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Charles Robert Darwin - "On the Origin of Species" (1859)

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Charles Robert Darwin - "On the Origin of Species" (1859)

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Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) was an illustrious naturalist best known for being one of the main forerunners of ethology and evolution. His more celebrated piece of work is probably On the Origin of Species (1859), where he presented to the world the theory of evolution with natural selection as its mechanism.

Advancements in animal behaviour science and the wider field

The multifarious discoveries made by Darwin have influenced numerous behavioural fields, helping understand and reinforce the development of natural history (i.e. behavioural patterns, animal and plant physiology), animal communication (i.e. body postures, sounds, chemical signals),sexual selection, emotion in animals, inheritance of behavior and associative learning (i.e. Pavlov, Skinner), among others. Nowadays, matters like animal consciousness and human morality are becoming more and more important, and the discussions about this issues and the direction they will take will be based on Darwin’s former research.

Research

Correa, J. C., Jaffe, K., Tang-Martínez Z. (2019). Ethology and animal behaviour in Latin America. Animal Behaviour,164(1), 281-291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.11.007

This article mainly discusses the development of animal behaviour studies in Latin America, giving a historical approach. Nonetheless, it also mentions Darwin’s contribution to modern-day ethology, whose research led to the 20th century nature-nurture debate and to question which would be the best approach to study animal behaviour. The nature-nurture controversy began afterpsychologists and ethologists developed their research in different environments – the first group in laboratories and the latter in natural environments (Dewsbury, 1992), – which led to a disagreement regarding whether nurture (learning, supported by the physiologists) or nature (genetics, favoured by ethologists) had the most influence in animal behaviour. This debates were mostly settled when each side acknowledged that both nature and nurture were essential for the understanding of particular this scientific field.

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"Niko" Tinbergen was an acclaimed ethologist whose scientific contributions (“Tibergen’s four questions”, inter alia) led to a crucial new approach to understanding animal behaviour and evolution. He’s believed to be one of the founders of modern ethology and, due to his research on individual and social behavior patterns in animals, he won a Nobel Price in 1973.

Advancements in animal behaviour science and the wider field

Tinbergen proposed four essential questions to try to understand animal behaviour, each of them representing a problem in this field: how does a behaviour develop? (ontogeny), what purpose does the behaviour serve? (survival value), how does the behaviour help the animal survive? (causation), and how did the behaviour evolve? (evolution). Giving an answer to these questions leads to the understanding of mechanisms, the development of traits, and evolutionary history, inter alia (Nesse, 2018).Theyare one ofhis most important legacies, and the basis of all observations and experiments in animal behaviour.

Research

Bateson, P., Laland, K. N. (2013). Tinbergen's four questions: an appreciation and an update. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 28(12), 712-718. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2013.09.013

In this review we can identify many applications of Tinbergen’s studies in modern day research. Tinbergen’s “four questions” have endured for more than fifty years, and his legacy and findings arestill approved nowadays. Science develops with every passing day, and these questions (framework of numerous studies) have enabled us to deepen our understanding of animal behaviour. Out of the four problems, phylogenetic questions have been the matter of most debate, taking into accountnew factors such as genetic drift and founder effects. Tinbergen’s research has led to advances in the understanding of the molecular, neurobiological, and hormonal bases of behaviour, instigated a more thorough study of the four problems he identified, and triggered an eagerness to comprehend and analyse the components necessary to understand animal behaviour.

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Konrad Lorenz (1903 – 1989) was a celebrated zoologist and ethologist, recognised as one of the founders of comparative ethology. His studies have helped usacquire a new perspective understanding animal and human behavior. One of his most distinguished achievements in ethology was his research on imprinting.

Advancements in animal behaviour science and the wider field

Lorenz based his imprinting studies on jackdaws and greylag geese between 1935 and 1938. He discovered that promptly after hatching, goslings followed the first moving object they saw. Since that particular study, imprinting has been thoroughly studied, and it has helped us comprehend animal cognition better. Imprinting can also help with the understanding of perception, agent recognition, and some forms of abstract learning, inter alia. Even though this phenomenon was first observed in geese, it has allowed us toimproved our knowledge on human cognitive processing.

Research

Andrew, N. (2010). Clinical imprinting: promoting excellence in undergraduate nursing education. Retrieved from https://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/

In this paper we can appreciate the importance of imprinting and its implications in nowadays nursing education. It explains how following Lorenz’s workcan impact on the success in undergraduate nursing, and how early clinical experience is an essential factor. Imprinting in humans is not the same as imprinting in animals. In humans, imprinting refers to how experience influences behaviour when acquired at an early stage. Lemonidou et al (2004) stated that early clinical experience can help determine care-giving attitudes, and exposed why inaccurate learning can be fatal for professional development. The author of this paper focuses on nursing education and compares its first stage to imprinting, indicating that in this discipline the first professional experience is crucial for further professional learning.

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Karl von Frisch (1886 – 1982) was a renowned ethologist best known for his discovery of the phenomenon know as “the bee dance”. In 1973, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz. Frisch was the first person to discover how honeybees use a specific kind of dance to inform other bees about the location of food.

Advancements in animal behaviour science and the wider field

After years of research, Frish was able to identify how the “bee dance” works. When honeybees find a source of food, they can perform two types of dances: if they source is close to the hive, they indicate it by dancing in the shape of a circle, whilst when the source is far away, they use an eight-shaped dance. These dances indicate the direction and distance to the food sources. This study presented a perfect example to understand behaviour in animals better, and a perfect opportunity to study different kinds of language in animals.

Research

Sara, Z., Mekki, R. & Kunz, T. (2015). A reactive inter-domain routing protocol for MANETs. Paper presented in The Fifth International Conference on Mobile Services, Resources, and Users 2015.

In this conference (2015), the authors presented this paper explaining how Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) could be improved when applying bee communication patterns. They demonstrated how mimicking bees behaviour could increase the efficacy of routing protocols, focusing on the different types of dances bees perform and the information they reveal. They applied the “waggle dance” strategy to large scale interconnected MANETs in order to find ways to get to a destination and give feedback to the source node, taking into account distance, direction and productivity. Using this technique could help reduce energy consumption and could be a solution to simplify and optimize some technological frameworks.

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Jane Goodall (1934 - today) is a humanitarian, conservationist, animal activist and, most importantly, a notable primatologist specialized in chimpanzee behaviour, whose more-than-sixty-years research has contributed deeply to the better understanding of this species. Goodall made impressive discoveries during her observations in Gombe Stream National Park.

Advancements in animal behaviour science and the wider field

During her time in Africa, Goodall made several major discoveries. She was the first scientist to ever realize chimpanzees could also create tools and as well as know how to use them, an action only believed possible in humans until then. Another of her numerous discoveries was that  chimpanzees were not vegetarians. In one of her observations she saw a male chimp eating a piece of meat, and from that day they on, Goodall noticed that meat was a normal part of their diet. She also discovered, to her dismay, that chimpanzees were cannibals, and that the species, as humans too, could held years-long wars.

Research

Pusey, A. E., Pintea, L., Wilson, M. L., Kamenya, S. & Goodall, J. (2007). The Contribution of Long‐Term Research at Gombe National Park to Chimpanzee Conservation. Conservation Biology, 21(3), 623-634. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00704.x

In this paper the authors explain how long-term research can benefit conservation projects greatly. They present Goodall’s research in Tanzania as an example, describing how this technique made possible her revolutionary discoveries about chimpanzee’s behavior, and how this helped to capture curiosity and therefore support to the Gombe National Park. Doing long-term studies also allowed the researchers to determine chimpanzee population and discern threats, such as diseases and territory loss. The authors expound how research can encourage to protect certain areas and optimize the evaluation of conservation projects.

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Dian Fossey (1932 – 1985) was a zoologist which studies and work with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, alongside the works of Jane Goodal (chimpanzees) and Biruté Galdikas (orangutans), is recognised as one of the most important contributions to Great Apes understanding and protection. Her active and persistent participation on conservation led to a minimization of the downward population trend in mountain gorillas, helping preventing their extinction.

Advancements in animal behaviour science and the wider field

Fossey’s research on mountain gorillas has helped greatly to deepen and improve the understanding of these animals. Her campaign, nowadays known as the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International,still continues to save gorillas’ lives in central Africa and, along other conservation organizations, it has contributed to the evaluation of current conservation policies. This esteemed zoologist also encouraged the initiation of a veterinary program which main objective is the provision of medicine to Rwanda’s gorillas, and which now also provides preventive health monitoring.

Research

Steklis, H. D., Madry, S., Steklis, N. G., and Faust, N. (2005). GIS Applications for Gorilla Behavior

and Habitat Analyses. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/

This paper talks about how the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International uses GIS (Geographic information system) to enhance the quality of habitat and behavior studies in gorillas, and to preserve this species. They contrast data collected with a GPS (e.g. gorilla and human activity) with data from a GIS in order to improve their research, which leads to great conservation improvement as well. The idea of using GIS came from the lack of map availability of certain areas as a consequence of the civil war. Using this type of technique provides the researchers with a three-dimensional map, making it possible to create more elaborated analysis and merging information from different sources.