Ecology & Behavior VII

Social Interactions

Behavior

Key Terms

  • Reproductive success: the number of surviving offspring that the individual produces
  • Adaptive behavior: any behavior that promotes the propagation of an individual's genes; its frequency is maintained or increases in successive generations
  • Social behavior: cooperative, interdependent relationships among individuals of the species
  • Selfish behavior: within a population, any form of behavior that increases an individual's chance to produce or protect offspring of its own regardless of the consequences for the group as a whole
  • Altruistic behavior: within a population, a self-sacrificing behavior; helps others but diminishes its own chance of producing offspring

Instinctive vs. Learned Behavior

     Instinctive behavior is a behavior that is performed without having been learned by an actual experience in the environment . Individuals are 'wired' to already know this trait. For example, sea turtles have the instinctive behavior of making their way to the ocean right after they hatch. Another example would be a human baby's instinct to cry. 
     A learned behavior is something an individual learns because of an experience they have had. For example, humans have to learn to swim. Learned behaviors can be broken down into categories:
  • Imprinting: time-dependent form of learning triggered by exposure to sign stimuli
  • Classical Conditioning: associated something with another, like a dog salivating before eating
  • Operant Conditioning: an animal learns to associate a voluntary activity with its consequences 
  • Habituation: an animal learns by experience not to respond to a situation if the response has neither positive nor negative consequences
  • Spatial (Latent) Learning: an animal acquires a mental map of a particular region, sometimes learning of local landmarks
  • Insight Learning: an animal abruptly solves some problems without a trial-and-error attempts at the solution

Mating Behavior 

  • Natural Selection: a result of differences in reproductive success among individuals of a population that differ from on another in their h
  • Sexual Selection: favors traits that give the individual a competitive edge in attracting and holding on to mates
  • Indirect Selection: genes associated with caring for one's relatives, not one's direct descendants, may be favored in some situations 

Social Group

    Individuals that live in a large group of species is considered a social group. Social groups:
*Protect each other from predators 
*Belong to a selfish herd- a relatively simple society held together by reproductive self-intrest
*Have a dominance hierarchy- type of social group in which some of the individuals have adopted subordinate status to others
*Must be able to tolerate each other or live cooperatively 
*Have competition for limited resources
*More exposed to diseases
*The benefits of social groups outweigh the costs of social groups

Communication

Signals

  • Communication signals: information-laden cues, encoded in stimuli that hold unambiguous meaning for members of the species
  • Signaler: communication signals sent by one individual 
  • Signal receivers: responding individuals
  • Pheromones: chemical signals between individuals of the same species
  • Composite signal: a communication signal with information encoded in two cues (or more)

Communication Displays


     A communication display is a pattern of behavior that is a social signal. Examples of communication displays include:
  • Threat display: an unambiguous message that a signaler is prepared to attack a signal receiver
  • Courtship display: a pattern of ritualized social behavior between potential mates
  • Tactile display: a signaler touches the receiver in ritualized ways 

Illegitimate Signalers vs. Illegitimate Receivers

     An Illegitimate signaler is a signal meant for an individual of the same species. An example of this would be a female firefly coaxing in a male firefly by a signal so he will become her lunch.
     An Illegitimate receiver is a signal meant for individuals of a different species. An example of this would be a termite might detect the scent of an ant (when the ant was signaling something else) and kill it. 
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