What does it mean when an organism's (other than a human being) behavior is adapted? Name an adaptive behavior of another organism and demonstrate how that behavior helps the organism define its niche in the organism's environment. Do humans also illustrate adaptive behavior? Explain your reasoning while telling why or why not is important for humans to have adaptive behaviors.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Adaptive Behavior
In Mr. Coyne's discussion of natural selection, he also illustrates the idea of "adaptive behavior". In full detail, he describes the Asian Giant hornet and all of its physical attributes with which it brutally devours the introduced European Honey Bees with relative ease. He also demonstrates adaptive behavior, by showing the Japanese Honey Bee's defense of their hive from the hornet.
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According to http://dev.nsta.org/ssc/moreinfo.asp?id=912, adaptive behaviors encompass not only learned behaviors in response to stimuli, but also innate behaviors coded in genetics. Adaptive behaviors include favoring kin, female selection of the fittest male, or defending territory from rivals. Certain learned adaptive behaviors, such as the reflexive act of tensing the muscles when a loud sound is heard, is a fixed action pattern, and is instinctive. Other behavior patterns, such as learning which foods to avoid and which to eat, are learned over a lifetime. Nearly all adaptive behaviors help an organism survive and/or reproduce successfully, with the exception of a few that no longer apply due to changes in environment. An adaptive behavior example would be that of the male elephant seals, who defend their harems of female seals from other male seals, in order to have more offspring that share their genetic information. As the top of the dominance hierarchy, the head male elephant seal would want to defend his position, due to the benefits of a community (protection in numbers), prime hunting grounds, and many females with which to have offspring with. Being able to protect his harem would also mean he is the strongest seal around. (http://www.marinebio.net/marinescience/05nekton/esrepro.htm)
ReplyDeleteHumans also have many adaptive behaviors. A couple include jerking when a loud noise is heard (fight or flight response) and the attachment mothers feel for their newborn children (hormones play a part in this). I believe it is important in some cases for humans to have adaptive behaviors, since sometimes they can be very useful - the fight or flight response, for example. The burst of adrenaline can be life-saving in a number of scenarios, like in the video shown in class. Some other adaptive behaviors, however, remain from our ancestors and we might be better off without.
Jolyn does a good job of referencing a variety of adaptive behaviors, behaviors that help the organism survive and reproduce. As mentioned before, fixed action patterns are examples of adaptive behavior in that the behavioral response to a sign stimulus helps the organism survive and reproduce. An example we learned at the beginning of the year is the behavior of red bellied male stickleback fish. The male fish automatically attack in response to the color red, which the fish associate with the bellies of other invading males (Campbell 1121). Males that perform this fixed action pattern have a selective advantage over males that don’t because the males that perform the fixed action pattern of attack protect their nesting areas from invaders and thus allow reproduction occur. As the population evolves such that almost all males perform the fixed action pattern, the theme of evolution and the formation of an adaptive behavior are shown.
ReplyDeleteHumans also exhibit adaptive behavior. Joyln points out the fight-or-flight adrenaline response, but it’s important to note this response is part behavioral and part hormonal. The hormonal response of releasing adrenaline is not a behavioral response. The behavioral response comes in when the individual chooses to fight or flight. The hormonal release of adrenaline allows the individual to better fight or flight by increasing heart rate and redirecting blood flow to muscles, but the hormonal release itself is not behavioral. This is a great example of interdependence in nature; the human behavior of fighting or flighting is aided by the hormonal response of an adrenaline release.
Another example of adaptive behavior of humans is response to temperature. In response to a sense of cold or warm, humans are able to take specific behavioral measures to remedy the situation. Early humans were able to adapt to the cold by huddling under furs of animals, sitting by a warm fire or building an igloo to avoid the harsh cold. Today, humans still have behavioral responses to cold: changing the thermostat, moving to a warmer location, putting on a warmer sweater. Although we may not think about these responses, these are vital adaptive behaviors that allow humans to survive despite low temperatures.
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ReplyDeleteLike Samantha and Jolyn said, adaptive behaviors are behaviors that make an organism more fit to survive and reproduce. Adaptive behaviors can be a sign stimulus like Sammie had said where an organism recognizes a sign and has the same stimulus towards it no matter what like with the male stickleback fish. Another time of behavior is called associative learning. Associative learning is the ability to associate one environmental feature with another (Campbell 1127). For example when a mouse eats a colorful caterpillar and realizes its bitter, the mouse now knows not to eat insects with a similar appearance. The ability for the mouse to know what to eat and what not to eat due to previous experiences allows mouse to survive longer and reproduce. The adaptive behaviors of the predators help the prey survive against predators. If a predator knows what animals will harm them, then the prey can mimic harmful animals that their predator will avoid. This concept is known as Batesian mimicry when a harmless species tries to mimic a harmful species to avoid predators (Campbell 1201). This mimicry works because the predator will think the harmless organism is the harmful organism, because both species look really similar, so the harmful species will not get eaten. An example of Bastesian mimicry is with snakes. Coral snakes are poisonous and dangerous to predators and predators have learnt to recognize coral snakes by their ring design so the predator knows not to eat the coral snake. Other non-dangerous snakes mimic the coral snake ring design so the predator thinks that the non-dangerous snake is the coral snake. As a result the harmless snake doesn’t get eaten (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-batesian-mimicry.htm).
ReplyDeleteHumans also display adaptive behaviors such as the flight or fight response like Jolyn and Sammie both explained. Another adaptive behavior in humans is "the ability to ability to adapt to and manage one's surroundings to effectively function and meet social or community expectations" (http://www.answers.com/topic/adaptive-behavior-scales-for-infants-and-early-childhood). Humans are able to learn to eat with utensils and not with their hands. Humans are also able to learn manners to be socially accepted in communities. It is important for humans to have learned these behaviors because otherwise the human wouldn't be accepted in society. If humans aren't accepted, it is hard for the human to survive and reproduce.
The idea of adaptive behavior relates to theme interdependence in nature. Prey depends on its predator to be able to know how to avoid poisonous prey. The non dangerous prey mimics the dangerous prey because the predator will avoid anything that looks like the dangerous prey. If the predator didn’t know how to recognize dangerous prey, then the harmless prey can’t depend on looking like the dangerous prey and avoid the predators. The idea of adaptive behavior also relates to theme continuity and change. The DNA that makes the animals able to adapt to its surrounding is being transferred from one generation to another. If the DNA changed so that the animals couldn’t mimic each other, then that animals would have to find a different way to avoid predators.