried the developing embryo in his brood
(pouch) much like that of a female kangaroo carrying a
developing fetus in her marsupium.

• Other animals with paternal care of the young include the rhea,
greater hornbills, and hardhead catfish.

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 Sexual Selection and Mate Choice

• In intersexual selection, members of one sex choose mates on

the basis of certain traits. Typically this is a case where the
female chooses the male based on his appearance, dance or
singing performance, and other factors.
• Intrasexual selection involves competition between members
of one sex for mates. Typically this is a case where males fight
one another to win the right to mate with all the females within
the group.

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 Altruism

• Many social behaviors are selfish. Natural selection favors

behavior that maximizes an individual’s survival and
reproduction
• On occasion, some animals behave in ways that reduce their
individual fitness but increase the fitness of others
• This kind of behavior is called altruism, or selflessness
• In naked mole rat populations, only one female, the queen, is
allowed to reproduce with several dominant males. Because the
queen can have over 500 pups in her lifetime, this requires that
all of her offspring help with the raising and caring of their
younger siblings.
• Fertile daughters of the queen do not reproduce, yet they help
care for their siblings.
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Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings
 Inclusive Fitness

• Evolutionary biologists coined the term inclusive fitness to

explain the kind of altruism observed in the naked mole rats.
• Inclusive fitness is the idea that an organism can still ensure
it’s genetic fitness or genetic success by cooperating in the
social group and behaving altruistically.
• Inclusive fitness is higher among social animals in which
members of the social group are more genetically similar to one
another. In the case of the naked mole rat, most members are at
least a 50% genetically related to one another as they all share
the same mother.

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 Reciprocal Altruism

• Altruistic behavior toward unrelated individuals can be adaptive

if the aided individual returns the favor in the future.
• This type of altruism is called reciprocal altruism
• An example of reciprocal altruism is cleaning symbiosis, such as
between cleaner fish and their hosts. Cleaner fish remove ecto-
parasites from their host and the host fish allows the cleaner fish
free entrance and exit and does not eat the cleaner, even after
the cleaning is finished.
• The host signals the cleaner it is about to depart the cleaner's
locality, even when the cleaner is not in its body. The host
sometimes chases off possible dangers to the cleaner.

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 Cleaner Fish

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 Social Learning

• Social learning forms the roots of culture

• Culture is a system of information transfer through observation
and teaching that influences behavior of individuals in a
population.
• No other species comes close to matching the social learning
and cultural transmission that occurs among humans.

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 The End

Copyright © 2005 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings