SYAMALA DEVI NATARAJAN

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ANIMAL
BEHAVIOUR
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How many of we have keenly seen
around the animals, their
behavior??

Don’t Behave like Animals!!!!

Are Animals meant to behave

rudely, shrudely, Unethical, cruel,
wild, deceive !!!!

Then let's see these quotes

 Few articles based on animal behaviour
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Introduction to Animal Behaviour

• Animal behavior is based on physiological systems and processes.

 A behavior is the nervous system’s response to a stimulus and is

carried out by the muscular or the hormonal system .

 Behavior helps an animal

 Obtain food

 Find a partner for sexual reproduction

 Maintain homeostasis
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Ethology

• Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior, particularly in

natural environments.

• According to early ethologist Niko Tinbergen, four questions

should be asked about behavior:

 What stimulus elicits the behavior, and what physiological

mechanisms mediate the response?

 How does the animal’s experience during growth and

development influence the response mechanisms?
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3. How does the behavior aid survival and reproduction? Survival

value
4. What is the behavior’s evolutionary history?

 These questions highlight the complementary nature of proximate

and ultimate perspectives.

 Behavioral ecology is the study of the ecological and evolutionary

basis for animal behavior.
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Proximal and Ultimate cause for Animal Behavior
• Proximate: Short term, developmental, genetic,  physiological 
explanations

• Ultimate: Long term, evolutionary, adaptive explanations

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Types of behaviour
ORIENTATION( TAXIS
INSTINCT
OR KINESIS
INNATE

FAP’S INSTINCT

RELEASERS

z CLASSICAL
CONDITIONING
BEHAVIOR IMPRINTING
OPERANT
CONDITION
ASSOCIATIVE
LEARNT
LEARNING
SPATIAL LEARNING

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR HABITUATION

OBSERVATIONAL
ANIMAL SIGNAL AND
COMMUNICATION
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Innate behavior –instinctive, doesn’t require learning b/c nervous system paths

are preset
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Fixed action
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pattern
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INSTINCTS
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1. VISUAL RELEASERS
 Orientation: Migration, Kinesis and Taxis
z The position of the sun
,circadian clock, an internal
24-hour clock that is an
integral part of their nervous
system Chemotactic
The position of the North Star
The Earth’s magnetic field.

Phototactic

Sow bug moving under the

leaf moves slowly as
compared to dry air, it
doesn’t go under the leaf to
rest…..!!!!
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Learnt behaviour

 LEARNT

 GENETIC IMPRINTING

 HABITUATION

 ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING

 CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

 OPERANT CONDITION

 SPATIAL LEARNING

 OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING

 INSIGHT

 ANIMAL SIGNAL AND COMMUNICATION

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IMPRINTING
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HABITUATION

Habituation Getting used to a

stimulus which you avoid to begin
with Habituation is a form of learning
which enables animals not to waste
time and energy responding to
stimuli which might be alarming to
begin with but are not harmful E.g. a
bird might fly off when it first sees a
scarecrow, however they soon learn
its harmless and continue to feed

What if the real man comes!!!

When habituated ….. We lose the
stimulus for the alarm and would fall
into danger too.!!!!
Associative learning
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Spatial Learning
In Tinbergen (1951)
experiments digger
wasps were unable
to locate their nest
entrances after he
moved the
landmarks
surrounding the
nests. 2012 Nature
Education

 Observational learning  Operant conditioning

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Inclusive fitness can account for the
evolution of altruistic social behavior
 Natural selection favors behavior that  This kind of behavior is called
maximizes an individual’s survival and altruism, or selflessness
reproduction.
 Altruism can be explained by
 These behaviors are often selfish. inclusive fitness.

 On occasion, some animals behave in  Inclusive fitness is the total

ways that reduce their individual effect an individual has on
fitness but increase the fitness of proliferating its genes by
others. producing offspring and helping
close relatives produce offspring.
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Hamilton’s Rule and Kin Selection

 William Hamilton proposed a quantitative  Natural selection favors altruism

measure for predicting when natural when:
selection would favor altruistic acts among
rB > C
related individuals.
 This inequality is called Hamilton’s
 Three key variables in an altruistic act:
rule.
 Benefit to the recipient (B)
 Cost to the altruist (C)
 Kin selection is the natural selection
that favors this kind of altruistic
 Coefficient of relatedness (the
fraction of genes that, on average, are behavior by enhancing reproductive
shared; r) success of relatives.
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Reciprocal altruism
 Altruistic behavior toward unrelated
individuals can be adaptive if the
aided individual returns the favor in
the future. This type of altruism is
called reciprocal altruism.

 Reciprocal altruism is limited to

species with stable social groups
where individuals meet repeatedly,
and cheaters (don’t reciprocate) are
punished. Reciprocal altruism has
been used to explain altruism
between unrelated individuals in
humans.
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