E.3.4.

Discuss how the process of learning can

improve the chance of survival
Learnt behavior is a result of experiences in response to changes in the environment.
Natural selection might then favour certain of these learnt behaviours and therefore enhance
reproductive success.

TYPES OF LEARNING

Habituation is a type of learning in which a behavior is reduced when no reward or

punishment follows. Deer become habituated in Canadas National Parks, for example. Deer are
initially frightened by the sound of highway traffic and therefore run from vehicles. Individuals that
habituate, however, learn to feed near highways. Therefore, habituated deer gain greater access
to food and produce more offspring than un-habituated deer.

Conditioning is a type of learning in which an animal associates two separate stimuli and
then modifies its behavior.
(a) Operant conditioning results from trial and error. For instance a fox learns to avoid
electric fencing after it receives an electric shock form the fence. Another example in
nature involves birds that prey on butterflies: birds that can distinguish between edible
and toxic butterflies have a survival advantage. For example, after eating a toxic Monarch
butterfly, a flycatcher feels ill and experiences an unpleasant taste. The flycatcher learns
to avoid monarchs by remembering the butterflys appearance (a visual stimulus) and
associating it with the butterflys toxicity (a chemical stimulus).
(b) Classical conditioning is such as demonstrated by Pavlov a conditioned response to a
conditioned stimulus.

Imprinting is a type of learning of a response during only a receptive phase of life,

usually shortly after birth. For example, ducklings follow the first thing they see that moves--their
mother--when they are born and this helps them to avoid predators. Many mammals also exhibit
this same learning an example are wildebeest (gnu) calves which imprint upon the very first
and nearest moving thing to them, sometimes that can even be a nearby tourist vehicle. In a
famous experiment, Konrad Lorenz divided the eggs of a graylag goose into two groups: 1) eggs
hatched by their mother and 2) eggs hatched in an incubator. After hatching, the chicks that
hatched with their mother began to follow her around. The incubated chicks however, began
instead to follow Lorenz. The sign stimulus for the goslings is any moving object the size of a
mother goose.
All of these forms of behavior improve the chances of survival and therefore of reproduction.