Chapter 43: pp.

798 - 818
BIOLOGY
10th Edition

Sylvia S. Mader
Behavioral Ecology
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

a. Fischer lovebird with nesting material in its beak.

b. Peach-faced lovebird with nesting material in its rump feathers.

a: © Joe McDonald; b: Courtesy Refuge for Saving the Wildlife, Inc.

PowerPoint® Lecture Slides are prepared by Dr. Isaac Barjis, Biology Instructor 1

Copyright © The McGraw Hill Companies Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display
Outline
 Nature versus Nurture: Genetic Influences
 Nature versus Nurture: Environmental Influences
 Learning
 Animal Communication
 Behaviors That Increase Fitness
 Territoriality
 Reproductive Strategies
 Sexual Selection
 Sociobiology and Animal Behavior
 Dominance Hierarchies
 Altruism versus Self-Interest

2
Genetic Basis
 Behavior - any action that can be observed and
described
 Nature (inherited) versus nurture (environmental)
questions are still debated
 Genes influence development of neural and hormonal
mechanisms controlling behavior
 Studies on identical twins separated at birth
 Can be used to determine extent to which genes influence
behavior
 Sometimes identical twins are remarkably similar in
preferences, taste, personality tests, etc.

3
Nest Building Behavior in Lovebirds
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

a. Fischer lovebird with nesting material in its beak.

b. Peach-faced lovebird with nesting material in its rump feathers.

a: © Joe McDonald; b: Courtesy Refuge for Saving the Wildlife, Inc.

4
Feeding Behavior in Garter Snakes
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

25
inland
coastal

20

Percentage of Snakes
15

Inland garter snake does not eat slugs.

10

0
0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0
Coastal garter snake eats slugs.
Tongue Flicks per Minute

(Coastal): © John Sullivan/Monica Rua/Ribbitt Photography; (Inland): © R. Andrew Odum/Peter Arnold, Inc.

5
Maternal Care in Mice
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

0.8 fosB alleles

present
fosB alleles
0.6 not present

Pups Retrieved
Proportion of
0.4

0.2

a.

b. fosB alleles present.

c. fosB alleles not present.

b,c: From J.R. Brown et al, "A defect in nurturing mice lacking . . . Gene for fosB" Cell v. 86, 1996 pp. 297-308, © Cell Press

6
The Environment Influences
Behavior
 Some behaviors seem to be stereotyped
 Fixed Action Patterns (FAP’s)
 Originally assumed to be elicited by a sign stimulus
 Increasingly thought to develop after practice

7
Pecking Behavior in Laughing Gulls
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Pecking Pecking
accuracy accuracy of
of newborn two-day old

Mean accuracy of pecking model for all chicks tested

100

Hits (percent)
75

50

25

0
0 1 2 3 4
Days in Nest

8
The Phenomenon of Learning
 Imprinting
 Imitatation of behavior observed during
sensitive period
 Goslings follow any moving object after birth

9
The Phenomenon of Learning
 Song Learning in Birds
 Avian brain is especially sensitive to acoustical
stimuli during a sensitive period
 Social experience appears to have an even
stronger influence over development of singing

10
The Phenomenon of Learning
 Associative Learning
 Any change in behavior that involves an
association between two events
 Examples of Associative Learning
 Classical conditioning
 Operant conditioning

11
The Phenomenon of Learning
 Classical Conditioning
 The paired presentation of two different stimuli
causes an animal to form an association
between them

12
Classical Conditioning
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

saliva at saliva at
sight of food sound of bell only
(unconditioned (conditioned response)
response)

sound of bell
(conditioned
Stimulus)

food
apparatus to
(unconditioned
measure saliva
stimulus)

13
The Phenomenon of Learning
 Operant Conditioning
 Gradual strengthening of stimulus-response
connections
 Trick-training in animals

14
Orientation and Migratory Behavior
 Orientation
 The ability to travel in a particular direction
 Migration
 Long-distance travel from one location to
another
 Navigation
 The ability to change direction in response to
environmental cues

15
Starling Migratory Experiment
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Breeding
range

Wintering
range
Holland

Switzerland

Spain

typical migratory
route of starlings

experimental relocation
of all starlings

flight path of
experienced starlings

flight path of
inexperienced starlings

16
Cognitive Learning
 Observation and imitation
 Insight learning
 Solving a problem without prior experience

17
Animal Community
 Some animals are largely solitary and join
with a member of the opposite sex only to
reproduce.
 Others pair, bond, and cooperate in raising
offspring.
 Society members are organized in a
cooperative manner extending beyond
sexual or parental behavior

18
Communicative Behavior
 Communication is an action by a sender
that influences the behavior of a receiver.
 When the sender and receiver are
members of the same species, signals will
benefit both the sender and the receiver.

19
Communicative Behavior
 Chemical Communication
 Pheromones are chemical signals that are
passed between members of the same
species

20
Use of a Pheromone
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

© Gregory G. Dimijian/Photo Researchers, Inc.

21
Communicative Behavior
 Auditory communication
 Faster than chemical communication
 Can be modified by loudness, pattern, repetition, and
duration

22
Auditory Communication
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

a.

8 8

Frequency (kilocycles
Frequency (kilocycles

7 7
6 6

per second)
per second)

5 5
4 4
3 3
2 2
1 1
0 0
0.5 Seconds 0.5 Seconds
Eagle Leopard
b.
(Main): © Arco Images/GmbH/Alamy; (Inset): © Fritz Polking/Visuals Unlimited

23
Communicative Behavior
 Visual communication
 Allows animals to signal others without
chemical or auditory messages
 Visual signals are most often used
 By species that are active during the day
 In contests between males who make use of
threat postures
 To establish dominance

24
Fireflies Use Visual Communication
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

6.

1.

7.

2.

8.
3.

9.

4.

5.

(Firefly): © Phil Degginger/Alamy; (Trees): © PhotoLink

25
Male Baboon Displaying Full Threat
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

© Image Source/PunchStock

26
Communicative Behavior
 Tactile Communication
 Occurs when one animal touches another
 Gull chicks peck at the parent’s beak in order
to induce the parent to feed them
 Foraging honeybees use tactile communication
to impart information about the environment
 Honeybees return to the hive and perform a waggle
dance
 The dance indicates the distance and direction of a

food source

27
Communication Among Bees
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

40o

40o

a.

b.
© OSF/Animals Animals/Earth Scenes

28
Behavioral Ecology
 Behavior is subject to natural selection
 Behavior has a genetic basis
 Some behaviors lead to increased survival and
number of offspring
 Behaviors of animals we observe today
has adaptive value

29
Territoriality
 Territoriality is protecting an area against other
individuals
 Male gibbons maintain their territory by singing and
fight to defend their territory
 Defending a territory costs energy
 Benefits of territoriality include a source of food, the
right to one or more females, a place to rear young,
and a place providing protection from predators
 Territoriality is more likely to occur during times of
reproduction

30
Male and Female Gibbons
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

© Nicole Duplaix/Peter Arnold, Inc.

31
Foraging for Food
 Animals must acquire a food source that will
provide more energy than the effort of acquiring
the food
 The optimal foraging model states that it is
adaptive for foraging behavior to be as
energetically efficient as possible

32
Foraging for Food
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Number of Mussels Eaten per Day

6.0
6
Energy Gain (J/s)

5
4.0 4
3
2.0 2
1
0
0 10 20 30 40 50
Length of Mussel (mm)

33
Reproductive Strategies
 Polygamy
 Males mate with multiple females
 Females invest more in the offspring
 Polyandry
 One female mates with more than one male
 The environment cannot support several young
 Monogamy
 One male mates with one female
 Occurs when males have limited mating opportunities,
territoriality exists, and the male is certain the offspring
are his
34
Polygamy in Hamadryas Baboons
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

© Thomas Dobner 2006/Alamy

35
Sexual Selection
 Adaptive changes in females and males
that lead to differential reproductive
success
 Sexual selection often results in
 Female choice
 Male competition

36
Competition
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

© D. Robert & Lorri Franz/Corbis

37
Animal Societies
 Society - a cooperative organization that
extends beyond sexual and parental
interests

38
Societies and Fitness
 Living in a society has a greater reproductive
benefit than reproductive cost
 Benefits of group living include avoiding predators,
rearing offspring, and finding food more easily
 Group living can result in disputes over feeding places
and sleeping sites
 Dominance hierarchies are a way to apportion
resources
 Higher-ranking individuals have greater access to
essential resources
 Males and females may form separate dominance
hierarchies

39
Altruism versus Self-Interest
 Altruism
 Behavior that involves a reduction in individual fitness
 Loss may be compensated by an increase in the fitness
of another member of the society
 Inclusive fitness includes
 Reproductive fitness of self, and
 Reproductive fitness of relatives
 Genetic relatedness may underlie many/most acts
of apparent altruism
 Reciprocal altruism occurs in groups of animals
that are mutually dependent
40
The Queen Ant
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

© Mark Moffett/Minden Pictures

41
Inclusive Fitness
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

© J & B Photo/Animals Animals/Earth Scenes

42
Review
 Nature versus Nurture: Genetic Influences
 Nature versus Nurture: Environmental Influences
 Learning
 Animal Communication
 Behaviors That Increase Fitness
 Territoriality
 Reproductive Strategies
 Sexual Selection
 Sociobiology and Animal Behavior
 Dominance Hierarchies
 Altruism versus Self-Interest

43
Chapter 43: pp. 798 - 818
BIOLOGY
10th Edition

Sylvia S. Mader
Behavioral Ecology
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

a. Fischer lovebird with nesting material in its beak.

b. Peach-faced lovebird with nesting material in its rump feathers.

a: © Joe McDonald; b: Courtesy Refuge for Saving the Wildlife, Inc.

PowerPoint® Lecture Slides are prepared by Dr. Isaac Barjis, Biology Instructor 44

Copyright © The McGraw Hill Companies Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display