Two types of causes of behaviour

Behavioural biology is concerned with what a living being does, how and why. In the latter, a distinction is
made between proximate causes (what triggers a behaviour?) and ultimate causes (what is the behaviour
for?).

Example: Bird migration. The proximate causes of this observable behaviour are an internal calendar that
triggers departure and external cues such as food scarcity. The ultimate cause is the development of
feeding grounds in winter. Both causes answer the question: ‘Why do birds migrate south?’, but deal with
two completely di erent aspects of behavioural biology.

The two big questions of behavioural biology: is behaviour inherited or learned?

For a long time there was a bitter dispute about whether behaviour is of genetic origin or the result of
experience. Today, the question is mostly known as: ‘Nature or Nurture?’, i.e. genetic or experience-based.
Sometimes this question is still discussed in this way for individual cases of human behaviour.

Example: Are criminals born ‘evil’ or are they a product of their often di cult youth?

However, most scientists agree that the behaviour is usually due to a mixture of predisposition (nature) and
experience (nurture).

Selected experiments and results to clarify the question: Nature or Nurture?

Bird migration - Experiment 1: Inheritance of migratory

activity
Blackcaps (Mönchsgrasmücken) from Germany that migrate
south in winter and those from the Cape Verde Islands that
do not migrate were crossed. It was found that in the rst
winter the hybrids showed about half as much migratory
activity (210 hours of restless behaviour in the cage) as their
parent from Germany.

Bird migration - Experiment 2: Inheritance of the time of

migratory activity
In winter, black redstarts (Hausrotschwanz) migrate to less
distant wintering grounds than common redstarts
(Gartenrotschwanz). Their migratory activity is therefore
shorter than that of the common redstart. Hybrids between
the two show migratory activity during a period that lies
exactly between that of their parents.

Figures from:: Berthold, Peter. Vogelzug als Modell der Evolutions- und
Question: What type of inheritance can be seen here? Biodiversitäts-forschung, 2001

modi ed from RH and Advanced Biology, Kent 2000

fi
ff
fi
ffi
 Bird song - Experiment 3: If you isolate cha nches (Buch nken) from all
sounds, they still start to sing. However, their song (above) di ers from that
of their conspeci cs (below). Obviously at least part of the song is learnt. In
other birds, even isolated individuals sing the same verses as their
conspeci cs.

Certain behaviours and re exes have also been present in humans since birth, but even in adulthood some
innate behaviour patterns can still be recognised.

Task: Think about what could be innate behaviours in humans, discuss with your seat mate and and
write down your ndings.

Question: How can we nd out how much of a human behaviour or a character trait is determined by the
environment and how much by genes?

modi ed from RH and Advanced Biology, Kent 2000

fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fl
ffi
fi
ff
 Behavior: Simple responses

Re ex actions
The simplest type of animal behaviour is a re ex action. This is a type of unlearned behaviour in which a
sudden stimulus such as a change in light level, a change in the tension of a muscle, or a touch on a part of
the body, induces an automatic, involuntary, and stereotyped response (that is, responses to the same
stimulus are always similar). Many re ex actions, such as withdrawal of the hand from a hot object, are
protective.

The gure on the right illustrates the knee-jerk re ex - it involves

the action of only ____ neurons. The simple nervous pathway
that transmits information rapidly from receptor to effector is
called a re ex arc. This type of pathway is adapted for responses
that need to happen as quickly as possible.

Stereotyped behaviour
Stereotyped behaviour occurs when the same response is
given to the same stimulus on different occasions. This
behaviour shows xed patterns of coordinated movements
called xed action patterns (FAPs).
Nest-building in birds, the courtship dance of sticklebacks the
food-begging response of gull chicks, and the suckling
response of newborn babies all contain FAPs.
The simplest FAPs are largely innate responses to
speci c stimuli called sign stimuli. In many types of insect
behaviour, a sign stimulus activates nervous pathways which
make muscles move without any decision-making in the brain.
However, stereotyped behaviour incorporating FAPs is more
complex than simple re ex actions. It can be modi ed by
experience or by the precise conditions in which the sign stimuli
are presented. For example, the begging response of a gull
chick is triggered by the red spot on its parent's beak, but
experiments show that the response varies with the size of the
spot and other features of the beak ( gures on the right).
Similarly, the calls of many birds are greatly in uenced during
their early development by the songs of nearby members of the
same species. Some forms of stereotyped behaviour (for Figure: Feeding behaviour of gull chicks. (a) Normal feeding
behaviour of a chick on the nest. It pecks at the red spot on the
example, the skilled movements of a golfer making a tee shot) parent's beak to stimulate the parent to regurgitate food. (b)
are acquired only after much practice and learning. Laboratory experiments using hand-held cardboard models of
a gull's head compared the number of pecks at each model
with the number of pecks at the red spot model. The feeding
Questions response involves xed action patterns.

1. List the main components of a re ex arc.

2. Distinguish between a re ex action and a xed action pattern.

3. Ground-nesting birds such as gulls and geese retrieve eggs when they roll out of the nest. Egg retrieval
is a xed action pattern (FAP) triggered by the sight of the egg rolling away. Experiments show that the
larger the egg, the stronger the response. Using this information, suggest why a willow warbler may feed
a cuckoo chick in preference to its own offspring.

modi ed from RH and Advanced Biology, Kent 2000

fl
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fl
fi
fi
fl
fl
fl
fi
fl
fi
fl
fl
fl
fi