BIOL3046 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Umwelt, Sense
5 Jul 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Animal Behaviour BIOL3046 460381099
Lecture 15: Sensory Ecology.
• The way in which animals acquire, possess and respond to information from the
environment.
• Organisms and their sensory systems have evolved so that maximisation of the animal’s
fitness is maintained.
• The world we experience is very different to the world that it is. Each organism
experiences a different and unique perceptual world, known as an ‘umwelt’ as a result
of its sensory apparatus.
• Five senses can be divided into two categories: Physical contact between environment
and the individual (touch and taste) and remote detection (smell, hearing and sight).
Touch
• More of brain devoted to touch stimuli from the genitals, lips, tongue, hands, face and
feet than the rest of the body.
• Areas of the brain are use dependent. Example: In monkeys there is preferential use of
specific fingers doubling their cortical representation (funny image of blown up hands).
• Touch is particularly important in nocturnal animals as animals devote a large amount of
brain to processing touch information. Example: Mice have a huge number of receptors
in their nose and whiskers. Star nosed mole has a supersensitive nose.
Taste
• Works in conjunction with smell (with smell receptors > taste receptors).
• Detection of salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami (glutamate receptors, detects meat-
like tastes).
• Receptors (30-100) are positioned in tastebuds on the tongue (in humans). However, the
location of these taste receptors differ throughout humans. Example: Catfish have
barbels on the outside of their body for use as a super taster.
• Experience increases taste sense and you lose taste as you get older.
• The whole system is biased towards detecting potential poisons.
Document Summary
Touch: more of brain devoted to touch stimuli from the genitals, lips, tongue, hands, face and feet than the rest of the body, areas of the brain are use dependent. Example: mice have a huge number of receptors in their nose and whiskers. Taste: works in conjunction with smell (with smell receptors > taste receptors), detection of salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami (glutamate receptors, detects meat- like tastes), receptors (30-100) are positioned in tastebuds on the tongue (in humans). However, the location of these taste receptors differ throughout humans.
