Monthly Archives: July 2011

11: Behavioural Adaptations for Survival

monkeys_grooming

Link for our Elluminate session (Friday 22nd July, periods 1 and 2): https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007026&password=M.8E3BE08DC2C05955C950883EC4C9AB
Learning Intention: For students to be able to understand what behavioural adaptations are, how they can assist the survival of different species and to be able to identify different types of behavioural adaptations.

Success Criteria: You will be able to identify several examples of innate and learned animal behaviours and describe how they assist each organism to survive in their environment.

Any actions that an animal takes to assist it’s survival – feeding, mating, hibernating, migrating, nesting, fighting for territory or resting in shade – are behavioral adaptations that have evolved over generations. Some behaviors are ‘innate’ or instinctive and occur in all animals of the same species, even if they are isolated from their parents and siblings. These behaviors are genetically programmed, while others are learned behaviors. Learned behaviors require an organism to observe the behavior.

An example of insect behaviour is the “waggle dance” that directs bees to sources of food – read more about it at NOVA. For more examples of animal and plant adaptations, check out this Scoop.it magazine I created, with some interesting articles. From D’Anne Witkowski’s blog – “Unique among primates, gelada males have a patch of bare skin on their chest that changes in color according to status. Beehner believes that this relationship (between color and status) might be linked by testosterone. As testosterone levels rise, male chests change from pale pink to bright red. Simply put, this chest patch could be a signal to other males, a way for males to decide whether they want to pick a fight with a high-testosterone rival or not.”

gelada_monkey

This Creative Commons Image from Wikimedia