5 ms·

Anyone know how these behaviors are passed on from parent to child?

by erikig 8y ago

moate 8y ago
A genetic predisposition towards being afraid of predators. The assumption is that if you have 100 mice, and 50 of them show signs of being afraid of cats, then you breed those mice to produce another 100, noting the pairs that produced them. You can then see how many of the offspring are afraid of cats, and select that group to produce the next generation. Some of the fear of cats will be learned behavior, some of it will be instinct. It could also be that the ability to learn the behavior has genetic links (think naturally smart mice). If you keep this cycle going, eventually you have a group that should be higher than your initial 50% fear rate. It's possible that you can't selectively breed for this, but it's also possible that you can. This is in some ways the inverse of how humans domesticated many different species.
- cimmanom 8y ago
  This experiment seems to have been too short-term to have influenced genetics significantly.
  - moate 8y ago
    You're correct, this was only done with a couple generations of animals. Unlikely to have been enough for cultivated development of the behavior genetically. This seems to be more of a "let's just traumatize the animals and hope they change their behavior as a result".
cimmanom 8y ago
In species where adults raise their young, the young are typically hanging around with the parent for a while between when they're able to walk/fly on their own and when they reach full maturity. The parent sees/smells a predator and flees/hides; the young flee/hide with it. They learn that the response to the stimulus associated with the predator is to flee/hide.
throwaway5752 8y ago
By teaching? Parent demonstrates behavior, child learns. Same as in a human society. Not speculation - emerging but well supported science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_culture

Anyone know how these behaviors are passed on from parent to child?

by erikig 8y ago

Anyone know how these behaviors are passed on from parent to child?

A genetic predisposition towards being afraid of predators. The assumption is that if you have 100 mice, and 50 of them show signs of being afraid of cats, then you breed those mice to produce another 100, noting the pairs that produced them. You can then see how many of the offspring are afraid of cats, and select that group to produce the next generation. Some of the fear of cats will be learned behavior, some of it will be instinct. It could also be that the ability to learn the behavior has genetic links (think naturally smart mice). If you keep this cycle going, eventually you have a group that should be higher than your initial 50% fear rate. It's possible that you can't selectively breed for this, but it's also possible that you can. This is in some ways the inverse of how humans domesticated many different species.

cimmanom 8y ago
This experiment seems to have been too short-term to have influenced genetics significantly.
- moate 8y ago
  You're correct, this was only done with a couple generations of animals. Unlikely to have been enough for cultivated development of the behavior genetically. This seems to be more of a "let's just traumatize the animals and hope they change their behavior as a result".

cimmanom 8y ago

In species where adults raise their young, the young are typically hanging around with the parent for a while between when they're able to walk/fly on their own and when they reach full maturity. The parent sees/smells a predator and flees/hides; the young flee/hide with it. They learn that the response to the stimulus associated with the predator is to flee/hide.

throwaway5752 8y ago

By teaching? Parent demonstrates behavior, child learns. Same as in a human society. Not speculation - emerging but well supported science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_culture