The Comparative Ethology and Evolution of the Sand Wasps. Howard E. Evans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966. xviii, 526 pp. $15.00.

Excerpt: In one sense, ethology is natural history. In a more restricted sense, it is the description and classification of behavior viewed as a necessary prerequisite to analysis. The analyses that follow become more and more physiological as the tangle of facts unravels so that the ethology of the field inevitably becomes the ethology of the laboratory

Some logical fallacies in the classical ethological point of view

E-E has written a concise exposition of the classical ethological view of human behavior. The ethology of Lorenz and his followers has been incisively criticized by Lehrman and others, but it appears from E-E's essay that these criticisms have brought about no major modifications of the thinking of classical ethology

Evidence-based swine welfare: Where are we and where are we going?

Behavior, ethology and welfare Animal welfare is not a term that arose in science to express a scientific concept; rather, it arose in Western civilization to express ethical concern regarding the treatment of animals. There are three schools of welfare, and which school an individual subscribes to will often influence the philosophical definitions of welfare to which they subscribe. The first school is a feeling based school, which would include some reference to the importance of ascertaining what an animal feels in terms of pleasure, suffering, distress, and pain. The second school is a functioning-based school in which there is a focus on the fitness and health of animals. The third school is a nature-based school that values the natural behaviors of animals under natural conditions. The idea of feelings being important for welfare was developed by Duncan 1 and Duncan and Dawkins,2 and then the suggestion was made that, in fact, feelings were the only thing that mattered.3 ln turn, because of these various schools of thought, animal welfare researchers are still unable to agree on one animal welfare definition, but the measures that can be used to help assess how an animal is coping within defined parameters have been agreed upon. Animal welfare is an issue that involves several scientific disciplines that are part of the animal sciences, which include performance, physiology, anatomy, health, and behavior.4 Perhaps the discipline that has been most closely associated with welfare is the study of animal behavior, known as ethology.4 The term applied ethology is often used to designate the subdiscipline of studying the behavior of animals that are managed in some way by humans. Gonyou4 noted, Applied ethology involving agricultural species has become so closely associated with the scientifi,c study of animal welfare that some use the terms behavior, ethology and welfare as virtual synonyms. 4 The objective of this paper will be to discuss three case studies using pig behavior that may be used on farm by a swine practioner

It Felt More like a Revolution. How Behavioral Ecology Succeeded Ethology, 1970-1990

As soon as ethology's status diminished in the early 1970s, it was confronted with two successor disciplines, sociobiology and behavioral ecology. They were able to challenge ethology because it no longer provided markers of strong disciplinarity such as theoretical coherence, leading figures and a clear identity. While behavioral ecology developed organically out of the UK ethological research community into its own disciplinary standing, sociobiology presented itself as a US competitor to the ethological tradition. I will show how behavioral ecology took the role of legitimate heir to ethology by rebuilding a theoretical core and an intellectual sense of community, while sociobiology failed to use its public appeal to reach disciplinary status. Meanwhile, ethology changed its disciplinary identity to encompass all biological studies of animal behavior

Layered control architectures in robots and vertebrates

We revieiv recent research in robotics, neuroscience, evolutionary neurobiology, and ethology with the aim of highlighting some points of agreement and convergence. Specifically, we com pare Brooks' (1986) subsumption architecture for robot control with research in neuroscience demonstrating layered control systems in vertebrate brains, and with research in ethology that emphasizes the decomposition of control into multiple, intertwined behavior systems. From this perspective we then describe interesting parallels between the subsumption architecture and the natural layered behavior system that determines defense reactions in the rat. We then consider the action selection problem for robots and vertebrates and argue that, in addition to subsumption- like conflict resolution mechanisms, the vertebrate nervous system employs specialized selection mechanisms located in a group of central brain structures termed the basal ganglia. We suggest that similar specialized switching mechanisms might be employed in layered robot control archi tectures to provide effective and flexible action selection

Neuroethology, Computational

Over the past decade, a number of neural network researchers have used the term computational neuroethology to describe a specific approach to neuroethology. Neuroethology is the study of the neural mechanisms underlying the generation of behavior in animals, and hence it lies at the intersection of neuroscience (the study of nervous systems) and ethology (the study of animal behavior); for an introduction to neuroethology, see Simmons and Young (1999). The definition of computational neuroethology is very similar, but is not quite so dependent on studying animals: animals just happen to be biological autonomous agents. But there are also non-biological autonomous agents such as some types of robots, and some types of simulated embodied agents operating in virtual worlds. In this context, autonomous agents are self-governing entities capable of operating (i.e., coordinating perception and action) for extended periods of time in environments that are complex, uncertain, and dynamic. Thus, computational neuroethology can be characterised as the attempt to analyze the computational principles underlying the generation of behavior in animals and in artificial autonomous agents

Ethology and Overwintering of \u3ci\u3ePodalonia Luctuosa\u3c/i\u3e (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae)

The nesting and overwintering behavior of Podalonia luctuosa (Smith) was studied in New York and Colorado. Females provisioned shallow (ca. 2 cm deep), unicellular nests with a single cutworm (Noctuidae) during April, May, and July. Paralyzed prey were trans- ported on the ground and were cached on plants just above ground level. Prey weights averaged about 400 mg. The miltogrammine fly Hilarella hilarella Zetterstedt parasitized prey at both localities. From I to IO adult females were found to overwinter in burrows 0.5 m deep, which were dug in late summer and early fall. Collection data and field studies indicated that P. luctuosa is bivoltine in the NE U.S

Optimal Foraging Theory and the Psychology of Learning

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

Cognitive Relatives and Moral Relations

The close kinship between humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans is a central theme among participants in the debate about human treatment of the other apes. Empathy is probably the single most important determinant of actual human moral behavior, including the treatment of nonhuman animals. Given the applied nature of questions about the treatment of captive apes, it is entirely appropriate that the close relationship between us should be highlighted. But the role that relatedness should play in ethical theory is less clear. To the extent that legal and regulatory challenges to keeping apes in captivity are likely to be based on principles of theory, it is important to understand what roles evolutionary theory can play in deriving such principles. The development of ethically correct policies for captivity of animals will depend on taking into account both species-specific and individual differences in the ways that individuals perceive and conceptualize the spaces in which they live, and the choices with which they are presented. A fully evolutionary approach to cognition, a cognitive ethology, that is not just limited to the great apes or to primates is the best hope we have for understanding such perceptions and conceptions

Macroecology of parental care in arthropods: higher mortality risk leads to higher benefits of offspring protection in tropical climates

The intensity of biotic interactions varies around the world, in such a way that mortality risk imposed by natural enemies is usually higher in the tropics. A major role of offspring attendance is protection against natural enemies, so the benefits of this behaviour should be higher in tropical regions. We tested this macroecological prediction with a meta-regression of field experiments in which the mortality of guarded and unguarded broods was compared in arthropods. Mortality of unguarded broods was higher, and parental care was more beneficial, in warmer, less seasonal environments. Moreover, in these same environments, additional lines of defence further reduced offspring mortality, implying that offspring attendance alone is not enough to deter natural enemies in tropical regions. These results help to explain the high frequency of parental care among tropical species and how biotic interactions influence the occurrence of parental care over large geographic scales. Finally, our findings reveal that additional lines of defences – an oftentimes neglected component of parental care – have an important effect on the covariation between the benefits of parental care and the climate-mediated mortality risk imposed by natural enemies