2.1e Measuring and Recording animal behaviour

Question 1

Measurements to quantify animal behaviour

Answer 1

Latency, frequency, and duration

Question 2

Latency

Answer 2

Latency is the time between the stimulus occurring and the response behaviour.

Question 3

Frequency

Answer 3

Frequency is the number of times a behaviour occurs within the observation period.

Question 4

Duration

Answer 4

Duration is the length of time each behaviour occurs during the observation period.

Question 5

What is a ethogram? And what does it allow?

Answer 5

An ethogram of the behaviours shown by species in a wild context allows the construction of time budgets.
It lists species-specific behaviours to be observed and recorded in the study. Recording the duration of each of the behaviours in the ethogram, together with the total time of observation, allows the proportion of time spent on each behaviour to be calculated in the time budget.

Question 6

Anthropomorphism

Answer 6

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions or intentions to non-human entities.

It is important to avoid this when analysing animal behaviours as it can lead to invalid conclusions.