Archived lectures from undergraduate course on animal behavior given at Arizona State University by Ted Pavlic
In this lecture, we discuss the upcoming two-stage midterm exam and review important topics from each of the previous units.
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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).
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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
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.
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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
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.
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Important terms: communication, signal, cue, ritualization, stereotypy, redundancy, autocommunication, co-option, exaptation, noise, semaphore/sempahoring, public information, eavesdropping, concealment, private information, multimodal communication
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).
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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
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.
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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
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.
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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
In this lecture, we pivot from describing behavioral methods for disentangling nature (genetics) from environment (nurture) and turn toward more quantitative approaches to assessing heritability and the contribution of genes to phenotype. First, we return to the topic of "heritability" as a measure of the contribution of genetic variance to observed phenotypic variance and define two different forms of heritability – broad-sense heritability (which includes non-additive genetic effects) and narrow-sense heritability (which only includes additive genetic effects). We show how to use parent–offspring phenotypic analyses to measure narrow-sense heritability ("h squared"). As heritability will vary in a population if the corresponding trait is under selection, we then discuss how to use genetic analyses to infer whether a population is at equilibrium or currently in the process of evolving through selection or by other means. This gives us an opportunity to discuss the "Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium" and discuss some practical ways to use it. We then conclude with an introduction to QTL mapping and GWAS for understanding which combinations of genes contribute to a particular behavior (and how).
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Important terms: heritability, narrow-sense heritability, broad-sense heritability, Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, quantitative traits, quantitative trait loci (QTL), QTL mapping, genetic markers, single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), linkage map, genome-wide association study (GWAS, GWA study)
In this lecture, we continue our discussion of the combined role of genetics and the environment in the expression of a phenotype. We start by focusing on concepts from molecular genetics related to testing for the role of a single "candidate gene" using techniques like RNA knockdown. We then consider the role of epigenetics in the expression of a phenotype and discuss DNA methylation, cell differentiation, behavioral epigenetics, and genomic imprinting. Ultimately, this leads us back to seeking methodological ways to identify when a behavior has a strong genetic or environmental basis (before we look into which genes are playing the largest role). So, we introduce cross fostering, twin studies, and common gardening, which are three different ways to test whether a behavior is being determined more by the environment or by the genes.
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Important terms: molecular genetics, candidate gene, RNA knockout, epigenetics, epigenotype, DNA methylation, behavioral epigenetics, genomic imprinting, sympatric, cross fostering, twin studies, common gardening/transplant experiments
In this lecture, we cover foundational topics in modern synthesis of behavioral genetics. The lecture starts with the nature-versus-nurture debate and its historical roots in tensions between American psychologists and European ethologists (fueled in part by geopolitical contexts at the time). Ultimately, we cover the more modern, integrative, "nature-via-nurture" perspective where phenotype reflects effects of both genes (potentially many genes) and their interaction with the environment ("GxE"), and biologists are interested in understanding the relative contributes of both (e.g., with "heritability" quantifying the relative contribution of genotypic variation to phenotypic variation in a population). We then discuss different historical fields that have contributed to the modern synthesis and examples of what they have contributed. That gives us an opportunity to discuss phenomena identified in evolutionary biology that help to explain the counterintuitive observation that, for reasons unrelated to genetic drift, many traits that have an apparent fitness cost are still maintained (or at least not purged) in a population. We close looking forward to a unit on behavioral genetics that will introduce methods that behavioral ecologists use to try to separate genetic and environmental effects as well as quantitative tools for better understanding which genes contribute in complex ways to any particular phenotype/trait.
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Important terms: G by E (GxE), G by E to P (GxE->P), GxGxE, GxExE, epistasis, epigenetics, ecotype, gene, allele, genotype, character, trait, phenotype, gene/phenotypic expression, genotypic variance, phenotypic variance, heritability, quantitative trait, artificial selection/breeding, phylogeny, cladogram, correlated characteristics, phylogenetic inertia, handicap principle, disruptive/diversifying selection
In this lecture, we consider the different historical approaches that have led up to modern behavioral ecology, including ethology and behaviorism. This gives us an opportunity to discuss von Uexküll's "umwelt" and give various examples of animals whose sensory and perceptual experience is notably different than the experience of a human. This sets us up to discuss how important it is to consider the physiological mechanisms and constraints that can limit what kinds of behaviors are able to evolve, and we use ring dove mating as an example of this. We close by looking ahead to the next unit on behavioral genetics and discuss how the four different mechanisms of evolution (natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, and migration) also can shape the patterns of behaviors that can evolve. Overall, this lecture helps to draw boundaries around what is the field of behavioral ecology while also establishing that those boundaries are necessarily porous and permeable and must both be influenced by and influence surrounding fields from physiology and evolution.
DUE TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, THE START OF THIS LECTURE HAD TO BE DONE ON THE WHITEBOARD. EVENTUALLY, WE FLIP BACK TO THE SLIDES (which are easier to review in the recording).
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Important terms: behaviorism, ethology, umwelt, genetic drift, mutation, migration, natural selection
In this lecture, we review the scientific foundations of animal behavior. We define a causal question, a hypothesis, a theory, an experiment, and a prediction and how they all relate to each other. We emphasize that a hypothesis is not an IF–THEN statement, but a prediction is. We also cover Tinbergen's four questions (the four different levels of analysis in biology and behavioral ecology). This is all done in the context of talking about the cephalopod eye (with an octopus and a cuttlefish example) and its comparison to the vertebrate/human eye. We end with a short discussion of how to define "behavior" most generally and with the most utility.
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Important terms: causal question, hypothesis, prediction, experiment, theory, Tinbergen's four questions (or causes), function/adaptation/utility, phylogeny/evolution, ontogeny/development, mechanism, chronogram
This lecture introduces BIO 331 (Animal Behavior) and its policies. Most of the lecture covers administrative and structural aspects of the course, but in the middle there is an examination of the "stotting" behavior that occurs in many ungulates where students propose different hypotheses for the phenomenon. The stotting example is meant to motivate the kinds of things that will go on in the course.
