Background information:
Behavior is essentially any movement made by an
organism in response to internal or external stimulus. When scientists study
behavior in animals, they distinguish between investigations into proximate
reasons and ultimate reasons for animal behavior. Proximate reasons for a
behavior have to do with the specific organism and the stimuli it is responding
to. An example of a proximate question about bird song is, “What causes this
specific bird to sing?” An ultimate question about bird song is, “ Why would
the behavior of singing be evolutionarily preferred?”
A fixed action pattern, or FAP, is an instinctual
response to a specific stimulus. If an animal receives a stimulus from its
environment that triggers an FAP, it is called a sign stimulus. If the stimulus
is from another animal, it is called a releaser. For humans, yawning is an
example of an FAP. The behavior pattern
is set in motion in the body by the innate releasing mechanism. Anther example
of an FAP is the egg rolling motion of the Greylag goose. The parent will
notice if an egg rolls outside of the nest, and will begin a series of
movements to push it back. It will not stop repeating the pushing motion until
it gets to the nest, even if someone (a human researcher) plucks the egg away
mid push.
Imprinting is, according to encyclopedia
Britannica, a behavior exhibited by young animals who follow the first object
with which they have a “visual, auditory, or tactile experience.” The ability
to imprint is a definite thing in most fowl, but has also been observed in some
mammals, reptiles, and fish.
Kinesis is a speed change in response to
stimulus, which does not involve a movement towards or away from the source of
stimulus. Pillbugs exhibit Kinesis when confronted with a dry environment and a
wet environment and they slow down enough in the wet region to present a slight
preference for the wet region instead of all crowding into the wet region
and/or avoiding it.
Taxis is movement towards or away from a stimulus.
In our lab we used vinegar as a stimulus for smell. Our pillbugs catergorically
avoided the vinegar side of the environment, with the exception of a woodlouse
that may have been ill. He/she ventured over and stayed on the vinegar side at
1.5 minutes, and did not exhibit movement.
Classical conditioning is teaching an organism to
associate a neutral stimulus with a response-causing stimulus, therefore
forming a conditioned response to the formerly neutral stimulus. Association of
stimuli occurs after many trials for less memorable associations, after just
one trial for a scarring association.
Operant conditioning is teaching an organism to
perform (or not perform) a behavior with positive reinforcements (or negative
reinforcements).
Hypothesis of Study on Roly Poly behavior: If a significant proportion of Roly Polys are observed on the stimulus chamber versus the control chamber, then they prefer that environment because they have exhibited taxis towards that stimulus.
Procedure for lab involving roly polys:
1. Place
filter paper in both compartments
2. Place
stimulus in one side
3. Place
pillbugs on side with no stimulus
4. Record
behavior every 3o seconds
5. Do moisture
as one stimulus
6. Do
texture as another stimulus
7. Do
vinegar (smell) as yet another stimulus
double compartment tray
filter paper
water
glass beads
vinegar
two pipettes (one for each liquid)
stick with which to encourage movement of roly ploys out of storage container
data:
moisture ( column #2)
Glass (column 1)
Vinegar (column 1)
From the data we can see that over time the majority of Roly Polys preferred a wet environment to a dry one. After 1.5 minutes the bugs began to make their way to the wet environment and after 2.0 minutes there is no instance in which bugs showed a net tendency to move into a dry environment.
The bugs did not seem to overwhelmingly prefer glass beads to non glass beads. there was movement in both directions, though in the end there were more bugs who stayed on the glass beaded side. Perhaps it took 3 minutes for the bugs to gather enough information about the stimulus to exhibit taxis in response to the stimulus and another 2 minutes to decide to move to the glass beads.
The bugs overwhelmingly preferred the non vinegar environment to the vinegar environment. Except for one woodlouse who apparently enjoyed the scent, all the bugs remained on the side without vinegar. Normally they would move around on both sides of the container, but because of the vinegar none (except the freak woodlouse) moved around outside the non vinegar region.
errors:
in our moisture trial, a bit of water leaked from the "wet" to the "dry side." To adjust our setup, we counted the portion of wet filter paper on the "dry" side as "wet." a
No comments:
Post a Comment