![]() ![]() Niko Tinbergen shared, with Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch, the 1973 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology for contributions to the study of behavioural biology. ![]() How does an animal's behaviour compare with that of other closely related species, and what does this tell us about the origins of its behavior and the changes that have occurred during the history of the species? (phylogeny) How does the behaviour promote an animal's ability to survive and reproduce? (adaptation)Ĥ. How does an animal's behaviour change during its growth, especially in response to the experiences that it has while maturing? (ontogeny of development)ģ. How does an animal use its sensory and motor abilities to activate and modify its behaviour patterns? (physiological mechanisms)Ģ. Niko Tinbergen (1907-1988) defined 4 questions for research in behavioral biology:ġ. In addition, the editorial board encourages reviews of behavioural biology that illuminate emergent trends and new directions in behavioural research. The presence and absence of moans and flags in an alarm signaling bout yields a higher statistical index of predictive association as to whether the threat is aerial or terrestrial than does either component alone.īehaviour publishes original research pursuing Tinbergen's four questions and questions resulting from the interrelationship among the four. When the stimuli resembled real predators approaching in the natural manner (terrestrially or aerially), both tail flags and vocal moans were associated with predator type, so we also considered moans and flags together. An approaching object's physical appearance may therefore affect squirrels' responses to aerial, but not terrestrial, objects. With aerially-approaching stimuli, however, quaas were used more often when the stimulus resembled an aerial predator than when it did not. Terrestrially-approaching stimuli yielded vocal and tail alarm signals regardless of whether the stimulus resembled a predator. Eastern gray squirrels use an alarm-signaling system in which signals in each modality potentially are associated with particular attributes of a threat or may be general alarms. Moans were elicited primarily by aerial stimuli and flags by terrestrial stimuli. Individuals responded with tail signals (twitches and flags) and vocalizations (kuks, quaas and moans), but only flags and moans are associated with predator type. Squirrels were presented with cat and hawk models simulating natural terrestrial or aerial predator attacks and also with control objects that do not resemble predators but approach in a similar manner. Here we examine the eastern gray squirrel, an arboreal squirrel that uses both vocal and tail signals as alarms. Threat-specific vocalizations have been observed in primates and ground squirrels, but their contemporaneous usage with visible signals has not been experimentally analyzed for association with threat type. ![]()
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