GEEC108 – ANIMAL

ECOLOGY AND
BEHAVIOR
• ECOLOGY (from Greek: oikos, "house"; logos, "study of") is the
scientific study of the relation of living organisms with each other and
their surroundings.
• The word "ecology" ("oekologie") was coined in 1866 by the German
scientist Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919).
• BEHAVIOR - refers to the activities an animal perform during its
lifetime including locomotion, feeding, mating and social behavior etc.
1. Animal Behavior in
General
INTRODUCTION TO
ANIIMAL BEHAVIOR
Animal Behavior
• It is the pattern of activities of an organism in responding to stimuli
• Organism’s behavior is limited by its biological equipment. Not just
endocrine and/or nervous systems, but all parts of an organism are
important in determining behavior.
• An organism with the most complex organization have the most
complex behavior
• Behavior has a biological basis
• It is the product of its genetic composition, the environment in which
the animal functions and the animal’s experience
ETHOLOGY – study of how animals behave in their natural habitat
Natural habitat – the natural area lived in by wild animals, on the
pastures, pens or facilities of domesticated animals
• Ethology plays an important role in the production scheme of the
livestock industry
Ethologist – a scientist who studies animal behavior
INTELLIGENCE
Different species of animals have different abilities to learn. This is
called intelligence. Obviously, the most intelligent animals are in this
order: Humans -> Primates such as chimpanzees -> Ocean mammals
such as dolphins and whales
Among the agricultural animals, the pig is considered to be the most
capable of learning.
Learning in animals comes about through several means.
One is conditioning. This means that an animal learns by associating a
certain response with a certain stimulus.
Example:
Feeding meat with the use of a ringer before feeding
BEHAVIOR
• Behavior – the way in which an animal behaves or performs
• Abnormal Behavior – includes any activity judged to be outside the
normal behavior pattern for animals of that particular class and age,
including the vices, the fixed patterns of activity
• Aggressive behavior – common to animals as part of the
establishment of territorial rights by males, as competition for sexual
favors, fear of the unknown, and as maternal protection of young. In
companion animals, aggression and dominance directed against
humans can also be learned.
• Auditory behavior – the use of voice to communicate is poorly
developed in animals but is used for example in the various voices used
by cattle inducing mooing, lowing, bellowing. It is also used most
extensively by animals in communicating between mother and young
and during courtship.
• Communicative behavior – the behavioral patterns that result in
communication between animals. This includes auditory, visual and
chemical patterns.
• Elimination behavior – the ritual and method of passing urine and feces,
particularly as seen in dogs and cats. This includes searching for the
sites, pre-elimination behavior of sniffing, scratching, etc., posture and
post elimination action such as scratching the ground or covering the
feces with dirt.
• Hallucinatory behavior – behavior which suggest dementia. This maybe
inherent or acquired.
• Feeding behavior (ingestive behavior) – It is the manner in which animals eat
and drink. This includes overeating, inadequate intake of food, predation,
wool sucking, pica, coprophagia, garbage eating and food related aggression.
• Predatory behavior – chasing and killing is commonly displayed by cats in
catching birds and rodents. Dogs, particularly in packs, may show predatory
behavior in threatening and killing livestock.
• Sexual and reproductive behavior – this includes the courtship and mating
act. Much of the behavior is visual including posture, feather fluffing, tail
carriage; some of it is auditory, especially in cats, but chemical
communication via Pheromones is the clincher. Particular breeds of animals
may display a behavior different from other breeds of the species.
• Maternal behavior – the behavior of mother after giving birth to her
offspring. Mother becomes more aggressive and protective of her
young.
• Social behavior – refers to the manner in which animals interact with
each other. Most farm animals are gregarious. Within each group of
animals, there is hierarchy or order of social dominance or the ability
to exert social influence or pressure over others in the group. In
poultry, this is known as the pecking order.
• Allelomimetic behavior – animals of a species tend to do the same
thing at the same time
• Maladaptive behavior – animals that cannot adapt to their
environment exhibit appropriate or unusual behavior
• Investigative behavior
• Shelter-seeking behavior
2. Types of Animal
Behavior
COMPONENTS (TYPES) OF BEHAVIOR

Nature/Innate Nurture/Learned
Instinct or genes Experience and learning
Determine behavior Influence behavior
INNATE BEHAVIOR
• Innate/inherent/stereotyped behavior is inborn. It is a sequence of
activities which is predictable, species specific, genetically controlled
and independent of past experience.
Characteristics of innate behavior
1. Pattern of behavior is inherited.
2. It is unlearned behavior
3. It occurs in all the members of a species – species specific and
predictable
4. It is not dependent on past experience as it is an inborn response to
a astimulus.
5. It takes place in individuals even when kept in isolation away from
their fellow members
6. Has high adaptability and survival value
Types of innate behavior
1. TAXIS – the simplest type of innate or stereotyped behaviour. It is an
orientation of an animal (directed either towards or away) in response
to the source of stimulus.
• If the orientation is towards the stimulus it is called as positive taxis
and if it is away from the stimulus it is known as negative taxis
• Taxes are usually named after the stimuli. Hence there are phototaxis,
chemotaxis, thermotaxis, geotaxis etc
2. IRRITABILITY is an excessive response to stimuli
Types of innate behavior
3. KINESIS - a type of locomotory behaviour in relation to the source of
stimulus.
• The animal responds to the variation in the intensity of the stimulus
and not the source of direction of the stimulus.
• To respond to such stimulus the animal only requires sense organs
sensitive to variation in stimulus intensity.
• There are two types of kinesis a. Orthokinesis b. Klinokinesis
• Orthokinesis – a response that involves changes in the speed of
movement of the whole body determined by the intensity of the
stimulus
• Klinokinesis - In Klinokinesis the speed of locomotion remains
constant but the rate at which the animal changes direction depends
on the intensity of the stimulus
Types of Innate Behavior
4. REFLEXES- A simple movement of a part of the animal in response to
a stimulus. It is a quick, innate and immediate response of a part of the
body to an external or internal stimulus, which has great adaptive and
survival value to the organism. Reflexes are inherited and unlearned
behaviour found in all members of the species.
Advantages of reflex
1. Enables the animal to respond immediately to harmful stimuli
hence it has great adaptive and survival value
2. Since many of the reflex actions are controlled by the spinal cord, it
relieves the brain from too much work.
Types of Innate Behavior
5. INSTINCT – the most complex type of stereotyped behaviour which is
unlearned, predictable, genetically controlled and species specific and
it is in response of a sign or releaser stimuli
Types of Innate Behavior
6. MOTIVATION
Motivation is the psychological feature that arouses an organism to
action toward a desired goal and elicits, controls, and sustains certain
goal directed behaviors.
For instance: An individual has not eaten, he or she feels hungry, and as
a response he or she eats and diminishes feelings of hunger.
Motivation may be rooted in a basic need to minimize physical pain and
maximize pleasure, or it may include specific needs such as eating and
resting, or for a desired object.
Conceptually, motivation is related to, but distinct from, emotion
LEARNED BEHAVIOR
Learning can be defined as an adaptive change in individual behavior as
a result of experience. The degree of permanence of newly acquired
learned behavior patterns depends on memory storing information
gained from the experience.
Learning alters the range of behavior shown by an individual, and
allows it to adapt to and control its environment.
Learned behaviors are behaviors that can be changed. Learning is not
fixed, predictable or inherited.
Characteristics of Learned Behavior
1. It is acquired during the life of an organism due to constant experience
2. It is experience dependent and can be modified through experience
3. Learning is flexible
4. Learning behaviour differs from individual to individual among the same species
hence not species specific
5. Learned behaviour is certainly not inherited though the ability to learn is almost
certainly inherited as it is dependent on the development of the nervous system
of the organism which is inherited
6. All organisms from protozoa to humans have the ability to learn at least to some
extent
7. However learning in humans surpasses all other animals .Almost everything we
do has been learned .No other species surpasses the humans in their amount
and range of information that is acquired through learning
Types of Learned Behaviors
1. HABITUATION - Habituation is the simplest and most common type
of learning seen in all organisms as simple as protozoan to as complex
as man.
• It can be defined as the gradual decrease in response to repeated
exposure to the same stimulus if found to be harmless.
• ADVANTAGES OF HABITUATION
1. It saves energy by avoiding unnecessary response: It is a vital
process because without it, the animals bombarded by the
numerous visual auditory, olfactory gustatory and tactile stimuli
from their environment would be in a constant and needless state
of alarm or expectation.
2. Habituation behaviour filters out the multitude of back ground
stimuli that have no important consequences thus leaves the
animals attention free to concentrate on the stimuli which are
essential for its survival and which may be potentially harmful.
Types of Learned Behaviors
2. IMPRINTING - a relatively simple but specialized type of learning that
takes place during critical period or sensitive period early in the life of an
organism.
• It is especially rapid and relatively irreversible learning process that
occurs early in life.
• It involves young animals becoming associated with and identifying
themselves with another organism, usually a parent or some large object.
• It was first described by O. Heenroth and later demonstrated by Konard
Z Lorenz on Goslings and Ducklings which is also called following
behaviour
Characteristics of Imprinting
1. Imprinting will occur only during the critical period of an animal’s life.
• The time of the critical period varies in ducks it takes place from 13-16 hours
of hatching and no imprinting occurs after 36 hours.
• In chicks the critical period is between 5-25 hours after which no imprinting is
possible.
Human babies have a sensitive period that occurs between 18 months to 3
years.
• During this critical period the absence of the mother or a foster care taker
results in behavioral abnormalities later in life, they are unable to show normal
bonding
2. Imprinting is a form of learning behaviour where the young ones learn
to recognize an object or person considering it to be their parent hence
develop an almost irreversible attachment to it.
• Thus imprinting is an innate behaviour but the recognition of the object
is learned. It is innate as it cannot occur anytime during the life of an
animal but it is seen only during a particular period called critical or
sensitive period.
3. Imprinting occurs towards any moving object or person first seen by the
animal. If was first seen in birds but later also observed in fishes and
mammals
4. Imprinting is relatively permanent
Types of Learned Behaviors
3. ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING – has 2 types
A. OPERANT CONDITIONING (TRIAL AND ERROR LEARNING)
- a type of associative learning where particular actions can be
reinforced by providing a reward after successfully completing the
task or a punishment.
- The pioneers in this type of instrumental learning in the laboratories
are E. L. Thorndike and B. [Link]
B. CLASSICAL CONDITIONING - this involves the association of events
over which the animal has no control. It is able to gain predictions of its
environment.
- Ivan Pavlov provided the most famous example of classical
conditioning
Types of Learned Behaviors
4. LATENT LEARNING – a type of learning that occurs without any
obvious reinforcement or immediate demonstration of the learned
behavior.
• Interest in latent learning arose largely because the phenomenon
seemed to conflict with the widely held view that reinforcement was
necessary for learning to occur.
• learning that is not the result of determined effort and is not evident
at the time it occurs, but remains latent until a need for it arises
Types of Learned Behaviors
5. INSIGHT - immediate and clear learning or understanding that takes
place without overt trial-and-error testing.
• A type of learning that uses reason, especially to form conclusions,
inferences, or judgments, to solve a problem.
• Insight learning is based on advanced perceptual abilities such as
thought and reasoning.
• Kohlar’s work on chimpanzees suggested insight learning
Types of Learned Behavior
6. REASONING - the drawing of inferences or conclusions through the
use of reason
• Evidence or arguments used in thinking or argumentation.
• Humans possess the power of reasoning.
• First Known Use of REASONING - 14th century
Types of Learned Behavior
7. COGNITION - the ability of an animal’s nervous system to perceive,
store, process, and use information gathered by sensory receptors
• Problem solving can be learned by observing the behavior of other
animals
3. History and Key
Processes of Animal
Behavior
Why do we study Animal Behavior?
• To learn about the relationships between animals, and their environments
and about the internal processes that govern their behavior
• To establish general principles common to all behavior; they undertake
comparative studies of different species and formulate models that explain
the observed phenomena
• To understand our own species – human brain mechanism and behavioral
biology and evolution
• To maintain and preserve the environment; to investigate behavioral
processes of animals to conserve and protect endangered species
• To gain knowledge about behavior to control economically costly animal
pest
Key Processes that Affect Animal
Behavior
• Mechanism Processes – involve biochemistry and functions of cells, tissues and organs,
and the external factors that affect behavior during the life of the individual animal
• Developmental Processes – involve the manner in which the genetics of the individual
interacts with the environment to produce the physical and behavioral traits of the
organism. These developmental events include a variety of learning experience
• Social processes – includes examining how animals communicate and interact
• Ecological processes (Behavioral ecology) – is the study of functional aspect of
behavior. These processes arise from the interaction of animals with the living and
nonliving environment
• Evolutionary processes – results in behavior patterns that develop over time in a
particular species through natural selection. Evolution by natural selection produces
changes in morphology, physiology and behavior.
History of the Study of Animal
Behavior
• Animals were primary source of food, clothing and materials for tools
and shelter; thus knowledge concerning their behavior was necessary for
successful hunting.
EARLY HUMANS:
More many thousand of years, humans and their ancestors were hunters
and meat eaters. Early hominids and the first homo erectus practiced a
crude variety of hunting.
Early homo sapiens must have been keen observers of animal habits and
characteristics. They needed to be familiar with the behavior of animals,
not only to know where and how to hunt their prey, but also to protect
themselves from potential predators.
History of the Study of Animal
Behavior
CLASSICAL WORLD
• Interest in animal behavior in the classical world stemmed from curiosity
about natural phenomena and a desire to record and categorize observations.
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) wrote ten volumes on the natural history of animals,
in which we note the first extensive use of observational method. Also,
Roman naturalist Pliny (A.D. 23-79) made extensive observations of the
natural world.
• Early scholars attempted to record what they observed in the world around
them. Their perceptions of behavior were often colored by the lack of full
knowledge about what was taking place, or by biases based on religion or
philosophy. However, these observations served as t he basis for human
understanding of the natural world for many centuries.