What is Ethology and what is its object of study?

This branch of science studies animal behavior with distinctive methods.

It is not uncommon for different branches of knowledge to cross over to create hybrid disciplines. This is the case of ethology, a branch of biology that deals with the how and why of animal behavior..

It is impossible to understand human behavior without first being familiar with the behavior of animals, which is why the study of ethology is fundamental in the training of any psychologist who wants to have a holistic view of human development.

What does ethology consist of?

Ethology emerged as a distinct discipline in the 1920s through the efforts of Konrad Lorenz, Karl von Frisch and Niko Tinbergen, who in 1973 jointly received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their contributions to the study of behavior. They were influenced by the foundational work of, among others, the ornithologist Oskar Heinroth and the ant scholar William Morton Wheeler, who popularized the term "ethology" in a 1902 paper.

Ethologists use comparative methodology to study behaviors such as cooperation, parental investment, conflict, sexual selection, and aggression.sexual selection, and aggression in various species. Today, ethology as a label has been progressively replaced by others such as behavioral ecology or evolutionary psychology. These areas of knowledge tend to emphasize social relationships rather than the individual; however, they still maintain the tradition of field work and are based on evolutionary theory.

Ethology scholars almost always work in the animal's own environment to carry out hypothesis-driven experimental research. The combination of laboratory and field work reflects a very important underlying concept of the discipline: that behavior is adaptive, i.e., that it allows an animal to fit better into its environment and is more likely to survive and reproduce.

The method of ethology

Ethologists, like most scientists, generate hypotheses about animal behavior. To test them empirically, Tinbergen proposes that any researcher should keep the following four questions in mind when formulating hypotheses if a complete explanation of the phenomenon is to be given:

1. Function

The researcher must ask in what way the behavior is adaptive .. What aspects facilitate its survival and thus make it more likely to pass on its genes to the next generation.

2. Mechanism

The researcher has to answer the question of what stimulus or stimuli triggers the behavior to be studied.. Also, whether the response has been modified by any recent learning.

3. Development

How does this behavior change throughout the animal's life cycle? The experimenter must elucidate whether there are any early experiences that are necessary for the animal to acquire this behavior.

4. Evolutionary history

The researcher must find the answer to whether the behavior under study is in any way similar to that exhibited by other species. In this sense, how the behavior may have evolved through the development of the species or group itself..

Key concepts of ethology

One of the fundamental ideas of ethology is the existence of modal action patterns (MAPs).. MAPs are stereotyped behaviors that occur in a rigid sequence in particular situations in response to a particular stimulus. A kind of "behavioral reflex" that occurs inevitably and always in the same way.

For example: the goose, whenever it sees one of its eggs outside the nest, will roll the egg back to its place with its beak. If we were to remove the egg, the goose would still roll an imaginary egg. Likewise, it will try to move any object with an egg-like shape such as a golf ball, a doorknob, or even eggs too big to have been laid by a goose. He can't help but do it reflexively because the PAM is imbedded in his brain like a circuit.

1. Behavior as adaptation

Since ethology is born as a branch of biology, ethologists are very much concerned with behavior as an adaptation, ethologists are very much concerned with the evolution of behavior in the terms of the theory of natural selection.. It is important to note that this approach is purely speculative. It is not possible to find fossilized behavior, nor can we examine geological data to locate it throughout history.

The most concrete evidence for the theory that behavior evolves is limited to small instances of evolution within a species, but we have never directly witnessed behavioral change between linked species. There is a certain level of extrapolation when ethology deals with these issues.

2. Animals use PAMs to communicate

Above we discussed what ethology calls modal action patterns and how they resemble a reflex. Once PAMs have been identified, they can be compared from species to species to contrast similarities and differences in those behaviors that are similar.

A well-known example of how PAMs are involved in animal communication is bees. These fascinating insects communicate with each other through aerial figure-eight dances. As they dance, taking the "figure-eight axis" and the sun as reference points, they form an angle that indicates to the other bees in the colony where nectar is, and its duration indicates how far away it is.

3. Imprinting is a type of learning

A related concept in ethology is imprinting. This is a special type of learning that occurs during a critical period, outside of which it can no longer occur, during which the young animal will learn some pattern of social behavior towards its parents or siblings. Learning cannot occur outside of this critical period.

For example, Konrad Lorenz observed that from birth, birds such as ducks, geese, and swans are able to identify their parents and follow them spontaneously.. He demonstrated how hatchling ducklings could form an imprint with the first stimulus they perceived at birth, for example, Lorenz's own shoes.