1	Behavioral Ecology
2	"Behaviour" Behaviour
3	What is Behaviour? Behaviour consists of an animal’s muscular activity that is externally visible But can also be behaviour without movement, such as secreting a sex attractant. We can think of behaviour as what an animal does and how it does it, a definition broad enough to include nonmotor components of behavior such as learning and memory.
4	Behavioural Ecology This is the research field that views behaviour is an evolutionary adaptation to the natural ecological of animals. Natural selection will favor behavioural patterns that enhance survival and reproductive success.
5	Behaviour has both proximate and ultimate causes Proximate Causation: concerned with the environmental stimuli, that trigger behaviour - mechanistic - “How questions”. Ultimate Causation: concerned with the evolutionary significance of the behavoiur - “Why Questions”.
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7	Behaviour results both genes and environmental factors The “Nature-versus-nurture issue is not about either/or, it is about how both the genes and the environment influence the development of phenotypes, including behavioural phenotypes. Example: Fischer’s lovebird and Peach-faced lovebirds
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9	Innate behaviour is developmentally fixed This behaviour is attributed to genetic programming without any environmental influence. How did innate behaviour evolve? Performing certain behaviours automatically without having any specific experience may have maximized fitness.
10	Fixed Action Patterns (FAP) Ethnology- naturalists tried to understand how animals behave in their natural habitats. Karl von Frish, Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen FAP - a sequence of behavioural acts that is essentially unchanged and usually carried to completion once initiated.
11	"FAP are triggered by an..." FAP are triggered by an external sensory stimuli known as ”sign stimuli”. Three-spined stickleback fish.
12	"Konrad Lorenz - grey-lag geese..." Konrad Lorenz - grey-lag geese egg retrieval behaviour.
13	Directed movements Kinesis and taxis.- These are the simplest mechanisms of movement. Kinesis is a change in activity rate in response to a stimulus - For example, sowbugs are more active in dry areas and less active in humid areas. Taxis is an automatic, oriented movement to or away from a stimulus. - For example, phototaxis, chemotaxis, rheotaxis and geotaxis.
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15	"Migration Behavior" Migration Behavior. Migration is the regular movement of animals over relatively long distances.
16	Animal Signals and communication Defining animal signals and communication. A signal is a behavior that causes a change in the behavior of another animal. The transmission of, reception of, and response to signals make up communication. Examples include the following: Displays such as singing, and howling. Information can be transmitted in other ways, such as chemical, tactile, electrical.
17	Visual Displays
18	Chemical Communication Pheromones are chemicals released by an individual that bring about mating and other behaviors. Examples include bees and ants.
19	"Auditory communication" Auditory communication
20	"The Dance of the Honeybee" The Dance of the Honeybee. Bees forage to maximize their food intake. If an individual finds a good food source, it will communicate the location to others in the hive through an elaborate dance.
21	"Learning" Learning The modification of behavour based on specific experiences.
22	Imprinting
23	Imprinting
24	"Spatial Learning" Spatial Learning Niko Tinbergan’s experiments on the digger wap’s nest-locating behaviour.
25	Associative Learning Classical conditioning - learning to associate and arbitrary stimulus with a reward or punishment. - Ivan Pavlov. Operant conditioning - trail and error learning.
26	Practice and exercise may explain the ultimate bases of play Play as a behavior has no apparent external goal, but may facilitate social development or practice of certain behaviors and provide exercise.
27	Cognition and Problem solving Animal cognition is an animal’s ability to be aware of and make judgments about its environment. Cognition is the ability of an animal’s nervous system to perceive, store, process, and use information gathered by sensory receptors.
28	Environmental influences on behavoiur Cost-Benefit Analysis of Foraging Behaviour Optimal foraging theory - an animal’s foraging behaviour is a compromise between feeding costs and feeding benefits
29	"Bass will eat minnows or..." Bass will eat minnows or crayfish
30	Behaviour in an evolutionary context Social behavior is any kind of interaction between two or more animals, usually of the same species.
31	Competitive social behaviors often represent contests for resources Sometimes cooperation occurs.
32	"Agonistic behavior is a contest..." Agonistic behavior is a contest involving threats. Submissive behavior. Ritual: the use of symbolic activity. Generally, no harm is done.
33	"Reconciliation behavior often happens between..." Reconciliation behavior often happens between conflicting individuals.
34	"Dominance hierarchies involve a ranking..." Dominance hierarchies involve a ranking of individuals in a group (a “pecking order”). Alpha, beta rankings exist. The alpha organisms control the behavior of others.
35	"Territoriality is behavior where an..." Territoriality is behavior where an individual defends a particular area, called the territory. Territories are typically used for feeding, mating, and rearing young and are fixed in location.
36	"Drawbacks are that territoriality uses..." Drawbacks are that territoriality uses a great deal of an individual’s energy. In addition, an individual might be defending a territory and die or miss a reproductive opportunity. Spraying behavior is where an individual marks its territory.
37	Natural selection favors mating behavior that maximizes the quantity or quality of mating partners Courtship behavior consists of patterns that lead to copulation and consists of a series of displays and movements by the male or female.
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39	"Parental investment refers to the..." Parental investment refers to the time and resources expended for raising of offspring. It is generally lower in males because they are capable of producing more gametes (which are also smaller), therefore making each one less valuable. Females usually invest more time into parenting because they make fewer, larger gametes, a process which is energetically more expensive, thus making each gamete more valuable. In terms of mate choice, females are usually more discriminating in terms of the males with whom they choose to mate. Females look for more fit males (i.e., better genes), the ultimate cause of the choice.
40	"Mating systems differ among species" Mating systems differ among species. Promiscuous: no strong bond pairs between males and females.
41	"Monogamous" Monogamous: one male mating with one female.
42	"Polygamous" Polygamous: an individual of one sex mating with several of the other sex. Polygyny is a specific example of polygamy, where a single male mates with many females. Polyandry occurs in some species where one female mates with several males.
43	"Certainty of paternity can influence..." Certainty of paternity can influence mating systems and parental care. If the male is unsure if offspring are his, parental investment is likely to be lower. Exceptions do exist.
44	The concept of inclusive fitness can account for most altruistic behavior Most social behaviors are selfish, so how do we account for behaviors that help others? Altruism is defined as behavior that might decrease individual fitness, but increase the fitness of others.
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46	"Inclusive fitness" Inclusive fitness: How can a naked mole rat enhance its fitness by helping other members of the population? How is altruistic behavior maintained by evolution? If related individuals help each other, they are in affect helping keep their own genes in the population. Inclusive fitness is defined as the affect an individual has on proliferating its own genes by reproducing and helping relatives raise offspring.
47	"Hamilton’s Rule and kin selection" Hamilton’s Rule and kin selection. William Hamilton proposed a quantitative measure for predicting when natural selection would favor altruistic acts. Hamilton’s rule states that natural selection favors altruistic acts. The rule is as follows: rB > C The more closely related two individuals are, the greater the value of altruism.
48	"The three key variables" The three key variables are as follows: B is the benefit to the recipient C is the cost to the altruist r is the coefficient of relatedness, which equals the probability that a particular gene present in one individual will also be inherited from a common parent or ancestor in a second individual
49	"Kin selection is the mechanism..." Kin selection is the mechanism of inclusive fitness, where individuals help relatives raise young. Reciprocal altruism, where an individual aids other unrelated individuals without any benefit, is rare, but sometimes seen in primates (often in humans).
50	Sociobiology connects evolutionary theory to human culture