ENWC201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Whooping Crane, Circadian Rhythm, Crepuscular
Animal Behavior
• Behavior: the actions or reactions of an organism in response to external or internal
stimuli
• Behavioral ecology:
o The study of
▪ The ecological and evolutionary basis for animal behavior
▪ The roles of behavior in enabling animals to adapt to their ecological
niches
o Various types of behavior
▪ Learned behavior
• Range from simple behavioral changes to complex problem
solving
• Some involve a combination of innate behavior and experience
o Imprinting: learned limited to a specific critical period in lf
end its generally irreversible
▪ Example: whooping crane imprinting:
• On endangered species list
• Only about 200
• Need to establish two other flying groups
• Idea was to take eggs and raise them
• Put them in sandhill cranes nests for them
to raise them (ended this because adults
were’t atig)
• Made a no migratory population in florida
o Failed
o Learned how to hatch them without
them imprinting on humans
o Taught them to migrate with small
plane thing
o About 102 birds
▪ Innate rhythms
• Circadian rhythm
o Approximately one day
o Daily activity patterns of animals with a regular pattern of
about 24 ours
▪ Sleeping, feeding
o Adjusted by external cues
▪ Sunlight
o Nocturnal vs diurnal
o Active around dawn and dusk: crepuscular
• Circannual cycles
o Approx. one year
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