What Capabilities for the Animal?

In this essay, I defend a bi-constructivist approach to ethology—a constructivist ethology assuming that each animal adopts constructivist strategies. I put it in opposition to what I call a realist-Cartesian approach, which is currently the dominant approach to ethology and comparative psychology. The starting point of the bi-constructivist approach can be formulated as a shift from the classical Aristotelian question “What is an animal?” to the Spinozean question, which is much less classical but which seems to me to be much stronger: “What are the capacities of the animal?”. Is it possible to conceptualize an ethology which insists on interpretation and therefore on invention, innovation and creativity, rather than on causality, the monotony of behavioural routines, and/or genetic or environmental determination? Such an ethology would be based not on the fiction of an absent observer but on fully recognizing the necessity of an observer, who is effectively present in order to get an observation. A pluralistic ethology does not dissociate itself from the marginal epistemologies of practitioners like animal trainers, hunters, stockbreeders etc., or, moreover, non-western experts. An ethology of this kind is not clamped within the boundaries of purely academic epistemology, obsessed by demarcation lines between the human and the animal. My work on the bi-constructivist approach represents a contribution towards the elaboration of an authentically biosemiotic ethology, one which is significantly different from the mechanical ethology of today.     

Is a cultural ethology possible?

The possibility, desirability, and potential outcomes of applying ethological methods to the study of culture-specific human behaviors are investigated. Ethology and culture are explored. A new term, instruction, and its use in cultural ethology are proposed. Genetics and survival value are related to cultural ethology. A cultural ethology is given a possible theoretical foundation, and current attempts at a cultural ethology are appraised. A research program in cultural ethology and related fields is proposed.This article is a completely rewritten version of a paper of the same title delivered at the annual meeting of the Southern Anthropological Society at Gainesville, Florida, in February 1968 and published inResearch Previews 15(1): 37–47, April 1968.     

Why Was Thomas A. Sebeok Not a Cognitive Ethologist? From “Animal Mind” to “Semiotic Self”

In the current debates about zoosemiotics its relations with the neighbouring disciplines are a relevant topic. The present article aims to analyse the complex relations between zoosemiotics and cognitive ethology with special attention to their establishers: Thomas A. Sebeok and Donald R. Griffin. It is argued that zoosemiotics and cognitive ethology have common roots in comparative studies of animal communication in the early 1960s. For supporting this claim Sebeok’s works are analysed, the classical and philosophical periods of his zoosemiotic views are distinguished and the changing relations between zoosemiotics and cognitive ethology are described. The animal language controversy can be interpreted as the explicit point of divergence of the two paradigms, which, however, is a mere symptom of a deeper cleavage. The analysis brings out later critical differences between Sebeok’s and Griffin’s views on animal cognition and language. This disagreement has been the main reason for the critical reception and later neglect of Sebeok’s works in cognitive ethology. Sebeok’s position in this debate remains, however, paradigmatic, i.e. it proceeds from understanding of the contextualisation of semiotic processes that do not allow treating the animal mind as a distinct entity. As a peculiar parallel to Griffin’s metaphor of “animal mind”, Sebeok develops his understanding of “semiotic self” as a layered structure, characterised by an ability to make distinctions, foremost between itself and the surrounding environment. It appears that the history of zoosemiotics has two layers: in addition to the chronological history starting in 1963, when Sebeok proposed a name for the field, zoosemiotics is also philosophically rooted in Peircean semiotics and German biological philosophy. It is argued that the confrontation between zoosemiotics and cognitive ethology is related to different epistemological approaches and at least partly induced by underlying philosophical traditions.     

F. J. J. Buytendijk's contribution to animal behaviour: Animal psychology or ethology?

F. J. J.Buytendijk died on October 21st 1974 at the age of 87. His important contribution to the study of animal behaviour is analyzed here in relation to the historical development of animal psychology and ethology. The detailed study of his scientific production suggests, according to the authors, that some important findings, although largely not paid attention to in present-day literature, are akin to the conceptual and methodological evolution of comparative ethology.     

A history of Animal Behaviour by a partial, ignorant and prejudiced ethologist

This essay looks back on the history of Animal Behaviour through a compilation of all the papers published in the journal, since it got its present name, that used sticklebacks, the white rat of ethology, as experimental subjects. This stickleback-eye view confirms the role that Animal Behaviour has played during its first 50 years in fostering and recording the important developments that have taken place in the discipline. It also speaks to its current flourishing state as a key journal for the dissemination of results in both ethology (in the sense of studies looking at causation, development and evolution as well as function) and behavioural ecology.     

The Ethological Approach to the Study of Human Behavior

Human ethology, which was established on the basis of classical zooethology, can be an inspirational contribution to the study of human behavior. The study of behavior in natural conditions is stimulating as well as the primary interest of ethologists in such behavioral patterns showing evolutionary success and benefits and which are called inborn or innate. The extensive area of human behavior, nonverbal communication, can be investigated also with the application of some ethological knowledge. Human ethology can bring significant insight to the evaluation of the pathology of human behavior in various medical disciplines. An important task of medical prediction (prognosis) can be made more reliable by considering the ethology. A specific attribute of the species Homo sapiens, his culture, is acknowledged and discussed through human ethology.     

Mental content and evolutionary explanation

Cognitive ethology is the comparative study of animal cognition from an evolutionary perspective. As a sub-discipline of biology it shares interest in questions concerning the immediate causes and development of behavior. As a part of ethology it is also concerned with questions about the function and evolution of behavior. I examine some recent work in cognitive ethology, and I argue that the notions of mental content and representation are important to enable researchers to answer questions and state generalizations about the function and volution of behavior.I would like to thank Dorothy Cheney, Keith Donnellan, Alan Nelson, and Robert Seyfarth for their help.     

Some Thoughts on the Relationship Between Behaviorism,Comparative Psychology,and Ethology

ABSTRACT

Although there has been considerable literature produced on the relationship between behaviorism, comparative psychology, and ethology; there has not been a considerable consensus of opinion. Our position, more historically situated than many, argues that the crucial distinction remains simply: “Why does each discipline use animals as subjects?” Drawing on actual position statements by definitional figures, we believe that answers to this probative inquiry amply illustrates the substantial differences between these long-standing traditions.     

Conservation needs ethologv

With the number of species and near-to-natural habitats rapidly dwindling, conservation has become an undebatable necessity. There have been some laudable, successful species conservation projects but there have also been many deplorable failures. The failures are exacerbated by limited funding. Conservationists depend on funding by national government organizations (NG0s) and by private sponsors, more than other practitioners of organismic biology do. To maximize their success, conservationists would be well advised to heed the messages resulting from animal behaviour study (i.e. ethology) and/or to involve ethologists in their projects. Here, I illustrate how ethology can benefit both in situ and ex situ conservation measures; the need for conservation-oriented behaviour research is paramount.     

Towards a field theory of behaviour

Classical ethology, with its emphasis on separability of parts, has largely failed to do justice to the wholeness of the individual animal, to the integrity of group behaviour and to the continuity between observable behaviour and consciousness. Field theory has potentialities to do better, as illustrated in this paper with reference to morphogenetic and behavioural fields. A behavioural domain is delineated — playlike behaviour — where field theory is particularly relevant. It is shown that the concept of symmetry can suggest new questions as well as explain some generally known phenomena of group behaviour. New interpretations of displacement activities and of etho-ecological adaptations are offered, both of which involve the whole individual animal.This paper is dedicated to W.M.S. Russell at the occasion of his retirement. He and Claire Russell invented most of what is new in ethology years or decades ago.     

Tribute to Tinbergen: Putting Niko Tinbergen's ‘Four Questions’ in Historical Context

Niko Tinbergen's (Zeit. Tier. 20, 1963, 410) paper ‘On aims and methods of ethology’ is appropriately remembered as the paper in which Tinbergen characterized ethology as ‘the biological study of behavior’ and went on to explain that to study behavior biologically is to ask four distinct questions about it: (1) How is it caused physiologically? (2) What is its survival value? (3) How has it evolved? and (4) How does it develop in the individual? Here, we consider Tinbergen's paper in its historical context by looking at it from three different perspectives: (1) a comparison of Tinbergen's formulation of ‘ethology's four questions’ with similar, but different formulations of biology's basic problems offered by Julian Huxley, Konrad Lorenz, and Ernst Mayr; (2) a survey of the roles that the four questions played in Tinbergen's own work over the course of his career; and (3) a consideration of the two explicit goals of Tinbergen's (Zeit. Tier., 20, 1963, 410) paper, namely (a.) to honor Tinbergen's friend and colleague Konrad Lorenz (as part of a Festschrift for Lorenz on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday) and (b.) to provide a sketch of ethology's scope and an evaluation of the ways the field needed to develop in the future. We suggest that just as the work of Tinbergen's Oxford research team revealed how the behavior of gulls reflected compromises worked out in the face of the diverse selective pressures of particular environments, we can identify certain conflicts that arose for Tinbergen in trying to write something that his friend Lorenz would like while also assessing ethology's current state and future prospects. That said, however, Tinbergen's enduring concern was to do all he could to ensure that ethology thrive as a field and develop a scientific understanding of animal (and human) behavior. For this to happen, he insisted, the four questions of ethology needed to be pursued in a balanced, comprehensive, and integrated fashion.     

History of developmental neuroethology: Early contributions from ethology

Ethology has its roots in the natural history of animal behavior. Questions of causation and function have historically been complementary, and each has rested upon a prior appreciation of the behavior of animals in nature. It is thus difficult to place a single time or place where ethology was born. Early evolutionary interests hinted at developmental constraints that continue to guide much research. It has only been relatively recently, however, that the explicit analysis of neural mechanisms in behavior has received the attention it deserves in developmental analyses. A mature developmental neuroethology will require a synthesis of the broad insights of ethology with refined neurobiological technique. Fundamental, however, is the primary focus upon behavior as it normally occurs. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Behavioural ecology's ethological roots

Since Krebs and Davies's (1978) landmark publication, it is acknowledged that behavioural ecology owes much to the ethological tradition in the study of animal behaviour. Although this assumption seems to be right-many of the first behavioural ecologists were trained in departments where ethology developed and matured-it still to be properly assessed. In this paper, I undertake to identify the approaches used by ethologists that contributed to behavioural ecology's constitution as a field of inquiry. It is my contention that the current practices in behavioural biology owe ethology something much subtler than the simple transposition of Tinbergen's Four Problems for heuristic purposes. Demonstrating what ethology inherited from the long naturalist tradition shows the tensions that strained the field and that later led to the loss of both its unity and its specificity. It also allows for a precise delineating of what behavioural ecology picked up from the ethological practice, and it helps to cast some light on the introduction of economical thinking in behavioural sciences.     

Rethinking human ethology: A response to some recent critiques

As Tinbergen pointed out a quarter of a century ago, ethology employs many levels of investigation. Studies of psychological adaptations, and of current fitness functions, are two of them. All of these investigations are valid, none is intrinsically most important, and each can be enhanced by the others.     

The Neuroprotective Effect of Overexpression of Calbindin-D28k in an Animal Model of Parkinson’s Disease

Overexpression of calbindin-D_28k (CaBP-28 k) induces neurite outgrowth in dopaminergic neuronal cells and could provide some protection to dopaminergic neurons against the pathological process in Parkinson’s disease. Transgenic mice CaBP-28 k overexpression and the 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)-induced mouse models were generated, and the effect of midbrain dopamine neurons in ethology was also assessed. Tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-immunoreactive neurons were counted, and the concentration of total protein and dopamine (DA) of striatum corpora was measured in four animal models. Results showed that the positive TH cells, content of DA, and ability of ethology in MPTP-induced transgenic mice were significantly higher than that in MPTP-induced wild-type mice. The findings demonstrate that overexpression of CaBP-28 k could provide protection for DA neurons from neurodegeneration. It would provide a potential strategy in the treatment of Parkinson’s diseases.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Argutostrea</Emphasis> gen. nov.: Questions of taxonomy and ethology of Middle–Late Jurassic epibiont oysters (Bivalvia,Ostreoidea)

Morphology and ethology of the Middle–Late Jurassic oyster “Liostrea” roemeri (Quenstedt) from the Upper Callovian of the Volga Region near Saratov and Middle Volgian of the Subpolar Urals are considered. The inverted shell shape and presence of a beaked umbo on the right valves allow the assignment of these oysters to a new monotypic genus, Argutostrea Kosenko, gen. nov. Features of the internal valve structure examined in only one specimen suggest that the new genus should tentatively be included in the subfamily Pycnodonteinae Stenzel, 1959 of the family Gryphaeidae Vialov, 1936. It is shown that shell morphology of the oyster A. roemeri is connected with transition to dwelling on floating ammonites.     

双丹胶囊对大鼠脑缺血再灌注损伤保护作用研究

目的：观察双丹胶囊对大鼠局灶性脑缺血再灌注损伤的脑梗死体积、自由基变化的影响,探讨双丹胶囊对脑缺血损伤的保护作用。方法：复制大鼠中动脉缺血再灌注模型,分别给药干预,在给药后观察行为学、脑梗死率、脑指数、脑含水量、SOD、MAD等指标。结果：双丹胶囊可改善动物的神经行为学评分,明显降低动物的脑梗死率、脑指数、脑含水量、提高脑组织SOD活性、降低MDA含量,并成剂量依赖。结论：双丹胶囊对脑缺血再灌注损伤具有保护作用。     

我国光肩星天牛研究回顾及发展趋势

本文对光肩星天牛目前在我国的研究现状、存在的问题、发展趋势进行了阐述。着重在其行为学、对寄主的选择、造成的经济损失、生物防治、预测预报、防治方法等方面作了广泛描述。     

Review: From human–animal relation practice research to the development of the livestock farmer's activity: an ergonomics–applied ethology interaction

Animal husbandry and working conditions for livestock farmers have changed significantly in recent years as agriculture has been exposed to economic as well as health, environmental and ethical challenges. The idea of interdependent welfare between humans and animals is more relevant now than ever. Here, we innovatively bridge two disciplines—ergonomics and applied ethology—to achieve an in-depth observational understanding of real husbandry practice (by farmers, inseminators, vets) at work. Ergonomics aims to gain a detailed understanding of human activity in its physical, sensitive and cognitive dimensions in relation to a task. It also aims to transform work situations through a systemic approach drawing on multiple levers for change. Here, we examine how this analysis holds up to the inclusion of animals as an integral component of the livestock farmer’s work situation. Applied ethology studies behaviours in animals managed by humans. It aims to understand how these animals perceive their environment, including how they construct their relationship with the livestock farmer. This paper proposes an original conception of the human–animal relationship in animal husbandry that employs core structural concepts from both disciplines. From an ergonomic point of view, we address the human–animal relations by examining the relationship between ‘prescribed’ and real work practices, between work and personal life situation, between professional task and human activity. On the applied ethology side of the equation, the human–animal relationship is a process built through communication and regular interactions between two ‘partners’ who know each other. The goal is to understand how each partner perceives the other according to their multimodal sensory world and their cognitive and emotional capacities, and to predict the outcome of future interactions. We cross-analyse these scientific views to show, based on examples, how and in what way they can intersect to bring better analysis of these human–animal relationships. We reflect on common working hypotheses and situated observational approaches based on indicators (behaviour and animal and human welfare/health). This analysis prompts us to clarify what human–animal relational practice means in animal husbandry work, i.e. a strategy employed by the livestock farmer to work safely and efficiently in a healthy environment, where the animal is treated as a partner in the relationship. In this perspective, the challenge is for the livestock farmer’s activity to co-build a positive relationship and avoid being subject to this one.     

The making of ethology: The association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, 1936–1986

The paper reviews the history of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour in its 50th anniversary year. Having discussed the founding of the Institute for the Study of Animal Behaviour in 1936, the paper establishes its principal aims, follows its fortunes before and during the war, traces its role in the expansion and institutionalization of ethology in Britainbetween 1945 and 1950, and summarizes its transformation into a flourishing scientific society in the 1950s and 1960s. It is concluded that the history of the Association is, to a striking extent, a microcosm of the making of ethology as a successful scientific discipline.