Animal behavior

Classical conditioning

Operant conditioning

Classical Conditioning

• Type of associative learning
• Stimulus & reward/punishment
• Ex: Ivan Pavlov’s dogs

Operant conditioning

• Type of associative learning
• Trial and error learning
• Different from classical conditioning, because the association is made between the animal’s own behavior and a response.

B.F. Skinner

Operant conditioning

• Having received a face full of quills, a young coyote has probably learned to avoid porcupines

Animal Movement

• Three types of animal movement

1) Kinesis

2) Taxis

3) Migration

Kinesis

• Seemingly random change in the speed of a movement in response to a stimulus
• When an organism is in a place that it enjoys, it slows down, and when in a bad environment, it speeds up. Overall this leads to an organisms spending more time in favorable environments
• Ex: Pillbugs – (AP Lab 11) pillbugs prefer moist environments

Taxis

• A reflex movement towards (positive taxis) or away (negative taxis) from a stimulus

Migration

• Complex behavior, but still under genetic control – cyclic movement of animals over long distances according to the time of year

Bird Migration – Migrating Sandpipers

Animal Communication

• Animals communicate in many ways…communication need not always be vocal
• Chemical communication
• Visual communication
• Auditory communication
• Tactile communication

Chemical communication

– Pheromones

Alarm pheromones

Sex pheromones

Trail pheromones

Trail pheromones - ants
Sex pheromones - insects
Alarm pheromones - minnows

Visual Communication

• Communication through the use of visual cues
• Ex: Tail feather displays of male peacocks