Importance of a species ecological niche, evolutionary ancestry and survival pre-requisites
A number of cognitive tools are used in gauging the behavior of various animals. For the population of species to be maintained, organisms must reproduce and survive (De Kort, Dickinson , Clayton, 2005). Therefore, environmental conditions are essential for all species to tolerate the environment, obtain nutrients and energy, and more so avoid its predators. A species requires proper resources and must get conducive physical conditions that determines its habitat where it can live comfortably within its range. Such requirements are ecological niche(Anderson, 2008).
Naturally, every species has a place to live, a functional role to play in that place and a set of adaptations for reproduction purposes. For every organism to occupy a certain position within an ecosystem, it must have its habitat requirements that enable its persistent (Anderson, 2008). . An ecological niche comprises of all interactions between an organism and both the biotic and abiotic environment thus representing a fundamental and basic ecological concept (De Kort, Dickinson , Clayton, 2005). This indicates that niche concept has two sides where one concerns how the environment affects a species and the other is how a species itself affects the environment.
Ecology is all about interaction between species whereby for an organism to persists in a certain habitat, there must be presence of other species which are the sources of food, competition and predators among others. In that case, the environment affects both species naturally and at the same time, the species affect the environment for other species. However, every species has its own comfortable habitat whereby there must be enough food, a good space and favorable weather conditions among others.
Non- human animals do not easily distributes to other areas due to some limiting factors. Such factors include their tolerance to a different environmental condition. An animal is not easy to adapt to new range of temperatures, light and moisture and so it prefers to remain in the same ecological niche for the rest of its life. For instant, mammals that are used to hot climates have their adaptive features that enable them to tolerate such high temperatures. They have smaller bodies, longer limbs and ears as compared to those in cold climates. This is because a smaller body increases the surface area of the body to volume ratio thus enabling the animal to loose excess heat in the body to balance the temperature within the body.
It is quiet obvious that such an organism cannot survive in cold weather conditions. They will be disadvantaged if at all they try dispersed to cooler climates that requires them instead of them loosing heat they should conserve it. It is also difficult for animals living in tropical rain forest to survive in arid areas because they lack adaptive features of conserving water since in their habitat there is abundant water. Additionally, fresh water fish cannot survive in the ocean where water is saline and so it would hard for them to maintain water balance and end up dying of dehydration.
Another limiting factor is the interaction between one species with the other. It is hard for an organism to interact freely with other organisms in a new environment. In a new environment an organism daft about predators’ tactics and so it is easy for it to be eaten by the predators whose tactics are different from what the organism is used to. Similarly, if the invading species uses the same resources as those of any one of the species in the new environment, it will encounter some difficulties in competing for such resources that it needs for its survival and reproductions.
An animal lives in habitat that has all factors that are required by a species for its survival. An animal’s survival depends on the physical and biotic factors of a particular area. The physical factors are the geographical outlook of a certain area whereby different species are comfortable on different environmental conditions. Biotic factors are those other species that are living in the same area and are beneficial to the organism in one way or the other. For the herbivorous animals, they feed on grass and shrubs that are present in the same habitat they live in. More importantly both the biotic and physical factors may interact to improve the quality of the organism’s habitat.
According various theories of evolution, most species seem to share a common ancestry. For instant, in vestigial organs, some species have functionless organs in their body but are functional to another. Such organism with such vestigial structures seems to have a common ancestry with those others that have a functional homologous structure. In biochemistry, organisms are similar to others in different species. Most species have metabolism that has the same biochemical compounds meaning that they share the same ancestry. However, the similarities of organisms show that species have arisen by modification and descent from ancient forms. In addition, the fossil records provides evidence that organism have changed overtime and will continue to change. This therefore explains the evolvement of species.
Basic cognitive abilities in human and non-human animals
Humans and nonhumans have memories of events that occurred in the past. Nonhumans usually keep information on the locations they have ever visited and the sights they have seen. They also retain the time a particular event occurred whereby they mark the passage of time by use of circadian timing and interval mechanisms. They are able to remember what exactly happened, the time of occurrence and location. Humans on the other hand have sharp memories that easily recall events for their past. Human beings have a number senses which include sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch, changes in temperature, pain, Kinesthetic sense, acceleration and balance. Similar to human beings nonhuman also have receptors that help them to sense but their degree of sense varies between species. In comparison between human and nonhuman, human have a very weak sense of smell that happens to be the strongest sense in various animals. However, nonhuman also lacks some of the normal five senses and in most cases they sense the world in a manner that humans cannot.
Learning theories
Animals have innate stimuli response. Every animal changes its behavior with the changes of its immediate environment. In classical conditioning, animals respond to a new stimulus in relation to old stimulus. For instant, a cow releases the milk whenever it hears a sound of a calve calling. This is because they have created an association between the sound of calve calling and suckling of teats. They also let down the milk when they are in the milking parlor and when a human is milking them. More so learning of sex is also classical conditioning whereby most animals stud in the mating season whenever they sight a female.
In operant conditioning, response comes out voluntarily if there is a reward gotten out of it. This kind of conditioning enables an animal to relate events over which it controls. This however increases the rate at which an animal can control the environment hence representing the difference between operant and classical conditioning. In classical conditioning, a reward is related with the stimuli while in operant conditioning, the reward is associated with the responses. The effect of reward, however, entails strengthening an animal’s correct response and is known as reinforcement (De Kort, Dickinson , Clayton, 2005). The association between a reward and a response depends on the connection between the first and the second event by means of stimulus-response-reinforcement chain. For example, an animal like a ct can learn to run towards the kitchen whenever it hears the sound of its won plate or the tin opener. The sound the plate or the tin opener came first before the food and so its sound is associated with food. A cat’s life for this matter is more controllable due to its running whereby the cat can choose the speed of running. Operant conditioning enables researchers to use punishers and rein-forcers that negatively and positively influence the probability of a certain behavior being repeated or not. Apparently, a response increases in strength when a reward follows.
Non-human primate Communication
Animals spend their lives in complex wicker societies and so they need to communicate with each other more frequently. Mostly they use smells, visual messages, sounds and touch to communicate. They put emphasis in body language communication, which distinguishes them form humans who communicate by oral sounds (De Kort, Dickinson , Clayton, 2005). Facial expressions, odors, vocalizations and gestures are mostly used by non-human primates to give others a clue of present concerns and psychological state that explains what they are likely to do next. Such animals have a strong olfactory ability, which they use for communication.
Regularly adult male use their ring-tailed lemurs to mark their territories whereby they have a scent glands in their wrists that produces the chemical they use. Similarly, dogs and other animals like cats and wolves use urine to mark their territories. To animals, the scent in the territories is recognized as their personal signature to show that that area wholly belongs to a certain type of animals. Some animals also use the same urine to mark their sources of food in a way of warning any intruders.
Humans and other primate species use stares, threatening gestures to intimidate others. Such body languages are referred to as agonistic displays that are used by most animals to prevent physical fighting. In monkey community for instance, the dominant males carry out agnostic displays in prevention of major conflict as well as keeping order between other monkeys. For intimidation, they usually flash their eyelids to express their anger and in case it’s not sufficient, they open their mouth widely which is their final warning before they decide to attack (Emery, 2003). This is one way of solving arising problem.
In their way of communicating affection, they tend to reduce tension in the group by sitting next to each other, mutually grooming and touching each other. This is known as allogrooming, which is the most powerful tool for animals’ communication (Emery, Dally & Clayton, 2004). Apes and monkeys to communicate about mating whereby they reinforce mating bonds between a male and female and sex friendship bonds normally use it (Chappell, Kacelnik, 2004). It is also common in chimpanzees to communicate about an old acquaintance who rejoins the community again. These animals enjoy this kind of grooming and in most cases, they even compete for the opportunity (Emery, 2003).
Normally, allogrooming has some physiological effects on animals (Emery, Dally & Clayton, 2004). During this time, the endorphins are released into the blood. Endorphins are hormones, which help in the reduction of pain sensation and cause an enjoyable emotional state. Allogrooming also serves the same purpose in humans, whereby somebody relaxes whenever someone else passes their fingers through their hair (Chappell, Kacelnik, 2004). This is the most pleasurable emotional state that isolates one from the days work and casual conversation eventually occurs. In non-humans, there is also allogrooming of interspecies which takes place when these various species are in captivity and are deprived the opportunity for producing their own kind of grooming (Chappell, Kacelnik, 2002) .
If we for instance take a long at the behavior of chimpanzees, termite predation offers an excellent opportunity for factors exploratory to chimpanzee behavioral multiplicity (Chappell, Kacelnik, 2002). A number of termite taxa coexist among the chimpanzee population (Chappell, Kacelnik, 2004). Their selection of termites prey is determined by a number of factors such as frequency as well as the duration of the termite abundant periods, ease of access and even palatibity. The behavior of animals varies from one animal to another depending on even factors such as the environment.
In conclusion, species needs to maintain their population and to do so they need to survive as well as reproduce (Chappell, Kacelnik, 2002). They however, animals need conducive conditions that determine animals’ habitat and provision of proper resources where it can live comfortably. Naturally, every species has a place to live, a functional role to play in that place and a set of adaptations for reproduction purposes. For every organism to occupy a certain position within an ecosystem, it must have its habitat requirements that enable its persistent (Chappell, Kacelnik, 2002).
Both humans and non- humans have memories that recalls past events whereby they remember the exact event, the time it occurred and the location of the occurrence. Animals respond to stimuli. This is where they respond to immediate environmental changes (Emery, Dally & Clayton, 2004). Similarly to humans, non-human also communicates to each other whereby they mostly use gestures, smells, sounds and touch among others. They have a special way of communicating known as all grooming, which creates a pleasant emotional state within an animal’s body. Human also seem to enjoy another kind of allogrooming whereby they feel relaxed whenever one passes fingers through their hair and respond by thinking of less stressing issues (Chappell, Kacelnik, 2002). Lastly, in thinking on probable manifestations in the mental time travel and memory, it may happen that some animals are likely for cache food more during the night.
References
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