To What Extent Can Animal Research Provide Insight Into The Role Of Genes On Human Behavior?

California Country University, Northridge

Significance of Animal Behavior Research

Prepared by Charles T. Snowdon
[while President of the Animate being Behavior Society]

Brute behavior is the bridge between the molecular and physiological aspects of biological science and the ecological. Behavior is the link between organisms and surround and between the nervous system, and the ecosystem. Behavior is 1 of the near of import properties of animal life. Behavior plays a disquisitional role in biological adaptations. Beliefs is how nosotros humans ascertain our ain lives. Beliefs is that office of an organism by which it interacts with its environment. Behavior is every bit much a function of an organisms as its coat, wings etc. The beauty of an animal includes its behavioral attributes.

For the same reasons that we study the universe and subatomic particles there is intrinsic interest in the study of animals. In view of the amount of fourth dimension that television devotes to animal films and the amount of money that people spend on nature books there is much more public interest in animal behavior than in neutrons and neurons. If human curiosity drives inquiry, then animate being beliefs should exist well-nigh the top of our priorities.

Inquiry on animal behavior and behavioral ecology has been burgeoning in recent years despite below inflation increases (and oft decreases) in inquiry funding. Two of our journals Beast Behaviour and Beliefs Environmental and Sociobiology rank in the top 6 behavioral science AND zoological journals in terms of impact equally measured by the Scientific discipline Commendation Index. From 1985 to 1990 Creature Behaviour has grown from quarterly to monthly publication and its page budget has more than doubled. Many related journals have increased their size and frequency of publication in the same menstruation. Ours is an agile and vital field.

While the study of beast behavior is important as a scientific field on its own, our science has made important contributions to other disciplines with applications to the written report of human being behavior, to the neurosciences, to the environment and resources management, to the study of animal welfare and to the education of time to come generations of scientists.

A. Brute Behavior AND HUMAN SOCIETY

Many bug in human society are often related to the interaction of surroundings and behavior or genetics and behavior. The fields of socioecology and beast behavior deal with the issue of environs behavioral interactions both at an evolutionary level and a proximate level. Increasingly social scientists are turning to fauna behavior as a framework in which to translate human society and to sympathize possible causes of societal issues. (east.g. Daly and Wilson's book on human homicide is based on an evolutionary analysis from animate being research. Many studies on child corruption use theory and data from studies on infanticide in animals.)
Research past de Waal on chimpanzees and monkeys has illustrated the importance of cooperation and reconciliation in social groups. This work provides new perspectives past which to view and improve aggressive behavior among human beings.
The methodology applied to study brute behavior has had a tremendous touch in psychology and the social sciences. Jean Piaget began his career with the written report of snails, and he extended the employ of careful behavioral observations and descriptions to his landmark studies on human cognitive development. J. B. Watson began his report of beliefs by observing gulls. Aspects of experimental design, observation techniques, attending to nonverbal communication signals were often developed in fauna beliefs studies earlier their application to studies of human behavior. The behavioral study of humans would be much diminished today without the influence of animate being research.
Charles Darwin's work on emotional expression in animals has had an important influence on many psychologists, such every bit Paul Ekman, who study human emotional beliefs.
Harry Harlow's piece of work on social development in rhesus monkeys has been of major importance to theories of child development and to psychiatry. The work of Overmier, Maier and Seligman on learned helplessness has had a similar consequence on child development and psychiatry.
The comparative study of behavior over a wide range of species can provide insights into influences affecting human beliefs. For example, the woolly spider monkey in Brazil displays no overt aggressive behavior among group members. We might larn how to minimize human aggression if we understood how this species of monkey avoids aggression. If nosotros want to have homo fathers exist more involved in infant care, we can written report the weather under which paternal intendance has appeared in other species like the California mouse or in marmosets and tamarins. Studies of various models of the ontogenesis of communication in birds and mammals accept had direct influence on the development of theories and the research directions in the study of child linguistic communication. The richness of developmental processes in behavior, including multiple sources and the consequences of experience are significant in understanding processes of homo development.
Understanding the differences in adjustability betwixt species that tin live in a variety of habitats versus those that are restricted to express habitats tin atomic number 82 to an understanding of how we might amend homo adaptability as our environments modify.
Inquiry by brute behaviorists on animate being sensory systems has led to practical applications for extending human sensory systems. Griffin's demonstrations on how bats use sonar to locate objects has led straight to the apply of sonar techniques in a broad array of applications from the military to fetal diagnostics.
Studies of chimpanzees using linguistic communication analogues take led to new technology (reckoner keyboards using arbitrary symbols) that take been applied successfully to pedagogy linguistic communication to disadvantaged human populations.
Basic enquiry on circadian and other endogenous rhythms in animals has led to research relevant to human factors and productivity in areas such as coping with jet-lag or changing from one shift to another.
Research on animals has developed many of the important concepts relating to coping with stress, for example studies of the importance of prediction and command on coping behavior.

B. ANIMAL Beliefs AND NEUROBIOLOGY

Sir Charles Sherrington, an early on Nobel Prize winner, adult a model for the structure and part of the nervous system based only on shut behavioral observation and deduction. 70 years of subsequent neurobiological research has completely supported the inferences Sherrington made from behavioral observation.
Neuroethology, the integration of animate being beliefs and the neurosciences, provides important frameworks for hypothesizing neural mechanisms. Careful behavioral information permit neurobiologists to narrow the scope of their studies and to focus on relevant input stimuli and attend to relevant responses. In many instance the use of species specific natural stimuli has led to new insights about neural construction and role that contrast with results obtained using non-relevant stimuli.
Contempo work in animal behavior has demonstrated a downward influence of behavior and social organization on physiological and cellular processes. Variations in social environment tin can inhibit or stimulate ovulation, produce menstrual synchrony, induce miscarriages and so on. Other animate being studies show that the quality of the social and behavioral surround have a directly outcome on immune arrangement performance. Researchers in physiology and immunology demand to be guided by these behavioral and social influences to properly command their own studies.

C. Animal Beliefs AND THE Surround, CONSERVATION AND RESOURCE Direction

The behavior of animals often provides the first clues or early on alarm signs of environmental degradation. Changes in sexual and other beliefs occur much sooner and at lower levels of environmental disruption than changes in reproductive outcomes and population size. If we wait to come across if numbers of animal populations are declining, information technology may exist too late to take measures to relieve the surroundings. Studies of natural behavior in the field are vital to provide baseline data for future environmental monitoring. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency uses disruptions in swimming behavior of minnows as an alphabetize of possible pesticide pollution.
Basic research on how salmon drift back to their home streams started more than twoscore years ago by Arthur Hasler has taught united states of america much about the mechanisms of migration. This information has likewise been valuable in preserving the salmon industry in the Pacific Northwest and applications of Hasler'southward results has led to the development of a salmon fishing industry in the Great Lakes. Basic animal behavior research tin accept important economic implications.
Animal behaviorists accept described variables involved in insect reproduction and host plant location leading to the evolution of not-toxic pheromones for insect pest command that avoid the demand for toxic pesticides. Understanding of predator prey relationships can lead to the introduction of natural predators on prey species.
Noesis of honeybee foraging behavior can be applied to mechanisms of pollination which in plow is of import for institute breeding and propagation.
An understanding of foraging behavior in animals can lead to an agreement of forest regeneration. Many animals serve as seed dispersers and are thus essential for the propagation of tree species and essential for habitat preservation.
The conservation of endangered species requires that we know plenty about natural behavior (migratory patterns, domicile range size, interactions with other groups, foraging demands, reproductive behavior, communication, etc) in guild to develop constructive reserves and constructive protection measures. Relocation or reintroduction of animals (such as the golden lion tamarin) is non possible without detailed knowledge of a species' natural history. With the increasing importance of environmental programs and human direction of populations of rare species, both in captivity and in the natural habitat, beast behavior research becomes increasingly important. Many of the world's leading conservationists have a groundwork in animal behavior or behavioral environmental.
Basic behavioral studies on reproductive behavior have led to improved captive breeding methods for whooping cranes, golden lion tamarins, cotton-summit tamarins, and many other endangered species. Convict breeders who were ignorant of the species' natural reproductive beliefs were mostly unsuccessful.

D. Beast BEHAVIOR AND Animate being WELFARE

Our society has placed increased accent on the welfare of enquiry and exhibit animals. US law now requires attending to exercise requirements for dogs and the psychological well-being of nonhuman primates. Animal welfare without knowledge is impossible. Brute behavior researchers await at the behavior and well-being of animals in lab and field. We have provided expert testimony to bring virtually reasonable and effective standards for the care and well-being of inquiry animals.
Farther developments in animate being welfare will require input from brute beliefs specialists. Improved weather condition for subcontract animals, breeding of endangered species, proper care of companion animals all require a strong behavioral data base.

E. ANIMAL BEHAVIOR AND SCIENCE EDUCATION

Many in our society are concerned with scientific illiteracy, the lack of involvement that students take in scientific discipline and the fact that women and minority groups are underrepresented in science. Courses in animal beliefs and behavioral ecology serve every bit hooks to interest students in behavioral biological science. At the Academy of Wisconsin, Madison more than than 700 students a year take courses in animal beliefs and behavioral ecology in the Departments of Anthropology, Psychology and Zoology, yet none of these courses serve as required courses for majors. Cornell University enrolls nearly 400 students in an Introduction to Behavior course that is required of only 60-lxx students. Enrollment has grown by 30% in the final three years. At the University of Stirling, Scotland, 75% of graduates in Psychology enroll in the elective, not-required animal behavior course. At the Academy of Washington, Seattle, more than 300 students enroll each quarter in a basic animal beliefs class. Like results tin can be constitute on many other campuses.

For many students, especially females, these courses are their first introduction to behavioral biological science. Many female undergraduates approach us to discuss graduate school and enquiry careers after taking these courses. 75% or more than of our graduate applicants are female. A practiced proportion of students enrolled in animal beliefs courses become motivated for research careers, but at that place is little hope to offer them that they will actually exist able to become practicing scientists when they finish due to astringent limitations on inquiry funding.