Revise: Learned behaviour in response to stimuliBehavioural adaptations

Behaviour is the set of responses that an organism makes to stimuli. Stimuli are environmental changes that an organism can detect.

A behavioural adaptation is a behaviour that helps an organism to survive and/or reproduce in its environment.

Behaviours can be learned or innate.

Innate behaviour

This results from the genes inherited by an organism from its parents. The behaviour is instinctive and usually shows little variation between different individuals.

Examples of innate behaviours

Adult herring gulls will regurgitate their food when they are pecked on the red spot on their beaks by herring gull chicks.

Honey bees that have found food perform a set of movements called a waggle dance that tells other bees in the hive the direction and distance to the food.