Lecture 2

Question 1

How do complex behaviour patterns develop?

Answer 1

Development of complex behaviours determined by: Internal physiological factors, Ontogenic niche, and Experience

-> trade-offs determine selection for behavioural plasticity as it requires a lot of energy to have a plastic response

Question 2

What is a simplistic behaviour pattern that may be genetically fixed?

Answer 2

Reflective or appetitive behaviours such as Foraging

Question 3

What are simplistic behaviour patterns shaped by?

Answer 3

1) Shaped by context: what to forage on, and where to forage
2) Shaped by constraint: how hungry am I and is it risky to forage here

Question 4

What 3 key factors determine the development of complex behaviours?

Answer 4

1) internal physiological factors
2) ontogenetic niche
3) experience

Question 5

Define ontogenetic niche

Answer 5

The specific environment an individual encounters throughout its development from conception to adulthood

Question 6

What is ‘True’ Epigenetics?

Answer 6

conditions in paternal and maternal generation that are changing gene expression which will have resulting effects on next generation phenotypes

-> Where you develop will shape your phenotype, and this is determined by parental generation

Question 7

What is an integrative process of behavioural development and what does it include?

Answer 7

EPIGENESIS:
Involves both genome (genetic component) and environmental influences (learning component), where genome dictates constraints on behavioural ontogeny and learning is dependent upon conditions of behavioural ontogeny

Question 8

What does the genome dictate in the integrative process of behavioural development = epegenetics?

Answer 8

Dictates constraints on behavioural ontogeny

Question 9

What is learning dependent on in true epigenetics?

Answer 9

dependant upon conditions of behavioural ontogeny

Question 10

Define constraints

Answer 10

internal limiting factors

Question 11

Define conditions

Answer 11

external limiting factors

Question 12

What is an example of how ontogenetic niche can bring about traits that cannot be inherited?

Answer 12

Ex: Male white crowned sparrows: if you take white crowned sparrows and grow them in isolation in captivity, they will not have the adult song similar to males that lived in their natural habitat. This is because they had the social information needed to acquire the adult song, but captive males did not

Question 13

What is an example that looked at cross generational impacts of predation pressure on a learned foraging path (involving epigenetic)?

Answer 13

Ex; Feng et al. 2015, Animal Behaviour: collected juvenile sticklebacks and conditioned them that blue = food and yellow = no food. Then they glued these on the bottom of the tanks, and they had more fish around the blue meaning that wild caught can learn foraging paths. If you take reproductive female sticklebacks and expose them to predation stress and collect offspring and test juveniles:
Juveniles of exposed females can still learn simple foraging paths, but rely more on social learning than personal.

Results: mother exposed to predation risk resulted in offspring that showed higher potential for social learning.

Question 14

What are maternal carry-over effects demonstrated in the example of rearing fat-head minnows?

Answer 14

Taking parental generation and manipulate the predation levels and collect offspring: during baseline observations, their fear-index is much higher. When giving known indicators their fear increases and there’s and increase with novel cues as well. F2 however, doesn’t look like F1 showing that there are temporary maternal carry-over effects

This demonstrates that the conditions of the mother can lead to temporary changes in phenotype; these are called temporary maternal carry-over effects

Question 15

What is learning defined as?

Answer 15

The “relatively permanent change in behaviour or the potential for change in behaviour resulting from experience”

Question 16

Why is learning considered “relatively permanent”?

Answer 16

Because it results in some internal change (memory)

Question 17

If an animal stops responding to a stimulus, does that mean they don’t remember it?

Answer 17

NO: animals will only respond as long as it remains ecologically relevant bc otherwise the costs will greatly outweigh the benefits

Question 18

What is experience?

Answer 18

Any and all aspects of the environment, from conception onwards -> anything can be acquired as differential experience (learning)

Question 19

What is the potential for change?

Answer 19

What an individual learned may not be useful until later in life; the potential fitness of that learning may only be visible in another stage so potential for change is linked to learning

Question 20

What is imprinting?

Answer 20

Form of learning that requires no reinforcement or conditioned response

Question 21

What is the traditional view of imprinting by Lorenz in 1935 (3 components)?

Answer 21

1) Critical period: animals will be selective to what they respond to
2) Permanent: once an animal imprints on the info, it will retain that information
3) Only requires a single or a few exposures

Question 22

What is the modern view of imprinting (3 components)?

Answer 22

1) Sensitive period: times during developmental stages where imprinting is more likely to occur
2) Flexible: Cost-benefit trade-offs will determine what they will or will not respond to
3) Requires single to multiple exposures

Question 23

What is an example of imprinting being flexible?

Answer 23

Robin babies learn what’s good to eat by what is fed to them by their mom, but what happens when the chicks leave and the abundance of this food is decreased? It can be overwritten and they will find different food since the benefits no longer outweigh the costs

Question 24

What is an example that shows that imprinting should be open to trade-offs in quails?

Answer 24

Timing in which imprinting occurs should be open to trade-offs: newly hatched chicks show no avoidance to new stimuli. As they get older in terms of hours, at 36 hrs, they all run away from new stimuli. Don’t want to imprint when first hatched because you are not exposed to anything because you can’t move, but don’t want to imprint at 33-36 hrs old because they’re afraid of everything.

Imprinting should occur when you aren’t overly fearful and can still move around and sample some stimuli

Question 25

When stimulus is shown to quails, when does optimal imprinting occur?

Answer 25

n the 13-17 hr range

Question 26

What is classical conditioning and provide an example?

Answer 26

Learned association between a biologically important stimulus and a previously neutral stimulus Ex: Pavlov’s dog; Acquired predator recognition

Question 27

How does a conditioned response develop?

Answer 27

- Unconditioned Stimulus (food) alone will result in an unconditioned response (salivate) - But when an unconditioned stimulus (US, food) is paired with a CS (conditioned stimulus, like a bell), they will develop a conditioned response (CR, salivate at sound of bell)

Question 28

What are 3 constraints on classical conditioning?

Answer 28

1) Contiguity: the associations of events in time; if conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are too far apart, there is less potential for learning 2) Information: must be some non-random association between CS and US: more biological relevance = easier to make association 3) Salience: animals can make some sensory associations but not others

Question 29

What is an example of the constraint of contiguity on classical conditioning in crayfish?

Answer 29

Crayfish: will recognize, but less reliability if conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are 15 minutes apart because they are less likely to make an association

Question 30

What is an example of the constraint of salience on classical conditioning in humans?

Answer 30

Red light (CS) is associated with the hot burner of an oven (heat = US), but if the red light is broken, the association of the light and the hot burner is unreliable

Question 31

What is an example of the constraint of salience on classical conditioning in rats and pigeons?

Answer 31

- Rats: Cinnamon flavour + LiCl = bad bc nausea: biological relevance. Red colour + LiCl = no learned response: no biological relevance. Visual cues not a lot of relevance bc they are nocturnal, by smell and taste have a lot of relevance - Pigeons: Cinnamon flavour + LiCl = no learned response Red colour + LiCl = bad: biological relevance. No flavour association: birds have bad sense of smell, but exceptional visuals

Question 32

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 32

Learned association between behaviour and reinforcement which can be positive (reward) which increases frequency of behaviour, or can be bad (punishment) which decreases frequency of behaviour

Question 33

What is a funny example of operant conditioning?

Answer 33

Ex: professor was told that a buzzer was bad and a click was good, and it only took him 30 seconds to get him on a chair on stage in front of everyone

Question 34

Under similar biological constraints, how do animals make learned association between behaviour and reinforcement (operant conditioning)?

Answer 34

Under natural or biologically relevant conditions, how does a song bird learn that a monarch butterfly learns its poison? One eats one and gets sick and it passes through

Question 35

What is the simplest constraint that can still lead to a conditioned response?

Answer 35

Salience: easiest to condition a response if it’s ‘biologically relevant’ = more to do with outcome

Question 36

What is an example of operant conditioning in rats; Bolles (1973)?

Answer 36

3 behaviours conditioned with electrical shock: 1) running: if the rat runs from one end to another, the foot shock won’t occur = fast learning 2) Turning: running in a circle to avoid a foot shock = fast 3) Rearing: teaching a rat to stay in one spot and rear up on its hind legs = really hard because they want to run away from the bad shocking feeling

Question 37

What is an example in a paper by Brown & Smith, 1998, that showed how fathead minnows learned to recognize pike odour?

Answer 37

- Minnows taken from a pop where pike are present and expose them to sight or smell of pike, they show strong predator avoidance - Minnows taken from a pop where pike are not present, given same cue, and they're completely indifferent - Naive minnow showed alarm response (UR) when exposed to predator odour (CS) and injured minnow odour (US) and produced same UR even up to 1 year later after conditioning -> example of salience of a chemical compound

Question 38

What type of conditioning was demonstrated in the paper by Brown & Smith, 1998, that conditioned naive fathead minnows?

Answer 38

Classical conditioning since the fathead minnows made a learned association between a biologically relevant stimulus (US = injured minnow odour) and a previously neutral stimulus (CS = predator odour)

Question 39

What is the conditioned response in the fathead minnows example in the paper by Brown & Smith, 1998?

Answer 39

Alarm response to pike odour after being conditioned that it's associated with the injured minnow

Question 40

Is it just pop differences (different selection) or is it the allopatric pop just hasn’t had the opportunity to learn in the fathead minnow example in the paper by Brown & Smith, 1998?

Answer 40

The allopatric pop hasn't had the opportunity to learn and this is demonstrated when the naive minnow became conditioned to associate the pike odour to the injured minnow odour

Question 41

What is the example on the Trout experiment; predator recognition learning?

Answer 41

After conditioning an alarm response to pike odour + trout extract, repeat experiment after 21 days: - pike odour = no response = no learning - Pike odour + swordtail = no response = no learning - Pike odour + trout skin extract = alarm response = learning Classical conditioning of pike to make learned association between the pike odour and the trout skin extract, but also demonstrates that if learning is beneficial, then the information will remain

Question 42

How can conditioning be used as a conservation tactic?

Answer 42

- Rearing fish in hatcheries and releasing them in the wild: they don't recognize predators or know how to forage -> 90 or more % of stocked fish die after released. So we can condition them by manipulating foraging, environment, etc. to increase survival once released - Pre-exposure (chemicals passing through the egg) can help them make learned associations later on

Question 43

What example demonstrates threat-sensitive learning in fathead minnows?

Answer 43

- If you condition fathead minnows to recognize a novel cue as a predator odour, the strength of the learning should match the response - When increasing the concentration of the odour = shows greater intensity response demonstrating that the intensity of conditioning matches the intensity of the learning

Question 44

What is threat-sensitive learning?

Answer 44

As predator risk increases, the response intensity increases in a linear fashion = superstimulus - The intensity of conditioning matches intensity of the learning

Question 45

What example demonstrates threat-sensitive learning in mosquito larvae?

Answer 45

Ferrari et al 2008: - water + salamander odour = no response - Keep increasing the amount of salamander and they continued to have an increased response = threat-sensitive learning

Question 46

Why would you want to learn how to respond appropriately based on the level of threat (threat-sensitive learning)?

Answer 46

because it requires energy to respond; LIFE IS A TRADE-OFF

Question 47

What is the problem with the 2 threat-sensitive learning experiments?

Answer 47

1) Not likely that the minnows would be exposed to a single predator or single species of predator. Does that mean that they have to learn what every single species of predator there is? How much can they acquire? 2) If they are exposed to a multitude of cues, can they distinguish a specific component within the cues?

Question 48

What example by Darwish et al. 2005 demonstrates that prey can recognize multiple odours simultaneously and thus demonstrate threat sensitive learning?

Answer 48

Exposed the fish to a cocktail of odours and paired it with the alarm cue or water control. Once they’ve been conditioned, they tested their response to the component odours: the fish showed a learned response to biologically relevant predator odours. Then condition to cocktail with pumpkin seed and then put them in large arenas with a shoal of tetras and a pumpkin seed. What is the latency to capture? Fewer approaches, fewer strikes, etc when being exposed They can make threat sensitive associations even if it's a cocktail of odours

Question 49

Can prey animals learn multiple predator cues at the same time?

Answer 49

Yes, Darwish et al. (2005) showed that fish can learn multiple predator odours simultaneously when paired with an alarm cue.

Question 50

Did fish show learned responses to individual predator odours after being conditioned with a mixture in Darwish 2005's paper?

Answer 50

Yes, they showed predator-avoidance behaviour to specific odours (e.g., largemouth bass, and sunfish), but not to non-threatening species (e.g., yellow perch).

Question 51

What does the lack of response to yellow perch odour suggest in Darwish et al's (2005) paper?

Answer 51

Fish are able to discriminate between dangerous and non-dangerous cues in a mixed odour context which supports threat-sensitive learning

Question 52

When conditioned to a cocktail containing pumpkinseed sunfish, how did fish respond in a live predation trial in Darwish et al's (2005) paper?

Answer 52

Fish showed increased predator avoidance (longer latency to capture, fewer approaches/strikes) whether they learned the pumpkinseed odour alone or as part of a cocktail.

Question 53

What does the paper by Ferrari et al., 2007, PRSB show about learning costs?

Answer 53

- Fruitflies with larger ganglion clusters (brains) were able to learn better than those with smaller brains. Those that learned better, grew faster, reproduced earlier in small #s and died younger - Smart guppies reproduced earlier, have higher early growth rate and fitness, but died younger - Smart snails, capable of making learned associations have a short lifespan, higher energy demands, but they learn and reproduce earlier -> Learning is energetically taxing: need to have the energy to maintain capacity to make learned associations and remember the info

Question 54

Demonstrated by the paper by Ferrari et al., 2007, PRSB, how is learning expensive?

Answer 54

Learning is expensive: need to have the energy to maintain the capacity to make learned associations and remember the info and need to survive initial encounter to learn

Question 55

How can the costs of learning be reduced?

Answer 55

Generalization: learn one thing and apply it to other situations

Question 56

What does the paper by Ferrari et al., 2007, PRSB; show on the generalization of information?

Answer 56

- Condition minnows to recognize a lake trout as a cue, and then expose them to the site of a trout, they increase shoaling and decrease movement - If exposed to a different species of trout, they still showed evidence of learning, but no evidence of learning when shown a pike - Therefore, fish that are phylogenetically close tend to look similar and so they respond the same way

Question 57

What type of conditioning was used on minnows in Ferrari et al., 2007, PRSB.'s paper?

Answer 57

Response to learned cues based on chemical ‘salience’ of cue detection

Question 58

How do prey make generalizations between different fish?

Answer 58

Fish that are phylogenetically close tend to look similar and so prey will respond the same way (alarm repsonse)

Question 59

How do prey generalize information about non-threatening heterospecifics?

Answer 59

Use the same type of learning based on phylogenetically similar non-threatening fish

Question 60

What experiment (using trout) demonstrates that prey can generalize non-threatening info the same way as threatening info?

Answer 60

- Conditioned trout to recognize pumpkin seed sunfish and then expose them to the cues of long-eared sunfish and they show evidence of learning. Then expose them to rockfish and they show evidence of learning. - Pre-expose them to odours of pumpkinseed and try to teach them to learn similar fish, but they don’t respond bc even when exposed to only the pumpkinseed odour, nothing occurred so they learned to associate the odour with no threat

Question 61

How can we prevent learning in the trout by pre-exposed to pumpkinseed odour (replicate of ferrari experiment)?

Answer 61

We can prevent learning by pre-exposing them to pumpkinseed sunfish bc they generalize what is not a threat to other species

Question 62

What is social learning?

Answer 62

Involves individuals watching others respond to the environment or predators and learning from them

Question 63

What is the experiment that takes Fathead minnows and sees if social learning can occur?

Answer 63

1) Naive minnow and expose to alarm cue and odour of a pike = anti-predator response (learning) 2) Previously naive minnow paired with naive male and expose to predator cue = anti-predator response from both 3) Take male alone, and expose it to the same predator cue = anti-predator response -> watched as the other fish responded: the previously naive fish became the unconditioned cue for the naive male

Question 64

What does social learning convey to others?

Answer 64

Social learning conveys huge fitness benefits

Question 65

What is an example of a form of social learning in Macaques?

Answer 65

-Some pops grab yams and put in water -Other pops take handfulls of stuff on the ground and throw in water so that seeds float

Question 66

What is cultural transmission?

Answer 66

Transmission of info from socially learned individuals to other naive individuals

Question 67

What does cultural transmission allow for?

Answer 67

Cultural transmission: Allows for rapid transmission of info

Question 68

What is the experiment that takes Fathead minnows and sees if cultural transmission can occur?

Answer 68

Take previously naive male fish and pair with a new predator naive fish and expose them to predator cue and they show antipredator response. Information can be transferred to others -> Transmission of info from socially learned individuals to other naive individuals

Question 69

What is an example of an experiment by Dr. Brown that showed strong evidence for cultural transmission and social learning?

Answer 69

Put 80K minnows in a lake and 39 juvenile pike and tested them to the smell of pike: - before exposed to pike: no response - 2 days after exposed: variance increased, but still no response -4 days after exposed: all minnows recognized the smell of pike as a threat and showed antipredator response -> Strong evidence for cultural transmission and social learning