Life of biology

• Animal behavior is defined as the study of what animals do as they interact with their environment.
• Examples of studying behavior through observations and experiments include distinguishing between immediate and ultimate causes of behavior.
• Key terms in the study of animal behavior include animal behavior, immediate cause, and ultimate cause.
• People have been curious about the activities of other animals for thousands of years.
• Asking questions about an animal's actions is the first step in the study of animal behavior.
• Observing the humpback whales can lead to asking many questions about their distinctive behaviors.
• The function of the humpback whale's bubble-blowing behavior is to create a "bubble net" that traps small fish and shrimp for feeding.
• Scientists rely on two approaches to explore life: discovery science (observation and careful description) and hypothesis-based science (testing explanations, usually with experiments).
• Most investigations of animal behavior involve a combination of discovery science and hypothesis-based science.
• Observing an animal closely and describing an interesting behavior can lead to asking a question about the behavior and developing a testable hypothesis to explain it.
• When scientists study animals in the wild, using controlled experiments to test hypotheses is often impractical.
• In situations where controlled experiments are impractical, scientists can test their hypotheses through further observation.
• Jane Goodall's field study on chimpanzees is an example of testing hypotheses through further observation.
• Dr. Goodall's tools for studying the chimps were minimal: a notebook, binoculars, and patience.
• After six months, the chimps allowed Dr. Goodall to approach close enough to make detailed observations.
• By tracking individuals, Dr. Goodall noticed patterns in the animals' interactions with each other.
• Each chimp had a social rank within the group.
• Dr. Goodall hypothesized that higher-ranking chimps must have certain advantages over lower-ranking chimps.
• Her further observations of female chimps supported this hypothesis.
• The highest-ranking females had access to the best food and could thus provide their infants with the richest milk.
• Scientists often design experiments to test their hypotheses.
• The next time the wasp returned, she flew to the center of the pine-cone circle instead of the actual nest.
• By marking the wasps with different-colored drops of paint, Tinbergen was able to track individuals and conclude that they did return to only their own nests.
• This time, the wasp flew to the stones, indicating that she was responding to the arrangement of the landmarks rather than the landmarks themselves.
• Tinbergen hypothesized that the wasps use landmarks to locate their burrows.
• To test his hypothesis, Tinbergen placed a circle of pine cones around a nest opening.
• The immediate cause of this behavior—the how—is the reaction of your nervous system, which sends signals to the muscles in your arm.
• To answer this, Tinbergen arranged the pine cones in a triangle around the nest and made a circle of small stones off to one side of the nest opening.
• Tinbergen's results raised a new question: Did the wasp respond to the pine cones themselves or to their circular arrangement?
• Tinbergen concluded that the wasp did use landmarks to find her nests, and that she could learn new ones.
• Such explanations usually answer "how" questions.
• Female digger wasps build their nests in a small burrow in sandy ground.
• A reasonable hypothesis for the ultimate cause—the why—is that natural selection has favored this response, which minimizes damage to the body in a dangerous situation.
• Answering "why" questions involves finding the ultimate cause of a behavior—an explanation based on the organism's evolutionary adaptations.
• Tinbergen's studies looked for the immediate cause of the wasp's behavior—that is, an explanation in terms of the organism's immediate interactions with the environment.
• In the 1920s, an insect called a digger wasp sparked the curiosity of Dutch biologist Niko Tinbergen.
• Behavioral biologists also ask "why" questions—why do organisms behave as they do?
• When the wasp flew away, Tinbergen moved the pine cones to one side of the nest.
• The immediate cause of nest-locating behavior is the wasp's ability to recognize an arrangement of landmarks.
• Tinbergen observed that when a female wasp emerged from her nest, she sometimes flew about as if she were getting her bearings.