Midterm Review Lecture (2025-10-02) for BIO 331 (Animal Behavior)

In this lecture, we discuss the upcoming two-stage midterm exam and review important topics from each of the previous units.

Topic highlights:

• structure of the two-stage midterm exam
• the different requirements for the different stages of the exam
• the exam schedule
• review of important topics from:
• Unit A: Introduction to Animal Behavior
• Unit B: Behavioral Genetics
• Unit C: Learning and Cognition
• Unit D: Communication (not much time for this one during the review)

Lecture D3 (2025-09-30): Honest Signals, Deceit, and Interspecific Communication

In this lecture, we discuss more complex topics in communication, such as: the quantification of information in multi-modal, multi-channel signals, the shaping of signal characteristics by sexual selection, and the role of cost in the maintenance of honest signals (both for intraspecies communication and interspecies communiction). We also discuss how different methods of communication exploitation that are categorized under deceitful or "dishonest" signaling (both in intraspecific and interspecific interactions).

Topic highlights:

• the complex honeybee waggle dance and the encoding of distance and direction into different features of a "waggle run"
• runaway (sexual) selection as a driver of potentially extreme sexual dimorphism
• examples of sexual dimorphism, both in terms of physical characteristics and behaviors, which impose great costs on a signaler
• re-introduction of the handicap principle for intersexual signaling/mate choice
• introduction of the extended phenotype, which can also be ritualized into stereotypical forms used for communication and mate choice (as in bowerbird bowers)
• discussion of intraspecific deceitful/dishonest signaling using the case of fiddler-crab claw "bluffing" as a motivational study
• discussion of how brood parasites, such as the common cockoo, can exploit responses to supernormal stimuli to place their brood into the nests of other species
• examples of signaling of intent that prevent cleaner fish from being eaten by "clients"

Important terms: encoding, code, bit, information theory, waggle dance, runaway (sexual) selection, honest signal, handicap principle, bower, extended phenotype, dishonest/deceitful signal, fiddler crabs, supernormal stimulus, brood parasitism/common cuckoo/reed warbler, cleaner fish/service/clients

Lecture D2 (2025-09-25): Modes of Communication

In this lecture, we discuss the major modes of communication and spend some time discussing how animals use these different modalities to signal each other. This lecture focuses on a variety of communication mechanisms across the modalities and how they might have been co-opted from existing mechanisms that were adapted for other functions. After discussing tactile, chemical, acoustic, visual, and electric communication, we close with a brief discussion of multi-modal signals.

Topic highlights:

• the four major communication modalities (plus electricity)
• exploration of tandem running as a behavior employing simultaneous bi-directional communication between ants
  • both tactile and olfactory communication
• examples of olfactory/chemical communication
  • discussion of the origins of the "tandem calling" signal as co-option of the poison/venom gland in the sting
  • definition of the semiochemicals: pheromones, allomones, kairomones, and synonomes
  • categories of different pheromones: volatile and headspace, non-volatile and contact
  • cuticular hydrocarbons (CHC's) on insects and their evolution for desiccation mitigation and then communication
• primer and releaser signals
• examples of acoustic communication
  • amplitude and frequency of sound waves
    • complex sound waves are viewed as sums of many different frequencies of simple oscillating sound waves
    • perceived amplitude of each frequency component of a signal varies by frequency
  • stridulation (and scrapers and files)
  • tymbal
  • semantic communication in monkey alarm calls
  • danger of noise corruption in acoustic signals
• examples of visual communication
  • use of color and bioluminescence for both signaling and deception
  • use of countershading and counter-illumination for concealment
• examples of electric communication in weakly electric fish
  • electrolocation and communication
  • comparison to evolution of the poison gland for communication
• multi-modal communication (and redundant signals as a subset of multi-modal communication)

Important terms: communication mode/modality, antennae, semiochemical, pheromone, allomone, kairomone, synomone, volatile pheromones, headspace, contact/non-volatile pheromones, cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC), primer, releaser, fixed action pattern, stridulation, frequency, amplitude, tymbal/timbal, bioluminescence, countershading, counter-illumination, multi-modal communication

Lecture D1 (2025-09-23): Communication and Its Evolution

In this lecture, we will introduce basic theories of communication and the evolution of communication in animal behavior. We focus on the relationship between communications and signals as well as how signals can evolve from cues and then be further elaborated with stereotypy and redundancy (possibly leading to multi-modal communication). This also gives an opportunity to introduce autocommunication, public information, and eavesdropping.

Topic highlights:

• the relationship between a communicating pair of sender and receiver and the signals between them
  • the distinction between a signal and a cue
  • autocommunication
• the evolution of communication/signaling
  • cue ritualization, noise, stereotypy, and redundancy
• visual semaphoring by some animals
• opportunities for exploiting communication
  • public information and eavesdropping

Important terms: communication, signal, cue, ritualization, stereotypy, redundancy, autocommunication, co-option, exaptation, noise, semaphore/sempahoring, public information, eavesdropping, concealment, private information, multimodal communication

Lecture C3 (2025-09-18): Cognition

In this lecture, we address perspectives on animal behavior that explain animal motivation by use of latent, unobservable structures. We start by exploring drive theory and the hydraulic models of drive from early ethology and use that to pivot to an introduction of cognition and the separation of the physical "brain" and the metaphorical "mind." Such a "mind" can do things like: being aware of itself in context of a larger world, be aware of the mind and motivation of others and use this information to drive its own behavior, predict future events based on past experience, and so on. We present cognition as an unobservable mechanism behind behavior, but we also discuss the risks of this approach to confounding proximate and ultimate explanations of behavior as well as the risks of false conclusions about animal intelligence due to a lack of ecological relevance in some standard tests of cognition and intelligence. Ultimately, we recognize that despite the risks, cognitive models can be formative in the process of forming research questions, and they provide one way to incorporate animal motivation into hypotheses about behavior (which would otherwise be difficult to do based on what can be outwardly observed alone).

Topic highlights:

• drive theory and motivational explanations for animal behavior [Chapter 4]
  • hydraulic models of drive
  • displacement behavior, redirected behavior, self-directed behavior
  • repetitive, stereotyped behaviors
• cognition and the mind/body distinction
  • awareness of the "self"
  • theory of mind
  • "mental time travel" / forecasting
• examples of apparently cognitive behavior in non-human animals (note: not an exhaustive list)
  • time–place learning (general test providing evidence of mental time travel/forecasting)
  • gaze following (general test providing evidence of theory of mind)
  • caching behavior changes in the presence of thievery risk (specific example that may indicate theory of mind in some food-caching animals)
  • self and the mirror test (general test for awareness of self)
  • virtual body image in hermit crabs (specific example that may indicate awareness of self/body image in hermit crabs)
• risks of taking an anthropomorphic, cognitive perspective
  • risk of confounding proximate mechanisms and ultimate causation
  • umwelt and ecology; why should a lobster recognize itself in a mirror?
    • are standard tests of cognition/intelligence equally relevant to all animals?
    • do we need different versions of cognition for different umwelten?
  • Morgan's Canon: why prefer a cognitive explanation if a purely behavioral one will suffice?
• risks of not considering cognition
  • no room for "motivation"

Important terms: drive theory, displacement behavior, redirected behavior, self-directed behavior, stereotyped behaviors, cognition, cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, comparative psychology, anthropomorphism, Morgan's canon/principle (law of parsimony), theory of mind, mental time travel, chronesthesia, episodic memory, time–place learning, anticipation, gaze following, self-awareness/theory of self, the mirror test, motivation

Lecture C2 (2025-09-16): Learning in Animal Behaviors

In this lecture, we use the foundations of learning from the previous lecture as a lens to provide perspective on several different forms of complex learning observed in animals.

Topic highlights:

• Complex natural examples of (possible) learning behaviors and how they relate to the basic models of learning
  • trial-and-error learning and relationship to operant learning
  • taste-aversion learning
    • similarities and differences with taste-aversion learning and imprinting and associative learning
    • identification of taste-aversion learning as having a separate neural mechanism (and empirical justifications for this idea)
  • cache retrieval
    • innate-versus-learned explanations for cache-retrieval behavior
      • Reforaging hypothesis
      • Searching-by-rule hypothesis
      • Learned cache retrieval hypothesis
    • innate-versus-learned explanations for cache-pilferage behavior
      • Foraging hypothesis
      • Searching-by-cue hypothesis
      • Observational-learning hypothesis
  • latent learning and cognitive maps
  • social/observational learning and pilferage
  • migration and route learning/teaching

Important terms: trial-and-error learning, taste-aversion learning, cache retrieval, observational learning, scatter hoarding, larder hoarding, reforaging, searching-by-rule, learned cache retrieval, episodic memory, pilferage, latent learning, cognitive maps, social learning, tandem running

LectureC1 (2025-09-11): Foundations of Learning and Memory

In this lecture, we provide foundations for discussing an important form of plasticity in animal behavior – learning. The response an animal has to its environment can be innate, or it can be modified by experience with its environment, resulting either in short-term changes (short-term learning) or long-term changes (long-term learning) with the possibility of very long-lasting changes (long-lasting learning). We discuss the different benefits and costs of these different forms of learning, which will also involve a brief description of the neural mechanisms underlying learning in animals. We then move to methods of measuring learning in behavioral experiments as well as categorizations for different forms of learning. This will allow us to introduce both non-associative learning (habituation and sensitization) and various forms of associative learning.

Topic highlights:

• the costs, benefits, and mechanisms underlying innate behavior, short-term learning, and long-term learning
  
  • protein recruitment vs protein synthesis in neurons
• "learning curve" and "forgetting curve"
• distinctions between learning, forgetting, and extinction
  • long-lasting memory and memory consolidation
• the basic models of learning:
  • imprinting (and critical periods)
  • non-associative learning: habituation (and repetition) and sensitization (and intensity)
    • the combination of the two as information filters
  • associative learning (conditioning)
    • operant conditioning
      • prepared, unprepared, contraprepared animals 
      • reinforcement and punishment
        • both positive and negative
    • classical conditioning
      • unconditioned/conditioned stimulus/response

Important terms: learning/plasticity/neuroplasticity, proboscis extension reflex (PER), forgetting, extinction, learning/forgetting/extinction curve, innate behaviors, short-term memory (STM)/working memory, memory consolidation, long-term memory (LTM), long-lasting memory, stimulus, response, imprinting, habituation, sensory adaptation, sensitization, conditioning/associative learning, classical conditioning, unconditioned/neutral/conditioned stimulus/response, operant conditioning, reinforcement (positive and negative), punishment (positive and negative), prepared/unprepared/contraprepared