ASSIGNMENT OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR

TOPIC: APPLICATIONS OF ETHOLOGY

SUBMITTED TO: SIR RIZWAN RASOOL

SUBMITTED BY: USAMA ELAHI

ROLL #: 21662(uni)
1156(clg)

GOVT. COLLEGE FOR BOYS, GRW.

APPLICATIONS OF ETHOLOGY
The study of animals behaviour under natural environment is called ethology.
Natural selection can change the frequency of the observed behaviour and thus Behaviour that increases the
chances of survival and reproduction will become more prevalent in a population.

The environment alters the stimuli and hence the behaviours observed. Therefore, to fully understand behaviours
the conditions under which they are studied should be as natural as possible.
Populations tend to produce more offspring that the environment can support. This leads to competition for
resources and a struggle for survival. Populations show variation in behaviours due to mutation of genes.
Behaviours that improve an organism’s survival or reproductive fitness will be selected for. Therefore, over time
(generations) the frequency of genes for the particular behaviours in a population will increase.

To understand the behaviour is very necessary to actually know about a particular animal and in
this way, we can deal with that particular animal very well and all the process of applying the
knowledge of ethology to the animals for human benefits came under the APPLIED ETHOLOGY.
There are many applications of ethology but some of the most important are as follows:
1)For conservation of biodiversity
 Reducing the decline of species
 The lure of bright light
 Captive breeding and reintroduction
2)To reduce human-animal conflict
 Biological pest control
 Conditioned taste aversion (CTA)
3)Accessing biodiversity
4)To identify ill health in animals
5)To improve animal husbandry

CONSERVATION OF BIODIVERSITY
Variety of life i.e. biodiversity is actually a gift of nature and these various animal and plant species are the product
of evolution which refined through millions of years. But unfortunately, our ignorant activities make some of these
precious species vulnerable, endanger or even extinct and if we did not take this matter seriously then we should
be ready to face the adverse effect such as pollution, global warming, drought, floods etc.
All is not lost and this is not an optimistic proverb in this particular case and we can do many things to conserve
what we lost. And we can do it better with the help of ethology.
For instance, as our beloved mentor, of course, sir RIZWAN, taught us in chapter 4 that animal reintroduction into
the wild after captivity fails due to several reasons such as animal did not learn how to forge, how to dodge the
predator, how to find a mate etc. and all these problems can be solved with the help of ethology.
REDUCING THE DECLINE OF SPECIES
Animal's survival and reproductive success relies on its behavior, knowledge of
behavior is essential in actively reversing the decline of imperiled wild species. Knowledge of behavior can be used
to reduce bycatch of fish species, reestablish breeding populations, or boost reproduction. The state of a declining
species can sometimes be reversed by augmenting reproduction through behavior. By manipulating auditory,
olfactory, and visual cues of animals, biologists can attract animals to breeding grounds or increase the number of
breeding individuals. This method has been applied most successfully to commonly bird populations. For example,
acoustic playbacks have attracted seabirds to historic and new breeding grounds. Similarly, adding eggs to nests of
some male fish species may promote increased spawning by females who prefer to spawn with males already
possessing eggs.

The lure of the bright light

Hatchling turtles move towards the sea as they emerge from the eggs and it is effective
strategy to avoid predation and the motivation behind this particular behaviour is actually the external cue i.e.
LIGHT and this movement is called positive phototaxis. The brightest natural horizon from the perspective of
turtles is seaweed. But the anthropogenic photopollution is really a perilous stimulus for the turtles because they
attract towards these decoys and they got increased predation risks or crushed in the traffic and in short leads to
the decline of the turtle specie. Now we can solve this problem using ethology.
The solution of this problem is as follow:
The hatchling turtles attract towards the short wavelength light waves(blue
light) and persistent light source and we should use the light, large wavelength i.e. yellow colour and intermittent
light sources near the beach or near the sites where these turtles hatch and using this approach we can reduce the
decline of this specific specie.

Captive breeding and reintroduction

Captive breeding and reintroductions of endangered species are becoming
more common and necessary for the conservation of some species. Rearing wild animals in a captive setting
requires behavioral understanding of factors such as mate choice, social structure, and environmental influences
on mating. Many captive breeding and reintroductions have failed due to behavioral deficiencies of released
animals because many times captive animals lack natural parental care or other environmental influences during
critical learning periods. Animals need to learn a variety of behaviors that may be difficult to replicate in captive
settings, including how to forage or catch prey, where it is safe to sleep, how to avoid predators, and intraspecies
relationships and traditions.
The solutions of the above problems using ethological approach is as follows:
First, We should use larger area for
captivation and provide the similar environment that the animals face when they reintroduced like in case of
golden lion tamarins (Leontopithecus rosalia) and this is quite helpful because in this large, similar environment to
the outside world, the behaviour of these animals become stable and we should make this environment as
naturally as we can. For instance, we should not give animals food directly instead of this we should allow animals
to forge and find food themselves. Second, we should keep animals of the same specie in captivation more than
one because animals learn through mimicry and thus, they can learn that a stimulus is dangerous if they observe a
member of their own species acting in a fearful way. And last but not the least, we have to taught animals through
conditioning. We should play sound of the predator of the particular animal in captivation and improve its
response by using the conditioning particularly classical conditional is helpful in this particular case and it may
prove fruitful because when that animal reintroduced then it will be able to avoid predation.

HUMAN-ANIMAL CONFLICT
The animals which directly interferes with the human beings i.e. direct
assault on human or indirectly by destroying their food or their useful items such as furniture, home etc. are the
main causes which lead to human-animal conflict. Human just want no interruption in their lives by someone else
and thus they eradicate these animals and they can follow any means to get rid of them. Many can attempt to use
pesticides to kill them and this is actually not a good solution because we know that it causes pollution and affect
the whole ecosystem in which we have to face the problem but in a new different way which is much more difficult
to handle. So, here again using ethological approach we can extinguish these annoying animals who constantly irk
us such as by
 Biological pest control
 Conditioned taste aversion

Biological pest control

Any animal which directly or indirectly affect human beings is called pest. Using biological
pest control, we can do away with these irritating animals by following ways:
 Directly kill the animal(pest) by using their predator
 Reduce their mating so that less pest produce
 Capture the pest
We all are quite familiar with the control of APHIDS by WASPS. In this situation aphids(pests) attack the walnut
trees and cause huge damage to the plant by removing its nutrients and this is controlled by wasps because wasps
lay eggs directly into the aphids and thus, they die, and in this way, pest population decreases rapidly.

The beetles of the genus Carpophilus is a major agricultural pest in Australia and they destroy the ripened fruits
and a carrier of brown rot. So.it is controlled by using artificial pheromones.

Male Carpophilus releases a pheromone which surely aggregate the members of its own kind and we set there a
trap i.e. a funnel through which beetle can slide through into the water-filled container. We bait the traps with
small amount of synthesizing pheromone and they easily fall victim, and in this way, we can capture the pest by
just using its own communication technique and certainly it is an environment free process.
Using this same technique i.e. through pheromones we can reduce the mating of the pest. For instance, Adult
moths do no harm, the caterpillars do the damage—as the ‘worm’ in the apple. One successful control tactic is to
release synthetic female sex pheromone so that the confused males cannot find the real females, resulting in
fewer fertilized eggs and fewer caterpillars. This mating disruption is used worldwide, for example to protect
apples in the USA, tomatoes in Mexico, and aubergines (eggplant) in Pakistan. The technique has minimal
environmental impact. This is because, in contrast to pesticides, pheromones are species-specific and only small,
non-toxic quantities are used for mating disruption, so only the pest moths are affected. Spiders and other natural
predators and parasitoids are left unharmed, leaving the ecosystem intact.
 Not all pests are small. African elephants raid villagers’ crops in Kenya, prompting novel experiments to
repel them. Ethologist noticed that elephants avoided acacia trees containing beehives. African honeybees are
aggressive and the elephants have learnt to run away from the sound of angry bees. The elephants have an alarm
call, a deep ‘rumble’, which alerts family members to the threat of bees. The farmers and biologists experimented
with a ‘beehive fence’ around the crops. Hollow beehives were suspended from wires between posts and linked in
such a way that an elephant trying to sneak between poles would disturb beehives on either side, causing the bees
to come out and sting. Elephants learned quickly and avoided crops protected with the beehive fences. An
additional advantage was that villagers could also harvest honey and wax from the beehives.

Conditioned taste aversion (CTA)

It is actually a form of classical conditioning in which we associate a conditional
stimulus (in this case, something having negative consequences) with an unconditional stimulus and which lead to
a conditional response. For instance, if some food(unconditional stimulus) is laced with the chemical which causes
sickness(conditional stimulus) then first the animal eat it which is unconditional response but as he get sick it will
never eat that specific food again and in this way, he showed aversion to that food.
In the laboratory E.L. Gill has demonstrated that after just one experience of being fed dead mealworms coupled
with a treatment of 17α-ethinylestradiol (an effective CTA agent), rats became conditioned avoid both dead and
living mealworms for up to 8 weeks.
Now using CTA, we can control the human-animal conflict and also conserve the vulnerable or endanger species.
First, the major reason of killing predators by human is that the predator captures their domestic animals or attack
on their farm and using CTA we can totally divert the behaviour of predators in this case and thus the conflict
resolve, and predators thrive. Second, we want that a vulnerable specie is not captured by its predators and here
again using CTA the predators again change their behaviour towards that particular animal (Prey) and thus, prey
prosper and we conserve it.

ACCESSING BIODIVERSITY
Knowing species richness and abundance in a given area has been an important part of ecology since its creation.
Censusing and monitoring methods can use animal behavior to assess and track the status of species of concern.
Many times, this involves using communication signals or other conspicuous behaviors to locate and count species.
For example, knowledge of behavior can be used to locate birds by their mating calls, count mammals who are
more active during mating season, or track whale vocalizations and dolphin echolocation signals.
Population viability analysis (PVA) can provide important information when assessing the status of a species and
help evaluate conservation priorities. PVA is a process that can help determine the probability that a species will go
extinct within a given number of years.

Identification of ill health in animals

Animal caregivers can recognize the sick one easily through experience but how
he can do it by just observing the animal? Actually, the behaviour act as a reflection of pathology and during illness
the first thing that anyone can note is the change in behaviour. For instance, if a dog shows hydrophobia there is a
probability that it got rabies. If a sheep lame then we should give her analgesic(painkiller) which maybe recover her
gait and if it didn’t then there is a probability that she has some joint injuries and, in this case, analgesics are not an
effective strategy.
Behaviors shown by ill animals are part of a coordinated strategy to fight disease. Heat
conservation during infection is achieved through physiological (vasoconstriction) and behavioral responses
(postural changes). Behavior is an important means of influencing energy expenditure; sick individuals usually
decrease feeding and reproductive activities while increasing time at rest, likely as a means of conserving energy
for the febrile response and for mounting an immune response. Fever occurs in all vertebrates and is thought to
enhance the effectiveness of the immune system and create an environment detrimental for bacteria. Maintaining
an elevated core temperature can involve heat production and conservation. Increased heat production is
mediated through the action of proinflammatory cytokines on the hypothalamus, preventing the compensatory
responses responsible for maintaining standard body temperatures.
Many experiments on laboratory animals have
shown the relationship between cytokine concentrations and other signs of disease such as anorexia and lethargy.
Cytokines are also involved in the onset of depression in humans, which widely overlaps with sickness behavior in
animals. Proinflammatory cytokines, particularly IL-1β, reduce motivation to eat. For example, rats receiving IL-1β
consumed less feed then the control rats. This reduction in appetite helps to promote recovery, Researchers
experimentally infected mice with Listeria monocytogenes and let some consume food ad libitum, whereas others
were force-fed to the level of uninfected controls. Infected mice that were allowed to regulate their own intake ate
only 58% as much as the controls and were much more likely to survive than mice that were force-fed.
Clinicians and
caregivers have traditionally relied on simple subjective evaluations of behavior, but more recent research is
showing that more detailed quantitative assessments are more reliable and more sensitive at detecting disease.
New technologies that allow researchers to continuously monitor feeding and other behaviors have proven
particularly valuable. Researchers have traditionally viewed behavioral changes as simple signs of the debilitative
effects of disease, but more recently thinking has shifted to seeing these as motivated sickness behaviors that
represent a coordinated and adaptive response to illness. Although disease detection is of value, better still are
measures that can be used to identify animals that are most at risk of developing disease in the future. Our hope is
that research will increasingly focus on identifying those measures that better predict the onset of illness in
animals, with the ultimate aim of minimizing or preventing illness.

Improvements in animal husbandry

Breeding and caring for farm animals, called animal husbandry. Using
ethological approaches, we are improving our production in livestock. We use those techniques that I just
described above such CTA to avoid predation, biological pest control to keep the pests away and diagnosis the
diseases if there is and all these activities are accomplished by ethology.
REFERENCES
 Scott, G. 2005. Essential animal behaviour. Blackwell publishing. Pp: 75,77,108 and 122.
 Wyatt, T.D. 2017. Animal behaviour: A very short introduction. Oxford university press. Pp: 75-80
 Weary, D.M., Huzzey, J.M. and Von Keyserlingk, M.A.G. 2014. Using behaviour to predict and identify ill-
health in animals. Americans Society of Animal Science.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_behavior#:~:text=Conservation%20behavior%20is%20the
%20interdisciplinary,%2C%20behavioral%20ecology%2C%20and%20evolution.