Nikolaas Tinbergen: Biography Of This Dutch Ethologist
Nikolaas Tinbergen was a pioneer zoologist in the study of animal behavior and a historical figure of great relevance in explaining the birth of a discipline such as ethology.
His scientific contributions earned him numerous awards and today his discoveries are already part of the scientific heritage that has helped us better understand how animals behave in their natural habitats.
In this article we will see a brief biography of Nikolaas Tinbergen and we will learn what his main contributions were to science and research into animal behavior.
Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907-1988) was a Dutch zoologist who pioneered the field of ethology, the scientific discipline that is responsible for studying animal behavior in their natural habitat. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973, along with Karl Von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz, for their findings on the organization and patterning of individual and social behavior in animals.
Tinbergen developed a strong interest in animals and nature at an early age, as as a child he used to observe the behavior of birds and fish, which sparked his interest in biology. In 1932, he completed his doctorate with a dissertation on the behavior of wasps, demonstrating that they used landmarks to orient themselves.
Together with Lorenz, Tinbergen established the foundations of European ethology and proposed that the study of this discipline should be applied to both the study of animal behavior and human behavior, applying the same methodology. Furthermore, both hypothesized that all animals have a fixed action pattern, a repeated and diverse set of movements, rather than reacting solely on impulse in response to environmental factors.
Tinbergen’s work in the field of animal research was interrupted by World War II, as he was taken prisoner and spent two years in a German hostage camp. After the war, he was invited to the United States and England to present his ethological studies. In the English country, he settled as a professor at the University of Oxford
The 4 big questions
As a curious naturalist, Nikolaas Tinbergen always tried to understand the world around him and his work had a great impact on the development of ethology, both theoretically and practically. In ethology, causality and ontogeny represent the “proximate mechanisms,” and adaptation and phylogeny the “ultimate mechanisms.”
Tinbergen systematized his interest in animal behavior and the explanation of these mechanisms in four great questions based on Aristotle’s types of causality.
1. Causality or mechanism
How animal behavior occurs in terms of its mechanical or causal properties It is about answering questions such as: what are the stimuli that provoke a certain behavioral response? How has this behavior been modified by learning? How does behavior work at the molecular, physiological, cognitive and social levels? How are the different levels related?
2. Development or ontogeny
Explanation of animal behavior in functional terms. Try to clarify issues such as: How does the animal’s behavior develop throughout its life? How does behavior change with age? What early experiences are necessary for a behavior to occur?
3. Adaptation
How animal behavior influences survival and reproduction It represents one of the ultimate or final causes; That is, the value and adaptive advantage of having incorporated a certain behavioral repertoire.
It involves the historical sequence of changes that take place in a given evolutionary time period. Try to compare the behavior of a certain species with that of another similar species as well as answering how some particular species could arise, what allows one species to become a different one, etc.
Scientific investigations
Tinbergen and Lorenz studied bird behavior together. Their only published joint study was on the behavior of wild geese In this sense, they observed how the geese, upon seeing an egg displaced near the nest, used their beak to make it roll and return to its place. If the egg was removed, the animal continued to generate the same motor behavior, as if the egg were still there. And if other objects with the same shape (such as a golf ball) were used, exactly the same thing happened.
Another of Tinbergen’s investigations was the one he carried out studying the behavior of seagulls. For example, he was able to observe that shortly after the eggs hatched, the parents removed the shells from the nest. After carrying out several experiments, he showed that this behavior had a specific function and that was to keep the offspring safe from predators.
He also studied the behavior and the tendency of younger gulls to peck at the red spot on the dominant gull’s beak, a behavior that induces parents to regurgitate food so that they can eat. Tinbergen conducted an experiment that consisted of offering hatchlings a variety of cardboard seagull heads that varied in beak shape and color. For each shape and color combination, he measured the pups’ preferences by counting the pecks they gave in a given time.
What Tinbergen verified in his study with seagull babies is that they are born with a preference for elongated yellow things with red spots that were incorporated as standard into their behavioral repertoire. In other words, baby seagulls come equipped with specific genes that determine and favor a certain behavior in a specific habitat.
With these types of observations it was like A new branch of knowledge appeared that draws on two scientific disciplines, biology and psychology giving rise to what we know today as ethology.
His legacy
Many of the works carried out by Tinbergen have become classics today, both in comparative psychology and biology, including, in addition to those already mentioned, his other studies on the behavior of stickleback fish, wasps and butterflies.
However, Tinbergen reached the peak of his recognition when he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1973, which he shared with his colleagues Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch. As a curiosity, it should be noted that the money received for the award was used to help in research into childhood autism.
Likewise, Tinbergen received other recognitions such as the Swammerdam medal and various honorary degrees from prestigious universities such as Edinburgh and the University of Leicester. In addition, he was a member of the Royal Society in England and a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.
