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Senses Affect Behavior
Senses play an important role in an animal’s ability to survive because they affect an organism’s behavior. A behavior is an organism’s response to a stimulus. A stimulus is anything in the environment that causes an organism to react.
The way an animal processes information from the environment and then acts on it can be understood by thinking about the senses as part of a system. Remember that a system is a set of connected, interacting parts that form a more complex whole.
Systems have inputs and outputs. Inputs are what are received by the system. The information gathered from a sense is an input. For example, mealworms use their legs and antennae to gather inputs of information about the feel of the environment. They use their eyes to sense the brightness of the environment.
Once an animal’s senses have gathered information from the environment, the senses then pass that information to the brain. The brain is the part of the body that interprets all of the information the senses receive. It is often found in an animal’s head. The brain interprets the information so the animal can make sense of the environment at that moment. The information can also be stored as memories.
Outputs are what are sent from the system. The behavior that results from the brain’s interpretations of the information is the output. When a mealworm senses that food is nearby, it moves toward the food. If it senses bright light, it moves away from it. These movements are outputs.
Kinds of Behavior
Animals respond to the information processed by the brain in different ways. Behaviors can be learned or innate. A learned behavior is a change in behavior based on experience. In other words, it has to be taught. Innate behaviors are those behaviors that an organism is born knowing how to do.
There are two kinds of innate behaviors: reflexive and instinctive. A reflexive behavior is an involuntary, immediate response to a stimulus. Jumping when you hear a loud noise is an example of a reflexive behavior.
An instinctive behavior is a more complex response to a stimulus. Instinctive behaviors often relate to those necessary for an organism’s survival, such as finding food, caring for young, and avoiding predators. For example, birds build nests instinctively. They do not have to be taught how to do this. Mealworms instinctively use their senses to seek out food and dark, damp areas that protect them from predators. They do not have to learn these behaviors.
Using Senses to Survive
The mealworm’s behaviors of finding food and avoiding predators are essential to the mealworm’s survival. Without them, mealworms would not be able to complete their life cycle.
The mealworm’s life cycle has four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Mealworms are the larva stage of the darkling beetle. A larva is a young form of an adult insect.
The mealworm uses its senses to avoid predators and eat as much food as it can. It needs enough food to get it through the next stage, called a pupa, because the mealworm pupa does not move or eat. All of the pupa’s energy is used to change its body from a mealworm into an adult darkling beetle.
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