1	BEHAVIOR The actions of an organism may be called behavior. Actions are traditionally events that occur in a short time period.
2	Reading Assignment The assigned reading is Chapter 51. Section 51.3 on hormonal control may be skipped. The chapter should be read skeptically. Ask if the appropriate evidence is actually provided.
3	What ‘Behavior’ is Studied Behaviors associated with special situations are often studied. Courtship & sex Predation & escape Usually we think of ‘behavior’ as intense interaction among individuals or in response to environmental extremes Breathing, chewing, etc are usually not studied as part of ‘behavior’
4	Categories of Behavior Learned – variable patterns among individuals depending on their life experiences. Innate, including fixed action patterns and conditional strategies – little, if any, variation among individuals within a species. Ethology is a word invented to describe the study of animal behavior, interestingly it is not used in 2^nd edition of Freeman.
5	Fixed Action Patterns Little variation in performance sequence and timing. Different in different species. Sequence of actions is invariant once initiated.
6	Nature vs Nurture Revisited Individuals must have both genes and an appropriate environment. Genetic variation among individuals and variation in life experiences effect the likelihood of specific behaviors. Humans studies of identical twins are used to separate genetic and environmental explanations of variation.
7	Twin Studies Identical twins have the same genotype. Children in the same family share many environmental conditions as well as having genetic similarity. Identical twins adopted into different families have the same genotype, but, presumably, grew up in different environments.
8	Interpreting Genes versus Environment Studies
9	Conditional Strategies When behavior changes according to the environment in which an individual finds itself, we say the behavior is ‘conditional’. The word ‘strategy’ is used in connection with alternative behaviors because biologists believe that behaviors are the product of adaptive evolution.
10	Many of the behaviors studied are associated with sex Among the strange and unusual ‘behaviors’ is the capacity of some fish to change sex. Figure 51.5 describes a situation in a reef fish where only one individual in a group is male. If the male is removed, one of the larger females switches sex, i.e., becomes a male.
11	Game Theory can be used to Study Behavioral Strategies Game theory provides ways to calculate the benefits of various strategies of playing games. The rules of the biological ‘games’ are set by evolution and involve increasing the fitness of the players.
12	Sequence of behaviors The order (sequence) of behaviors is often studied. After an individual washes its hands, what does it do next? On can estimate the probabilities that particular behaviors will follow another behavior.
13	Learning Classical conditioning (Pavlov got dogs to associate bell with food) implies learning. Imprinting (best known from birds) is a situation where young are programmed to identify with adults during a specific, limited phase of their life. Can only be discovered by ‘messing’ with species, i.e. disrupting the normal course of events.
14	Can animals think? I assert it is impossible to define ‘thinking’ in a way that I would have difficulty finding an animal that would fulfill the criteria, if the majority of human individuals fulfill the criteria. For people with pets, it is obvious that animals ‘think’, if you call thinking being able to respond in an appropriate way to new situations.
15	Stories about adaptive value Behaviors can be rationalized in terms of evolution. The stories that have been created (p. 1176) make sense, but what evidence is provided that excludes other plausible alternatives? ‘Why did they do that?’ doesn’t always have to make sense. Animals, like people, do ‘stupid’ things.
16	Deception Your goal as an individual is NOT to be deceived, but … You may gain advantage by deceiving other individuals, but … Taxes is a good example of a situation where many people lose real advantages by trying to gain individual advantage, to ‘beat the system’.
17	Migration The capacity of animals to navigate often exceeds the capacity of human individuals. Most people depend on social organizations to find their way around, i.e. they buy a ticket to get to a place. Species of animals show an impressive ability to navigate, especially to find home.
18	Adaptive Classification of Behaviors
19	Kin Selection Behavior that seems altruistic can be classified as selfish, if the cost to the initiator is less than the benefit to the initiator’s relatives. A classical example is an alarm call. Birds that see a hawk often give a call that alerts others to the presence of the predator.
20	Calculating Coefficients of Relatedness The symbol for the coefficient of relatedness of a pair of individuals is r The value of 0 means the individuals are not related. The value of 1 represents genetic self identity Full Siblings have an r value of 0.5 First cousins have an r value of 0.125
21	Social Insects Many species in the insect group Hymenoptera (ants, bees) have complex social organizations. Honey bee colonies have only a single fertile individual known as the queen. Most ‘individuals’ are workers. Workers are haploid. The few males that are present are diploid.
22	Sociobiology Sociobiology is the interpretation of human actions from an evolutionary perspective. Rare or abnormal behaviors such as infanticide can be interpreted in the adaptive framework. Legal rules of inheritance in absence of will are congruent with coefficients of relatedness.
23	Vocabulary Courtship Learned Innate Fixed action pattern Game theory Deception Altruism Selfish Kin selection Coefficient of relatedness migration