Lecture Notes from the BIOL2039 Animal Behaviour module. Covering: Nature Vs. Nurture, Tinbergen, stimulus perception, what is imprinting?, Epigenetics, causation of imprinting, function of imprinting, evolution of imprinting and ontogeny of behaviour.
Animal Behaviour
Causes of Behaviour
Nature Vs. nurture debate
Behaviours separated into instinctual (nature) and learnt (nurture)
Referred to as Behaviourism in the US and Ethology in Europe
In ethology they are Innate (nature) and Acquired (nurture)
Innate – Inborn propensity to behave in a certain way
Acquired – An irreversible change in the response to a particular stimulus, as
opposed to the reversible changes that result from changes in motivation –
characterised by changes in memory of the contiguity of stimuli and of the
consequences of responding to stimuli
Tinbergen’s 4 problems of Biology (1963)
4 ways of asking “why does this animal behave this way?”
E.g. male song sparrows singing at dawn
Causation – what causes the bird to sing? Or, what are the mechanisms underlying
the males singing behaviour? Or, what is the motivation to sing?
Function (survival value) – What is the function of the bird singing and what is it
singing for? What are the consequences of singing for the birds fitness? Does singing
deter male competitors or attract females?
Evolution – How did this behaviour evolve?
Ontogeny (development) – How did the singing behaviour of the bird come about in
the lifetime of an animal?
Stimulus perception: the ethology view
Environmental/ external environment – receptors – nervous system
4 modalities – photoreception, thermoreception, mechanreception, chemoreception
Umwelt (or phenomenal world): different animals perceive the world differently, due
to species specific adaptations
Sign-stimulus – a part of a stimulus configuration
that is external to the animal and relevant to a
particular response – feature A with feature B
provides one sign-stimulus, may be different to
A and C
E.g. male sticklebacks’ breeding morphology of a
red belly + posture – red belly and head down
posture = release threat response on a
conspecific male, not in a female – Red belly and
zigzag dance = release courtship behaviour in a
female stickleback, not in a male
Supernormal stimulus – exaggeration of a sign-
stimulus – increase in efficiency to elicit a
response
Efficacy of sign-stimulus also depends on
motivation to perform behaviour
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