The way animals perform and evolve over time can be attributed to their surrounding environments. The responses to such environments in some species can be modified through experience, whether it occurs internally or externally. An animal will use its nervous system to detect and process information from its surrounding environment. The nervous system, along with the endocrine system, helps contribute to an animal’s behavior. When this occurs, genes influence the coordinated responses to stimuli. This is known as animal behavior.
Animal behavior can be broken down into different categories: taxis, reflex, cyclic behavior, territorial behavior, migration, communication, learning, and social behavior. Everything that an animal does on any given day, whether it is simple or complex, can be considered animal behavior. These behaviors include any activity that occurs in response to stimuli.
Possibly one of the more challenging fields to study is the animal kingdom and the behaviors they display. Observation of the behavior is simple; interpreting what has been observed requires more effort. Therefore, more than any other division of research in biology, ethology calls for patience, objectivity, and imagination. Ethology is the study of all animal behavior in their natural surroundings. It is important for an ethologist to investigate and interpret the various animal behaviors observed in terms of the animals’ reaction to their own environment. It is too easy to view animal behavior in terms of human habits; if a behavior seems to emulate a behavior that humans perform, it is interpreted as a human interaction. This anthropomorphic view (anthro = human, morph = change) – bestowing human traits and motivation on an animal’s behavior – can lead to inaccurate interpretations of an animal’s behavior.
For this reason, ethologists assess various behaviors by placing documented behavior in simple categories. Once the behaviors in these categories are tallied, ethologists can determine the entire lifestyle of the organism, gaining a complete picture of the animal’s existence. Ethology can be considered a unique branch of biology, investigating not only when a behavior occurs in an animal’s existence, but also why it happens.
In every ecosystem, organisms are influenced by limiting factors – biotic or abiotic factors, which regulate the maximum size of a given population – and a relatively narrow range of environmental conditions, which are favorable to them and their offspring. Since most organisms cannot change the nature of their environment, they must position themselves in an environment that has favorable conditions. This behavior is called habitat selection.
Behavior is an observable response to a stimulus from the environment. Behavior can be classified into two categories: innate or learned. Innate behavior is inherited and instinctive (inborn), and develops independently of experience with other animals. Learned behavior changes an animal’s behavior as a result of the animal’s experience with other environments and other organisms.
An animal’s orientation behavior, which allows an animal to place itself in a favorable environment, occurs in two ways: taxis and kinesis. Taxis (from the Greek taxis, to arrange or put in order) is a deliberate movement toward (positive) or away from (negative) a stimulus. This movement can be more or less automatic depending on the species. A movement classified as taxis defines the physiological needs of the organism, its evolutionary history, its nervous system, etc. Kinesis, on the other hand, is a random movement that is not oriented toward or away from a stimulus. These two types of responses are common among animals when reacting to light, sound, touch, heat, or chemicals.
Taxis is a much more efficient way for an organism to respond to a stimulus and therefore is much more prevalent than kinesis in the animal kingdom. Taxis aids in the search for a mate, food, and a safer living environment, as well as helping to avoid predators. Chemotaxis, a common taxis, involves detecting a trace of chemicals, which help the organism orient itself towards the source. This is often used to locate food or a mate. All types of taxis will be either positive (towards a stimulus) or negative (away from a stimulus). For example, many animals that live under rocks, leaves, or logs, will often respond negatively when exposed to light and thus demonstrate negative phototaxis. As we look and experiment with behavioral patterns in animals, whether they are innate or learned, accuracy is very important
to the exercise. The best way to view an animal’s behavior would be in its natural habitat. Since this may not always be the most accessible way, we often simulate an environment suitable for the animal in order to perform an accurate experiment.
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Animal Behavior Lab Activity - By altering conditions that the included specimens are exposed to, such as moisture, habitat, light and more, students can observe changes in behavior and habitat selection. This activity utilizes WARD’S own two and five-chamber behavior trays, which allow students to test several factors simultaneously. Specimens included are Daphnia, Planaria, terrestrial isopods, and mealworms.
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