Ecological decision-making: From circuit elements to emerging principles

The interactions an animal has with its prey, predators, neighbors, and competitors are known as ecological interactions. Making effective decisions during ecological interactions poses fundamental challenges for the nervous system. Among these are the need to filter relevant information out of complex and ever-changing sensory scenes, to balance competing objectives, and to generate robust behavior amid the strong mutual feedbacks that occur during interactions with other animals. Here, I review recent advancements in the study of ecological decision-making. Using research with fishes, I illustrate how knowledge of ethology and brain circuitry are converging to yield a more holistic understanding of how the brain solves these problems to produce robust sequences of natural behavior.     

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.     

Rational Preselection from Hamadryas to Homo Sapiens: The Place of Decisions in Adaptive Process

Normally biological and sociocultural evolution are explained in terms of blind variation and selective retention. This theory avoids intrinsic teleological fallacies but fails to account for a type of purposive behavior that is both distinctive and adaptively significant. The preselective hypothesis advanced here asserts that certain highly social animals including Homo sapiens are able to anticipate complex evolutionary problems. They may then beat natural selection to the draw by making their own deliberate adaptive choices, where the advantage of doing so is perceptually obvious. Such decisions occur both at the individual level and through political processes at the group level. Especially in group preselection, the result is an adaptive mechanism of unparalleled flexibility and rapidity of action, one very inadequately accounted for by ethnologists. Implications are suggested for ethology, archaeology, and ethnology in terms of redefining culture and revising models of cultural adaptation and evolution to make the study of process more effective . [evolutionary theory, cultural ecology, decision process, ethology, cognition]     

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.     

Ethology of the taiga tick Ixodes persulcatus during its spring activity

10 elementary behavioural acts (EBA) were distinguished in the behaviour of the taiga tick during its spring activity. The acts include repeatable and indivisible into more simple forms poses (active and passive waiting poses, resting pose, hiding pose), movements (scanning movement, Haller's organ cleaning, contacting movement) and locomotor acts (locomotion to a zone of contact, locomotion to a shelter, locomotion to a source of scent). EBA form 3 behavioural programs: entering a zone of contact, moving to a shelter and attacking a host. The first two of the programs are turned on by processes of water loss and uptake in the organism of the tick, the third program--by signals of the host. The system of describing of ticks behaviour, offered by the author, can be used by investigators dealing with the ethology of ticks.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

The evolution and functional significance of incest avoidance

The origin and evolution of outbreeding is discussed in the light of the most recent genetical observations and theoretical developments in ethology. Rather than problems resulting from the expression of recessive deleterious genes, small-population genetic stochastic processes and the resulting homosis are viewed as the primary fitness-limiting features of inbreeding populations. With evolution of biparental reproduction, selection favored the reproductive potential of individuals exhibiting a genetically adopted, behavioral aversion to mating with parents, siblings, and offspring. The human incest taboo is regarded as a cultural epiphenomenon following from the general biological inclination to outbreed.     

深度学习在蜜蜂研究中的应用

实现对蜜蜂蜂群的实时动态监测,有助于养蜂业的数字化与智能化发展,对大幅提升养蜂管理水平具有重要意义。深度学习作为人工智能的一种新的研究方向,目前已被广泛应用于昆虫分类学、行为学、害虫生物防治等领域。随着深度学习检测算法的迅速发展,基于深度学习的蜜蜂蜂群监测技术不断涌现,为智能化养蜂提供了可能。为促进深度学习在蜜蜂领域的进一步应用,本文梳理了深度学习在蜜蜂的物种识别、行为跟踪监测、蜂群健康监测和蜂巢监测等方面的研究进展,分析了深度学习技术在蜜蜂蜂群监测研究及应用中存在的一些问题和未来发展方向,为深度学习在蜜蜂领域的应用提出了建议。     

Sexual ornaments as animal signals

Workers in both animal communication and behavioral ecology have long been interested in animal signals. Animal-communication researchers often have a background in ethology or comparative psychology, and place priority on signal analysis, whereas modern behavioral ecologists are concerned with the effects of natural selection on the exaggeration or development of a trait. Although the two fields examine the same problems, this division has hindered the solution of the problems themselves. Recent theoretical and empirical work has started to bridge the gap, but several important questions, particularly regarding sexual selection, have remained unanswered. Here I examine the differences in these two approaches to the study of animal signals, and suggest additional areas that would benefit by combining the two viewpoints.     

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.     

Zum Zug des Kiebitzregenpfeifers,Pluvialis squatarola,in Bulgarian

Abstract

On the migration of the Grey Plover Pluvialis squatarola, in Bulgaria: 137 Bulgarian records (1891 – 1989) were compiled from published and unpublished sources and reviewed. Distribution, phenology, ecology and ethology are described and discussed in comparison with other countries of the Black Sea region.     

On the Problem of Man in Psychology

Very few works in our literature have been devoted to human ethology and social ethology, particularly of children. Psychological-pedagogical approaches predominate; these are based on an assessment of verbal information and on the results of experimental or educational inputs. But such studies should rest on knowledge of the distinctive features of a person's immediate behavior, and these can be ascertained solely through objective study, in which every directed input is precluded.     

Optimal Foraging Theory and the Psychology of Learning

The development of optimization theory has made important contributionsto the study of animal behavior. But the optimization approachneeds to be integrated with other methods of ethology and psychology.For example, the ability to learn is an important componentof efficient foraging behavior in many species, and the psychologyof animal learning could contribute substantially to testingand extending the predictions of optimal foraging theory.     

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.     

大鼠血管性痴呆动物模型的研究进展

本文综述了近年来大鼠血管性痴呆的造模方法和造模后大鼠行为学、组织形态学、神经生化指标及影像学等观测指标,为今后的实验研究提供相应的依据。     

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.     

Hyphal and mycelial consciousness: the concept of the fungal mind

Like other cells, fungal hyphae show exquisite sensitivity to their environment. This reactiveness is demonstrated at many levels, from changes in the form of the hypha resulting from alterations in patterns of exocytosis, to membrane excitation, and mechanisms of wound repair. Growing hyphae detect ridges on surfaces and respond to restrictions in their physical space. These are expressions of cellular consciousness. Fungal mycelia show decision-making and alter their developmental patterns in response to interactions with other organisms. Mycelia may even be capable of spatial recognition and learning coupled with a facility for short-term memory. Now is a fruitful time to recognize the study of fungal ethology as a distinctive discipline within mycology.     

BREEDING BEHAVIOUR OF THE GREAT WHITE EGRET

Tomlinson, D. N., S. 1976. Breeding behaviour of the Great White Egret. Ostrich 47:161-178.

The breeding displays of the Great White Egret Egretta alba are discussed but further observations are needed for statistical analysis. In support of Curry-Lindahl (1971). the ethology of the species in combination with other evidence indicates that it is more closely related to the genus Ardea than to Egretta and it is suggested that it be reclassified accordingly. In comparison with other Ardeidae. E. albu chicks are highly tolerant of each other, resulting in an estimaed high fledgling success rate.