Behavioral Ecology

Behavior is what animals do and why they do it. Behavioral

ecology examines the evolution of behaviors that allow animals
to adapt to and thrive in their habitats.

There are two broad categories of behavior—learned and

instinctive. Instinctive behavior is a pattern passed genetically
from one generation to the next. A spider, for example, never
needs to see another spider weave a web to know exactly how,
where, and when to do it. This information is carried innately
with the spider and allows it to carry out many of its life
processes without ever having to think about them. The
disadvantage to instinct is that is inflexible and does not allow
the animal to change when the behavior is no longer
appropriate. The armadillo's instinctive upward leap when
threatened worked fine until the animal encountered a new
environmental hazard—the automobile. Learned behavior , in
contrast, is the result of experience accumulated and
assimilated throughout a lifetime that allows the animal to adapt
to unpredictable changes.
A behavioral ecologist studies patterns of behavior that fall
somewhere between instinctive and learned. They include:

 Reflex: A rapid automatic response to a stimulus.

Hedgehogs automatically curl into a ball when threatened.
 Conditioned reflex: An instinctive reflex that can be trained
to occur under different conditions. A racehorse will go faster
when flicked with a whip because it associates the whip with its
traditional predator, a large cat, clawing at its back.
 Migration: A seasonal movement to a more favorable
summer or winter environment. One of the most phenomenal
migrations is that of the monarch butterfly, which spans
 thousands of miles and two generations. The young are
genetically programmed to return to the fields their parents left.
 Hibernation and estivation: A state of torpor, or lowered
metabolic rate resembling sleep, entered into by some animals
in order to survive severely cold winters or hot, dry summers.
 Imprinting: Memorization by a young animal of the shape,
sound, or smell of their parents or birthplace during a very brief
period following birth. If the parent is absent, the baby will
imprint on the first object it senses, giving rise to the sight of
ducklings that think humans are their parents or kittens that
have imprinted on dogs.
 Courtship: The special signals and complicated rituals that
allow male-female bonds to occur for mating purposes. These
behaviors assure the intentions and, consequently, the safety of
both partners, who might attack or devour an approaching mate
if the signals are unclear.
 Mimicry: The evolution of a harmless animal to look or
behave like a dangerous animal. The viceroy butterfly mimics
the coloration of the poisonous monarch, which most birds are
genetically programmed to avoid.
 Preadaptation: A mixture of instinctive and learned
behavior. Purple martins who once nested on cliffs have
learned to use human-built structures to extend their ranges.

Behavioral ecologists who study animals closely in natural

settings report numerous incidents of watching them encounter
a new situation and think out a new response. Harvard biologist
E. O. Wilson describes watching several beavers whose dam
had been vandalized come up with a solution to the problem.
Because the water flow was too strong to be stopped by their
instinctive techniques, the beavers came up with a new and
successful idea of patching the dam with gooey underwater
mud and debris. Wilson is convinced that this showed the
beavers' ability to evaluate a problem and solve it with
reasoning.
For many years it has been taboo for scientists to propose the
idea that animals consciously reason. As biologist Jane
Goodall explained, "If you admit that animals have sentience
and emotion, you have to take a long, hard look at how we
abuse them."