Principles Of Animal Behavior PDF

PRINCIPLES OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR  “I’ve always felt that the best doctor in the world is the veterinarian for he can’t ask the patient what’s the problem… he just got to know…. Will Rogers  Ethology The study of animal behavior in the animal’s natur...

PRINCIPLES OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR  “I’ve always felt that the best doctor in the world is the veterinarian for he can’t ask the patient what’s the problem… he just got to know…. Will Rogers  Ethology The study of animal behavior in the animal’s natural habitat  Anthropomorphism Attributing human emotions or characteristics to a god, animal, or object  Behavioral ecology studies the interactions of animals and their environments seeks to explain how specific behaviors increase individual reproductive success Animal Behavior  Everything an animal does and how it does it  Reaction of animal to certain stimuli  Manner in which the animal interacts with the environment  Animal Behavior  innate  inherited, “instinctive”  automatic and consistent  e.g. mother, nursing, and survival behaviors  learned  ability to learn is inherited, but the behavior develops during the animal’s lifetime  variable and flexible (through trial and error)  changes with experience and environment Why study behavior?  Evolutionary perspective…  part of phenotype  acted upon by natural selection  lead to greater fitness?  lead to greater survival?  lead to greater reproductive success? Evolutionary perspective  Adaptive advantage  innate behaviors  automatic, fixed, “built-in”, no “learning curve”  despite different environments, all individuals exhibit the behavior  E.g., early survival, reproduction, kinesis, taxis  learned behaviors  modified by experience  variable, changeable  flexible with a complex & changing environment Animal production perspective  Necessary in successful and efficient livestock production (in designing housing, facilities, and equipment)  Managing, raising, breeding, and other components of animal husbandry Goal: “Animals should be housed with a goal of maximizing species-specific behaviors and minimizing stress-induced behaviors” ( NRC, 1996). Types of learning Learning Type Defining Characteristics Habituation Loss of response to a stimulus after repeated exposure Imprinting Learning that is irreversible and limited to a sensitive time period in an animal’s life; often results in a strong bond between new offspring and parents Association Behavioral change resulting from a link between a behavior and a reward or punishment; trial –and- error learning Imitation/Observ Learning by observing and mimicking others ational Problem solving Inventive behavior that arises in response to a new situation  Habituation  Habituation is the loss of responsiveness to unimportant stimuli.  Thisis learned behavior that allows the animal to disregard meaningless stimuli.  “cry-wolf” effect  decrease in response to repeated occurrences of stimulus  ex: falling leaves not triggering a fear response in baby birds Jane Goodall  Jane Goodall's famous studies of chimpanzees depended on the chimpanzees learning to tolerate her presence. At first, Jane Goodall could only study chimpanzees from far away, but she gradually won the trust of the Gombe chimps, enabling her to study their behavior up close. Types of learning Learning Type Defining Characteristics Habituation Loss of response to a stimulus after repeated exposure Imprinting Learning that is irreversible and limited to a sensitive time period in an animal’s life; often results in a strong bond between new offspring and parents Association Behavioral change resulting from a link between a behavior and a reward or punishment; trial –and- error learning Imitation/obser Learning by observing and mimicking others vational Problem Inventive behavior that arises in response to a new solving/insight situation Imprinting  Imprinting is an innate behavior that is learned during a critical period early in life. Once acquired, the behavior is irreversible. Salmon hatch in freshwater streams and migrate to the ocean to feed. When reproductively mature, they return to their birthplace to breed, identifying the exact location of the stream. During early life, they imprinted the odors associated their birthplace.  Konrad Lorenz and his geese  In a classic example of imprinting, ethologist Konrad Lorenz discovered that, during the first day of life, graylag goslings will accept any moving object as their mother. When Lorenz himself was the moving object, he was accepted as their mother for life. Any object presented after the critical period, including their real mother, was rejected.  Attachment is innate and programmed genetically. Konrad Lorenz Critical period  Sensitive phase for optimal imprinting  some behavior must be learned during a receptive time period As a brood parasite, the Cuckoo never learn the song of their species as a nestling. Song development is totally innate. Types of learning Learning Type Defining Characteristics Habituation Loss of response to a stimulus after repeated exposure Imprinting Learning that is irreversible and limited to a sensitive time period in an animal’s life; often results in a strong bond between new offspring and parents Association Behavioral change resulting from a link between a behavior and a reward or punishment; trial – and-error learning Imitation/observ Learning by observing and mimicking others ational Problem Inventive behavior that arises in response to a new solving/insight situation Associative Learning  Associative learning is the process by which animals take one stimulus and associate it with another. Operant conditioning  trial and error learning  associate behavior with reward or punishment  E.g., learning what to eat Classical conditioning  Pavlovian conditioning  associate a “neutral stimulus” with a “significant stimulus” QuickTime™ and a TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor are needed to see this picture. Operant conditioning  Skinner box mouse learns to associate behavior (pressing lever) with reward (food pellet) Classical conditioning  Ivan Pavlov’s dogs  connect reflex behavior (salivating at sight of food) to associated stimulus (ringing bell) Pavlov’s dogs  Pavlov taught dogs to anticipate the arrival of food with the sound of a bell.  He hooked up these poor dogs to machines that measured salivation.  He began the experiments by ringing a bell just moments before giving food to the dogs.  Soon after, the dogs were salivating at the sound of the bell before food was even brought into the room. They were conditioned to associate the noise of the bell with the impending arrival of food. Types of learning Learning Type Defining Characteristics Habituation Loss of response to a stimulus after repeated exposure Imprinting Learning that is irreversible and limited to a sensitive time period in an animal’s life; often results in a strong bond between new offspring and parents Association Behavioral change resulting from a link between a behavior and a reward or punishment; trial –and- error learning Imitation/Observ Learning by observing and mimicking others ational Problem Inventive behavior that arises in response to a new solving/insight situation  Observational Learning  Observational learning is the ability of an organism to learn how to do something by watching another individual do it first, even if they have never attempted it themselves. Killer whale calves continually follow their mothers and try to imitate everything they do. This includes show behaviors. By a calf's first birthday, it may have learned more than a dozen show behaviors just by mimicking its mother. Types of learning Learning Type Defining Characteristics Habituation Loss of response to a stimulus after repeated exposure Imprinting Learning that is irreversible and limited to a sensitive time period in an animal’s life; often results in a strong bond between new offspring and parents Association Behavioral change resulting from a link between a behavior and a reward or punishment; trial –and- error learning Imitation Learning by observing and mimicking others Problem Inventive behavior that arises in response to a solving/insight new situation  Insight Learning  Insight learning is the ability to do something right the first time with no prior experience. It requires reasoning ability—the skill to look at a problem and come up with an appropriate solution. Problem-solving  Do other animals reason? Chimpanzee problem- solving skills tool use crow sea otter  PRINCIPLES OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR Innate: Fixed-action pattern (FAP)  A fixed-action pattern is an innate, preprogrammed response to a stimulus.  Once this action has begun, it will not stop until it has run its course.  This is one of the few types of animal behaviors that can truly be said to When a graylag goose sees an egg be “hard-wired”. outside her nest, she will methodically roll the egg back to  E.g., Egg rolling of geese, the nest using her beak. An egg mating dances of birds outside her nest is the stimulus. She will also retrieve any object  https://www.youtube.com that looks like an egg and once /watch?v=1hoL93tEkrM the FAP has begun, she will continue the retrieval motions until she has completed all the way back to her nest. Tinbergen’s Experiment of Fixed- Action Pattern in Fishes  In spring, male sticklebacks change color, establish a territory and build a nest. They attack male sticklebacks that enter their territory, but court females and entice them to enter the nest to lay eggs. In a famous experiment by Tinbergen, he showed that the stimulus that invoked the response was the color of the fishes’ bellies. Animal Movement-Kinesis Lifting a log in the forest will reveal many insects scurrying around to get out the light.  Kinesis—a seemingly These movements are kinesis. random change in the rate of a movement in response to a stimulus.  When an animal is in a place it enjoys, it slows down and when in a bad environment, it speeds up.  Overall, this leads to the animal spending more time in favorable environments. Animal Movement-Taxis  Taxisis a directed movement in response to a stimulus.  Movement is directed either toward (positive) or away (negative) from the stimulus.  Movement towards:  light is called phototaxis  substance is called chemotaxis Moths are attracted to light; sharks move towards food when food odors reach them by diffusion in ocean currents; trout exhibits rheotaxis  Migration  long-distance, seasonal movement of animals  “migratory restlessness” seen in birds bred and raised in captivity  navigate by sun, stars, Earth magnetic fields  is usually in response to seasonal availability of food or degradation of environmental conditions (they usually occur together) Sooty shearwaters(pictured inset) migrated 40,000 miles a year, flying from New Zealand to the North Monarch Pacific and back. It is the longest animal migration migration ever recorded electronically. Types of animal behavior  Ingestive  Eliminative  Shelter seeking  Agonistic  Sexual behavior  Mother- young behavior  Investigative/exploratory  Gregarious/Dominance hierarchies  Cooperation  Altruistic behavior Ingestive  Includes locating, obtaining, and consumption of food, eating, and drinking  Coprophagy – consumption of feces  normal for the young of most species and helps establish intestinal flora  associated with an animal kept in a barren environment (boredom)  result of various medical conditions (exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, hydrocephalus, and high parasite burdens). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrqRYSvfwhQ Foraging  Foraging describes the feeding behavior of an individual. This behavior is not as random as it seems as animals tend to have something called a search image that directs them toward their potential meal. When searching for food, few fish look for a particular food; rather, they are looking for objects of a particular size that seem to match the size of what they usually eat. This is a search image. Optimal foraging  Natural selection favors animals that choose foraging strategies that take into account costs and benefits. Food that is rich in nutrients but far away may cost too much energy to be worth the extra trip. There are many potential costs to traveling a long distance for food.  Alligator snapping turtle – has a long, pink tongue divided into two segments (resembles a wriggling worm). The turtle will lie completely still on the floor of a lake or river with its mouth wide open. The turtle wiggles the end of its tongue so that it looks like a worm moving through the water. When a fish comes to eat the worm, the turtle’s jaws rapidly close, trapping the fish so that it cannot escape. Eliminative  Refers to urination and defecation  Some animals eliminate at random or in a single area/ location  Ruminants  Deposit their feces at random  Horses  Certain location  Pigs  Near the source of their drinking water  Chicken/poultry  At random Shelter seeking  Attemptto avoid sun, rain, predators, parasites, wind, and insects Agonistic/combat  Fighting behavior  Involves fight or flight and establishment of social dominance  Defense/submission  Offensive/aggression  Escape  Passive activity Agonistic/combat  Associated with survival activities  Acquiring food  Acquiring mates  Acquiring position in the social hierarchy  Acquiring territory  Presence of threats and injurious situation as it becomes fear and pain induced Agonistic/combat  In animal production  Males are more likely to fight than females  Castrated are more passive  Intact males that run together from young age seldom fight  Agonistic behavior  Agonistic behaviors result from conflicts over resources. It often involve intimidation and submission. The battle is often a matter of who can put on the most threatening display to scare the other one into giving up.  Agonistic behaviors can involve food, mates, and territory.  Participants do not tend to come away injured because most of these interactions are just displays.  Agonistic behavior - territoriality  Territorialindividuals defend a physical geographic area against other individuals. This area is defended because of the benefits derived from it, which may include available mates, food resources, and high-quality breeding sites.  An individual may defend a territory using scent markers, vocalizations that warn other individuals to stay away, or actual physical force against intruders. Spider monkeys scream, bark, rattle branches, and even throw branches and feces to defend their territory. Sexual Behavior  A basic instinct  is influenced by other factors such as genetic selection of traits, management practices, confinement rearing, and association with other species including humans  needs to study other areas such as  physiological/endocrinological basis of sexual behavior  social experiences  environmental factors  Courtship behavior  Evident when the animal is in heat  Nosing the area of the vulva  Vocal display  Flehmen reaction in horses and ruminants  Lip curling in males after smelling the urine from an estrus animal  Stamping or pawing  Among farm animals, a mare in estrus shows the most vivid sexual behavior https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDo2aUAxXLU  All livestock and most of the poultry species are polygamous Mother-young behavior  Begins shortly before birth and ends after young are being weaned  Maternal behavior  Deliver their young in a secluded area from the herd  To give time for the newborn animal to identify its mother (imprinting)  To protect their young from predators  Dams are possessive  Mothers can locate their young by smell Investigative/exploratory  Observed in young; curiosity  Explore through smelling, hearing, touching, tasting  Involves exploration of new pasture and investigation of strangers in the herd Gregarious/Dominance hierarchies  They prefer to live in groups/herd  Herd usually with social ranking  Theleader dominant alpha and is one that mates with the female  Used to detect sickness and diseases Dominance hierarchies  A dominance hierarchy (pecking order) among a group of individuals is a ranking of power among the members. The member with the most power is the “alpha” member. The second-in-command is the “beta” member—they dominate everyone in the group except the alpha. Alpha members have first dibs on everything—mates, food, etc. Note: Since there is an order, known by all involved, it reduces the energy wasted and the risk from physical fighting for resources. Dominance hierarchies are characteristic of group-living animals.  Cooperation  working together in coordination Pack of African dogs hunting wildebeest cooperatively White pelicans “herding” school of fish Altruistic behavior  An altruistic action is one in which an organism does something to help another, even if it comes at its own expense.  Kin selection  increasing survival of close relatives passes these genes on to the next generation  Examples: worker bees are sterile, produce no offspring, and play the role of hive defenders sacrificing their lives by stinging intruders that pose a threat to the queen bee. Vampire bats vomit food for group mates that did not manage to find food Animal Handling  Refersto how agricultural animals are touched, moved, and interacted with during husbandry procedures  To avoid stress  Lately another dimension has been added: ANIMAL WELFARE Handling factors  Temperament  Herd versus  Training to adapt Solitary to handling and  Genetic restraint difference  Role of novelty  Handler  Scope of Vision dominance  Noise  Facilities  Flight Zone Temperament  interplay between genetics and environment  highly heritable trait  A major component of temperament is fear; fear is a universal emotion learned in a prey-predator relationship  the “cortisol” level can measure stress; cortisol is a stress hormone concerned with the fight or flight situation  Bos indicus more excitable Adaptive Training and Restraint  stress for both man and animals greatly reduced, lesser manpower needed, less injuries to both man and animals  Using adaptive learning techniques Novelty  anything new or suddenly introduced in an animal’s environment  animals raised in variable environments  flighty ones are difficult to handle when forced, easier when introduced gradually and voluntarily Vision  livestock with wide-angle vision (compared to telescopic); cattle, pigs, and sheep in excess of 300 degrees results: 80% of objects within range become distractions  loading ramps and chutes with solid walls to minimize this fact  sight restrictions lower stressful factors  lighting should be directed to the area not to animals  cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats are dichromats i.e., sensitive to 2 colors namely blue-green and yellow-green, and handling facilities should be in 1 color to aid in training and avoid stress Noise  cattle and sheep are more sensitive than humans to high-frequency noises, cattle are greatest at 8 kHz, sheep at 7 kHz, and humans at 1-3 kHz  animals readily adapt to continuous reasonable levels of sound like whine noise, instrumental music, and miscellaneous sounds; it even promotes weight gain  need rubber stops on clanking metals  finger snapping can even be used to direct livestock Flight Zone  it is the distance for an animal to flee from an intruder; it is the animal’s safety zone.  the zone depends on the tameness or wildness of an animal.  An extensively-reared cattle can go as long as 50 m (164 ft) and for feedlot 2-8 m. Herd Animals  all livestock are herd animals, specifically those important in animal production  when isolated, they can become more agitated, so the necessary remedy is to return them to the herd and let other animals join  in a bunch, observe for the “leaders” whom others follow because in case of a stampede or mix-up, it is easier to control the leaders Genetic Differences  There are breeds that are particularly developed to facilitate handling.  The trait for leanness of meat comes with an excitable nature, so handling them is more difficult, especially at slaughter time Handler dominance  Establish dominance at once  Do not use all available means, including violence  It is also wise to observe behaviors that establish dominance among animals and try to replicate these as a handler inserts in the hierarchy of dominance Communication  We can’t interview our patient  Animals use non-verbal communication  We must understand these signals e.g.  Position of tails and ears  General posture  Hypervocalization  Marking behavior  Elimination of body waste  Communicating with animals require a deeper understanding of the natural environment Chemical communication in animals  Chemicals used for communication are called pheromones.  Chemicals that cause immediate and specific behavioral changes are releaser pheromones (they Female moths emit releaser “release” the behavior) pheromones to attract male moths.  Those that cause physiological changes are called primer pheromones. Ants secrete a releaser pheromone to mark trails that guide other ants to food. Pheromones  Queen bees, queen termites, and queen ants secrete primer pheromones that are eaten by workers. The pheromone prevents development of reproductive ability.  Many male mammals spray urine throughout their territories(especially along their borders) to warn other animals of the same species to keep out.  Pheromones Female mosquito use CO2 concentrations to locate victims marking territory Spider using moth sex pheromones, as allomones, The female lion lures male by spreading sex to lure its prey pheromones, but also by posture & movements Visual Communication in Animals  Many visual displays are observed in animals during displays of aggression (agonistic behavior) or during courtship. Wolves make threatening gestures by Two male Sage Grouse are staring and baring their teeth. displaying for each other to warn Lowering their tails and lying on the other and make a courtship their backs are submissive behaviors. display for the females  Auditory Communication among animals  Sounds are commonly used to communicate over long distances, through water, and at night.  Bird song  species identification and mating ritual  mixed learned and innate  critical learning period  Insect song  mating ritual & song  innate, genetically controlled Tactile Communication Among Animals  This mode of communication involves touch in the conveying of a message and is often used as a greeting. A major form of primate tactile communication is grooming. Communication in Bees  Bees provide an example of communication that involves chemical, tactile, and auditory components.  When a bee returns from foraging, to tell the other bees about his “find”, he dances in a tight circle accompanied by a certain wag that will tell the co-workers where the food is. If the food is farther away, the dance changes to show direction and distance.  In addition, to “sweeten” the find, he will regurgitate a bit of the food to show the other bees what kind of food they will be finding.