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Self-Presentation and Interacting With Others. Animal Communication. Humans communicate with each other through language, non-verbal cues (smile, frown, etc)., and visual cues (ex. painting rooms pink vs. black)  Other animals have ways of communicating as well, with many non-verbal cues and visual cues, and other cues not used by humans. Who are animals communicating with?  Members of same species, or members of other species like humans.  Autocommunication – can give information to themselves. Ex. bats and echolocation What are they trying to communicate?  Mating rituals, to attract opposite sex  To establish/defend territory  To convey information about food location  Alarm calls, to warn others about predators  Signal dominance and submission Watch about for anthropomorphism – attributing human characteristics to non-human animals, ex. pet sleeping with you at night. Types of Animal Communication.  Sound – can convey a lot of information • Ex. mating calls, warning sounds, etc. Useful because it’s fast, can reach many, but not very private and exposes the animal’s location.  Chemical signals – Gain info from the environment through smells. They can release scents called pheromones. Can detect predators using smell, or presence of other animals. Tends to be a lot slower than sound, but a lot longer lasting. But can be “noisy” – a lot of chemical signals in a given area.  Somatosensory communication – Touch and movement.. Can also convey food location (bees), pair bonding (birds cuddle/prune mates), body language. Also seismic communication (ex. movement of bug in spider’s web signals to spider to find it), electro-communication (fish) • Ex. mating dances  Visual cues – to find a mate • Ex. color on birds. Mimicry, camouflage. Biological Explanations of Social Behavior in Animals. Animal Behavior: Foraging. Foraging is the search for food in animal’s environment. Can’t survive or reproduce without it.  Cost-benefit analysis associated with it – going out to get food can take up time and energy. Goal is to get highest yield while expending least amount of energy. • Includes looking for food, stalking prey. 2 main foraging strategies:  1) solitary foraging and 2) group foraging (can potentially lead to competition when food is scarce, but also means they can take down larger prey and can benefit everyone) • Foraging behavior is driven strongly by genetics, but can also be gained through learning, ex. young copy adults. Mating Behavior and Inclusive Fitness. Mating is the pairing of opposite sex organisms for purpose of reproduction and propagation of genetic material.  Includes act of mating and the behaviours associated with it. Also events that occur after mating, like nest building. • Ex. The Superb Bird of Paradise does a complicated dance Mating strategies  1) Random mating- all equally likely to mate with each other, not influenced by environment/heredity or social limitation. Ensures a large amount of genetic diversity.  2) Assortative Mating – Non-random mating where individuals with certain personalities tend to mate with each other at a higher frequency, ex. large animals with large animals. Problem is if animals too genetically similar mate (inbreeding), can be harmful to species overall.  3) Disassortative Mating (Non-Assortative Mating) – opposite of assortative mating – situation where individuals with different or diverse traits mate with higher frequency than with random mating. Which is best? Scientists think assortative mating, because despite dangers of inbreeding, help to increase inclusive fitness of an organism.  Inclusive fitness is the # of offspring an animal has, how they support them, and how offspring support each other. Inclusive fitness is thinking about fitness on a larger scale – evolutionary advantageous for animals to propagate survival of closely related individuals and genes in addition to themselves. Evolutionary Game Theory. Game theory is talked about in reference to decision making, but can also use it for evolution and animal behavior.  Evolutionary game theory tells us those with best fit to environment will survive and pass on to offspring, and those genes will become more common in successive generations. • Reproduction and environment are central to evolutionary game theory. Helps us predict traits and evolutionary stable strategies/behaviours that persist in population once present. • Predicts the availability of resources and social behavior. Strategy of each individual depends on strategy exhibited by other players.  However, game theory involves intention reasoning about behaviours of others. Evolutionary game theory different because decisions might not be conscious intention on part of players.  Ex. Altruism – 2 groups of monkeys, one selfish and one not. Selfish group doesn’t alarm others of predators. Non-selfish group alerts others and leads to overall success of group over time.