BIOL3046 Study Guide - Final Guide: Fixed Action Pattern, Sphex, Honey Bee
14 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Animal Behaviour BIOL3046 460381099
Lecture 1: Introduction to Animal Behaviour.
Tinbergen’s 4 Questions
Proximate: The cause question: Which stimuli illicit the behaviour pattern and what neurobiological,
psychological or physiological mechanisms contribute or regulate this behaviour?
The development question: How did the behaviour arise during the lifetime of the
individual? How does the environment influence the development of this behaviour?
Ultimate: The function question: Why does behaving in a particular way help the individual survive and
reproduce?
The evolution question: How did the behaviour evolve over the evolutionary history of the
taxon?
Example: What makes bees shake?
Proximate: Wasps make the bees shake, due to predator prey signalling (lets the wasp know
that the group will attack if it lands on hive).
Ultimate: Bees shaking helps repel wasp from vicinity of hive, and it is only wasps which
initiate this response in bees.
Behavioural mechanisms If the behaviour is not beneficial, it is eradicated.
Innate: Born being able to perform behaviour.
Example: Turtle hatchings emerge and head towards light and downhill; Honey bee dance is pre-
programmed; Primate grasp is a reflex.
Learned: Gather behaviour through experience.
Habituation: Reduction in response to repeated stimulus, animal begins to ignore.
Imprinting: Learning that occurs only during a critical period. Process is genetically
determined, but the particular object to be imprinted on is learned. Example: Filial
imprinting where the offspring imprints on parent.
Classical conditioning: The animal learns an association between the two stimuli. Example:
Fish learn that heading towards the light will result in being fed.
Operant conditioning: Learning through rewards or punishment, so animal associates the
behaviour with a result.
Observational conditioning: Learning which arrives by watching the behaviour of others. This
involves imitation. Example: Food aversion from breath of sick rats.
Insight learning: Use of cognitive processes to associate experiences and solve problems.
Example: Crow getting food by figuring out a puzzle.
Fixed action patterns Occur in response to sign stimulus.
• Sign stimulus allows releasing mechanism (neural pathway) to provide a fixed action pattern as a
behavioural response.
• Example: Female digger wasp won’t know how to move grasshopper, if the grasshopper loses an
antennae; Eggs rolling in geese where a slight displaced egg stimulated retrieval behaviour; Sexual
attraction in sticklebacks as females respond to red colour through mating.
• Not all members of the same species display the same fixed action pattern as it is influenced by both
genes and the environment.
• Example: Rat response to stress is dependent on mothering during early life (epigenetics), more confident
rats due to down regulation of glucocorticoid receptors.
Lecture 2: Game theory and evolution of cooperation.
Game theory
• Strategic study of the best strategies for interaction with other parties.
• The prisoners dilemma shows that during single encounters it is best to defect, however cooperation can
emerge because players consider the future and multiple encounters. Computer simulation suggests that
the greatest payoff comes from a tit-for-tat strategy.
Animal Behaviour BIOL3046 460381099
Why do animals cooperate? Requires multiple encounters and animals to recognise each other.
Kin selection: Help those related to you, some of your genes are passed on when they reproduce.
Reciprocity: If individuals have to repeatedly interact with each other, then they can increase their fitness
by cooperation, avoiding punishment for mutual defection.
Example: Stickleback will cooperate if the predator looks like it is cooperating, if not it will only copy its
behaviour.
Spitefulness
• Humans (and even monkeys) have been shown to be spiteful, with cooperation only for an equal reward.
Example: Ultimatum game where individuals would decide to take nothing, rather than taking less than
the other person; Monkeys trade tokens for food rewards, the one with the worse reward will throw it
back and get nothing.
Aggression and submission The hawk and dove simulation.
• Contests or conflict can arise over resources, however many aggressive acts are maladaptive so many
encounters end only in display without physical interaction.
• When two individuals meet, the outcome depends on the genetic tendency to be submissive or aggressive
and the payoff for the attacker depends on the strategy the opponent adopts.
• Submissive individuals do well in populations with many aggressive individuals; Aggressive individuals do
well in populations with many submissive individuals. Thus, a mixture of aggressive and submissive
individuals is likely to be stable.
Evolutionary stable strategies Strategies that cannot be invaded by a new strategy.
• a = proportion of aggressors; s = proportion of submissives. Therefore, s = (1 – a).
• Using the payoff matrix: Resource is worth 40; Cost of injury is worth -60; Cost for displaying is worth -10.
o Payoff a = (a vs. a)(a) + (a vs. s)(1-s)
▪ (a vs. a) = (resource value – cost of flight)/2
▪ (a vs. s) = (resource value)
o Payoff s = (s vs. s)(1-a)
▪ (s vs. s) = (resource value – cost of display)/2
o ESS
=
(Payoff
a =
Payoff s)
to find proportion of aggressors.
Lecture 3: Natural selection, animal behaviour, evolution of honest signals.
Causes of behaviour arise from a combination of proximate and ultimate questions
Proximate: Ontogeny: Occurs due to development of animal or plant.
Mechanism: Underlying trait.
Example: Sweet things taste good, and the memory of pleasure makes people eat chocolate.
Ultimate: Phylogeny: Evolved from phylogenetic traits.
Adaptation: Evolved from adaptation and evolution.
Example: DNA in our bodies shapes our nerve cells to associate sugar with pleasure.
In understanding signals
Springbok: Stotting is used as an “I see you” strategy, honest signal that it is not worth the cheetah
attacking.
Bees: Shaking evolved as an innate behaviour to react to a wasp. Honest signal to warn wasp of a
possible attack (heat and oxygen deprivation).
Butterfly: Colours are deceptive signals that the butterfly is poisonous or has eyes.
Hawk
Dove
Bourgeois
Hawk
Dove
Bourgeois
Animal Behaviour BIOL3046 460381099
Lecture 4: Behavioral genetics.
Pair bonding in voles Behaviour with strong quantitative genetic component.
• Prairie voles (PV) are monogamous, whereas montane voles (MV) are polygamous.
• PV have a much stronger expression of vasopressin receptor (V1aR), due to longer microsatellite which
allows for greater transcription.
• V1aR is involved in dopamine reward pathway, so it makes them feel good when they are cuddling a mate,
contributing to monogamy.
• Evidence: Transferring PV gene into mice makes them more monogamous; upregulation of gene in MV
makes them seek out a mate and become more monogamous.
• This is not common among rodents and mat seem too complex to be controlled by a single gene.
Therefore, it is easier to think that the capability for monogamy is in every vole but the choice to elect the
response is genetically variable so natural selection can act upon it.
Polygyny in fire ants Behaviour with strong quantitative genetic component.
• The monogyny colony has queens BB, while the polygyny queens Bb (as they kill BB).
• Ants homozygous at the GPB-9 locus are monogynous (one queen) while ants heterozygous at the locus
are polygynous (multiple queens – colony budding to become invasive).
• This is because the expression of the GPB-9 protein in homozygous individuals makes workers kill BB
individuals, therefore making the colony monogynous.
Aggressiveness in dogs Behaviour controlled by multiple genes.
• Aggressiveness is made up by growling (1 gene), struggling (1 gene), barking when young (2 genes) etc.
Heritability of a trait
• Can be calculated using h2 = 2(rm – rd). Higher h2 = more heritable = higher genetic basis.
o r = phenotypic correlation; rm = monozygotic twins; rd = dizygotic twins.
• Example: Schizophrenia 0.62; Alcoholism 0.35.
Lecture 5: Kin selection and evolution of social behaviour.
Cooperation: Both parties benefit. Example: Foraging in social insects allow the sharing of information.
Selfishness: Actor benefits, receiver is harmed.
Altruism: Receiver benefits, actor suffers costs. Example: Sterility in social insects as workers do not
breed, but still help the queen.
Spite: Both parties pay a cost, relatives benefit. Example: Worker bees lay eggs, others eat the
eggs, punishing behaviour that is bad for the group.
Altruism In regards to forgoing personal reproduction, to help others reproduce.
• Impossible to explain in Darwinian terms, as any genes that contribute to altruism should not be passed
on. Thus other hypothesis for the presence of altruism are needed.
• Group selection hypothesis: It evolves for the good of the species, however it is not evolutionarily stable
as there will always be some selfish genes so you will always have a balance between altruistic and selfish
genes. Example: Populations regulate their size because it prevents extinction of the group, thus
outcompeting unregulated groups; Reproduction when resources are limited.
• Kin selection hypothesis: Help sibling (of close kin) reproduce, still benefits you as your genes are in the
offspring. When the costs high, more likely to show altruism to highly related individuals. Example: Haplo-
diploid insects. Workers are ¾ related to their sisters, which means they are more related to their sisters
than offspring. Thus, it is better to not personally reproduce but rather help mother reproduce.
Calculating relatedness (r)
• Probability of two alleles being related by decent. Calculated by
where n is the number of steps
from the individual through all common ancestors, back to the other individual being considered.
Document Summary
Proximate: wasps make the bees shake, due to predator prey signalling (lets the wasp know that the group will attack if it lands on hive). Ultimate: bees shaking helps repel wasp from vicinity of hive, and it is only wasps which initiate this response in bees. Behavioural mechanisms if the behaviour is not beneficial, it is eradicated. Turtle hatchings emerge and head towards light and downhill; honey bee dance is pre- programmed; primate grasp is a reflex. Habituation: reduction in response to repeated stimulus, animal begins to ignore. Imprinting: learning that occurs only during a critical period. Process is genetically determined, but the particular object to be imprinted on is learned. Example: filial imprinting where the offspring imprints on parent. Classical conditioning: the animal learns an association between the two stimuli. Fish learn that heading towards the light will result in being fed. Operant conditioning: learning through rewards or punishment, so animal associates the behaviour with a result.
