behavioral biology

Examples of behavioral biology in the following topics:

• Introduction to Animal Behavior

  • Behavioral biology is the study of the biological and evolutionary bases for such changes.
  • One cannot study behavioral biology without touching on both comparative psychology and ethology.
  • One goal of behavioral biology is to distinguish the innate behaviors, which have a strong genetic component and are largely independent of environmental influences, from the learned behaviors, which result from environmental conditioning.
  • Innate behavior, or instinct, is important because there is no risk of an incorrect behavior being learned.
  • These behaviors are “hard wired” into the system.

• Conditioned Behavior

  • In classical conditioning, a behavior is paired with an unrelated stimulus; in operant conditioning, behaviors are modified by consequences.
  • Conditioned behaviors are types of associative learning where a stimulus becomes associated with a consequence.
  • Classical conditioning is a major tenet of behaviorism, a branch of psychological philosophy that proposes that all actions, thoughts, and emotions of living things are behaviors that can be treated by behavior modification and changes in the environment.
  • In operant conditioning, the conditioned behavior is gradually modified by its consequences as the animal responds to the stimulus.
  • In this way, the animal is conditioned to associate a type of behavior with the punishment or reward.

• Simple Learned Behaviors

  • Simple learned behaviors include habituation and imprinting, both of which are important to the maturation process of young animals.
  • The majority of the behaviors discussed in previous sections are innate or at least have an innate component.
  • In other words, variations on the innate behaviors may be learned.
  • Innate behaviors are inherited and do not change in response to signals from the environment.
  • Simple learned behaviors include habituation and imprinting, both of which are important to the maturation process of young animals.

• Movement and Migration

  • Innate behaviors, such as kinesis, taxis, and migration, are instinctual responses to external stimuli.
  • Innate or instinctual behaviors rely on response to stimuli.
  • Even humans, with our great capacity to learn, still exhibit a variety of innate behaviors.
  • Another activity or movement of innate behavior is kinesis: undirected movement in response to a stimulus.
  • Another example is klinokinesis, an increase in turning behaviors.

• Altruism and Populations

  • Behaviors that lower the fitness of the individual engaging in the behavior, but increase the fitness of another individual, are termed altruistic.
  • Examples of such behaviors are seen widely across the animal kingdom.
  • There has been much discussion over why altruistic behaviors exist.
  • Thus, there is reciprocity in the behavior.
  • This behavior is still not necessarily altruism, as the "giving" behavior of the actor is based on the expectation that it will be the "receiver" of the behavior in the future; a concept termed reciprocal altruism.

• Cognitive Learning and Sociobiology

  • Some primates, including humans, are able to learn by imitating the behavior of others and by taking instructions.
  • Wilson defined the science as "the extension of population biology and evolutionary theory to social organization."
  • This science is controversial; some have criticized the approach for ignoring the environmental effects on behavior.
  • Sociobiology also links genes with behaviors and has been associated with "biological determinism," the belief that all behaviors are hardwired into our genes.
  • No one disputes that certain behaviors can be inherited and that natural selection plays a role retaining them.

• Species Distribution

  • Scientists gain insight into a species' biology and ecology from studying spatial distribution of individuals.
  • Scientists gain additional insight into a species' biology and ecology from studying how individuals are spatially distributed.
  • Patterns are often characteristic of a particular species; they depend on local environmental conditions and the species' growth characteristics (as for plants) or behavior (as for animals).

• Animal Communication and Living in Groups

  • Other behaviors found in populations that live in groups are described in terms of which animal benefits from the behavior.
  • In selfish behavior, only the animal in question benefits; in altruistic behavior, one animal's actions benefit another animal; cooperative behavior occurs when both animals benefit.
  • All of these behaviors involve some sort of communication between population members.
  • The purpose of pheromones is to elicit a specific behavior from the receiving individual.
  • Similar behaviors are found in other primates, especially in the great apes.

• The Importance of Carbon

• Synthesis of Biological Macromolecules