Animal Behavior

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A taxis is a more or less automatic, oriented movement toward or away from a stimulus.

Many stream fish exhibit a positive taxis and automatically swim in an upstream direction.

This taxis prevents them from being swept away and keeps them facing the direction from which food will come.

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Kinesis: non-directional change …

A kinesis is a simple change in activity or turning rate in response to a stimulus.

For example, sow bugs become more active in dry areas and less active in humid areas.

Though sow bug behavior varies with humidity, sow bugs do not move toward or away from specific moisture levels.

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Kinesis - Sow bugs become more active in dry areas and less active in humid areas

Dry open

area

Sow

bug

Moist site

under leaf

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Migration

Migration is a regular, long-distance change in location.

Animals can orient themselves using

The position of the sun and their circadian clock, an internal 24-hour clock that is an integral part of their nervous system

The position of the North Star

The Earth’s magnetic field.

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Oriented Movement / seasonal: Migration

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Behavioral Rhyths

Some animal behavior is affected by the animal’s circadian rhyth, a daily cycle of rest and activity.

Behaviors such as migration and reproduction are linked to changing seasons, or a circannual rhyth.

Some behaviors are linked to lunar cycles

For example, courtship in fiddler crabs occurs during the new and full moon.

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Male fiddler crab beckoning to potential mates

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Animal Signals and Communication

In behavioral ecology, a signal is a behavior that causes a change in another animal’s behavior.

Communication is the transmission and reception of signals.

Animals communicate using visual, chemical, tactile, and auditory signals.

The type of signal is closely related to lifestyle and environment.

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Courtship behavior of the fruit fly

(a) Orienting

(b) Tapping

(c) “Singing”

Slide 17

Honeybees show complex communication with symbolic language.