Ethology
Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior, emphasizing its evolutionary and ecological basis and its development in natural settings.
Tinbergen's four questions: A framework that separates questions about behavior’s mechanism, development, evolutionary history, and adaptive function. These four questions organize ethological explanations without treating distinct causes as interchangeable.
Charles Darwin: The English naturalist who developed the theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin argued that behavioral traits, like physical traits, could evolve through natural selection.
Fixed action pattern: A stereotyped sequence of behavior released by a specific stimulus and often carried through once begun. The concept captures a classic ethological account of relatively predictable innate behavior.
Conservation behavior: The use of behavioral research to address problems in wildlife conservation and species management. Behavioral evidence can reveal how disturbance, habitat change, or reintroduction affects animals.
Behaviorism: A psychological approach that emphasizes observable behavior and learning through interactions with the environment. Its early focus on laboratory learning differed from ethology’s attention to species-specific behavior in nature.
Animal behavior: The observable actions and responses of animals, shaped by internal states and environmental conditions. Ethology is the systematic scientific study of this broader subject.
Konrad Lorenz: An Austrian zoologist whose studies of instinct and imprinting helped establish modern ethology. His work made innate behavior and its development central topics in the field.
Sign stimulus: A feature of a stimulus that triggers a particular response in an animal. Ethologists used sign stimuli to test which cues release stereotyped behaviors.
Animal welfare: The condition of an animal in relation to its health, emotional state, and opportunities to meet behavioral needs. Ethology helps identify species-specific behaviors and conditions relevant to welfare.
Sociobiology: The study of the biological basis of social behavior, especially its evolutionary explanations. Sociobiology centers social behavior and evolutionary theory more explicitly than ethology as a whole.