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The latter include abiotic and biotic factors. Abiotic factors such as temperature or light conditions have dramatic effects on animals, especially if they are ectothermic or nocturnal. Biotic factors include members of the same species (e.g. sexual behavior), predators (fight or flight), or parasites and diseases. [12]
A broader definition of behavior, applicable to plants and other organisms, is similar to the concept of phenotypic plasticity. It describes behavior as a response to an event or environment change during the course of the lifetime of an individual, differing from other physiological or biochemical changes that occur more rapidly, and excluding ...
Behavioral ecology, also spelled behavioural ecology, is the study of the evolutionary basis for animal behavior due to ecological pressures. Behavioral ecology emerged from ethology after Niko Tinbergen outlined four questions to address when studying animal behaviors: What are the proximate causes, ontogeny, survival value, and phylogeny of a behavior?
Animal behavior is the study of how animals interact with their environment, interact with each other socially, and how they may achieve understanding of their environment. [8] Animal behavior is examined with the framework of its development, mechanism, adaptive value, and evolution.
Ethology is the scientific and objective study of animal behavior under natural conditions, [38] as opposed to behaviorism, which focuses on behavioral response studies in a laboratory setting. Ethologists have been particularly concerned with the evolution of behavior and the understanding of behavior in terms of the theory of natural selection.
A drawing by Konrad Lorenz showing facial expressions of a dog - a communication behavior. X-axis is aggression, y-axis is fear. Dog behavior is the internally coordinated responses of individuals or groups of domestic dogs to internal and external stimuli. [1] It has been shaped by millennia of contact with humans and their lifestyles.
Shimmering behaviour of Apis dorsata (giant honeybees). A group of animals fleeing from a predator shows the nature of herd behavior, for example in 1971, in the oft-cited article "Geometry for the Selfish Herd", evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton asserted that each individual group member reduces the danger to itself by moving as close as possible to the center of the fleeing group.
Cognitive ethology is a branch of ethology concerned with the influence of conscious awareness and intention on the behaviour of an animal. [1] Donald Griffin, a zoology professor in the United States, set up the foundations for researches in the cognitive awareness of animals within their habitats. [2]