Behavioral Ecology

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Behavioral Ecology
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Instinct vs Learning

• Instincts are inflexible, hardwired patterns in
  behaviors
• Learning involves the use of environmental
  stimulus to form behaviors
• The better the organisms memory the more
  learning plays a large role in its behavior

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Signals in the Brain

• Lower Brain
• Reacts to the environment, releases hormones and
  neurotransmitters instantly
• Higher Brain
• The source of experience, your thoughtful self
  judgment, etc.
• Many nerves run from the lower brain to the
  higher brain, but few go the other way

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Fight or Flight Response

• When encountered with a novel stimulus your lower
  brain asks three questions
• Where am I?
• Have I been here before?
• Am I OK?
• When the answer is no, the fight or flight
  response kicks in

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Fight or Flight

• Release of adrenaline
• Release of Cortisol
• Increases the flow of glucose
• Helps protect against wounds
• After extended stress, begins the accumulation
  fat
• Shutting down of non-essential bodily functions
• Blood moves away from periphery and towards vital
  organs

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Stressing Out

• The fight or flight response induces stress on
  your system
• Short-term periodic stress is good for your
  system and allows you to set limits, and
  exercise your stress response
• Chronic, extended periods of stress cloud the
  system, making it hard for your body to properly
  react
• Leads to many many health problems

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Chronic Stress

• Imagine your lower brain talking so loud, your
  higher brain doesnt get a word in edgewise
• You are completely under the control of your
  emotions, whims, fears, subconscious imprintings,
  etc
• We are born into stress, and it is only with
  death that we may leave it

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Types of Learning

• Habituation
• Association
• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Observational Learning
• Exploratory Learning
• Imprinting
• Insight

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Habituation

• Ignoring a stimulus because of repeated unharmed
  exposure

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Association

• When an animal makes an association between a
  stimulus and an outcome
• Child abuse victims

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Classical Conditioning

• When a natural response is transferred from an
  existing stimulus to a new one
• Pavlovs Dogs
• Answering the phone at work

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Operant Conditioning

• Using positive and negative feedback to reinforce
  a behavior
• A behavior is weighed by whether the individual
  receives a positive benefit, or is negatively
  impacted
• Trial Error Learning
• What behaviors have been reinforced in you?

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Observational Learning

• Imitating the behavior of others
• Parenting
• Peer Pressure
• Mate Choice Copying
• Fashion

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Exploratory Learning

• Developing a familiarity with ones surroundings
• Knowing what around you
• Using previous knowledge in a similar situation
• Requires experimenting with novel environments

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Imprinting

• An irreversible memory obtained at a very young
  age
• Young are born genetically primed to learn this
  specific behavior
• Mother imprinting by ducklings
• Language learning in humans, and other animals

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Insight

• Using past knowledge to solve novel problems
• Reserved for higher leaning organisms
• Problem solving behavior
• Very hard to study do to the effect of luck

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Types of Behaviors
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Social Behavior

• Solitary
• An organism lives its life alone
• Young are normally abandoned, left to fend for
  themselves

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Social Behavior

• Intermediate solitary
• Young and parents still never meet
• Parents provide young with food and shelter

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Social Behavior

• Semi-Social Behavior
• Parents and offspring life spans overlap
• Parental care for young

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Social Behavior

• Quasi-Social Behavior
• Community care of young
• Sharing of resources between individuals
• Some individuals in a population may not even
  breed

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Social Behavior

• Eusocial
• Only one or two members of a population are
  capable of breeding (kings and queens)
• The rest work to support the colony
• Involves a caste system among individuals

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Altruism

• Forgoing individual needs for the needs of the
  group

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Mating Strategies in Social Groups

• Polygyny
• Few males mate many females
• Males are dominant(?) sex
• Polyandry
• Females are dominant(?) sex
• Selectively choose males
• Monogamy
• One mate per mating season
• Promiscuity
• Variable mate choice