Animal Behavior lecture 2

Question 1

What is Animal behavior?

Answer 1

what an animal does in response to a stimulus

Question 2

what is stimuls?

Answer 2

any change in biotic/abiotic environment capable of evoking change in an organism

Question 3

what is ethology?

Answer 3

the scientific study of animal behavior

Question 4

What is agonostic behavior?

Answer 4

any behavior associated with fighting
- includes attack, escape, threat, defense and appeasement

Question 5

What is aggressive behavior? Provide example

Answer 5

made more often by winners during fights

Example: hitting, biting, pushing

Question 6

What is submissive behavior? Provide example

Answer 6

made by losers during fights

Example: running away, crouching, hiding

Question 7

What is dominance status?

Answer 7

A hierarchy in which animals in a social group are arranged according to high- low status
- High status animals usually receive better/ food and more mating opportunities

Question 8

What is territorial behaviour?

Answer 8

a specific geographic area is held and defended by an organism or a group of organisms of the same species

• the territory usually contains food resources and/ or breeding space protected from predators

Question 9

What is altruistic behaviour? Provide example.

Answer 9

• where one organisms put itself at risk for the good of other members of its species

1) helping related individuals ( same genes)
2) expecting reciprocal altruism ( pay it forward) in the future

Example: a squirrel sees a predator and makes an alarm call to group members so they can evade the predators HOWEVER, this puts the caller at greater risk of being eaten

Question 10

What is an ethogram?

Answer 10

a complete list of all the behaviors found in a species, is a detailed and comprehensive list of known behaviors and activities of a species

Question 11

What is the difference between events and state behaviors. Provide example for each one.

Answer 11

Events are instantaneous actions, states are behaviors that last for longer durations

Examples:
Events: vocalizing
State: sleeping

Question 12

What is Habituation?

Answer 12

The point at which animals stop altering their behavior in the presence of human observers

Question 13

What is the difference between focal animal sampling and instantaneous animal sampling?

Answer 13

Focal animal sampling is when a researcher focuses on one particular animal and gathers behavioral data only about this particular animal for a specified period of time. Instantaneous animal sampling is an instantaneous look at the entire group of species and record certain types or data at particular points in time.

Question 14

What are the advantages and disadvantages of focal animal sampling?

Answer 14

advantages:
- researcher can follow the focal individual in hard - to - see situations, where the animal’s behavior would not be noted if the observer was focusing on the whole group
- can sample both state and event behaviors

Disadvantages:
- not possible to record all information about every behavior that a focal individual engages in during a sampling period
- some aspect of data collection is compromised due to observer limitations and the researcher need to decide which details are less important to their study
- since the behavior of only one individual is noted, if another animal in the group does something rare, this data collection method does not record this

Question 15

What are the advantages and disadvantages of instantaneous scan sampling?

Answer 15

Advantages:
- good for recording state behaviors
- good at recording behavioral synchrony in the group
- typically less “observer fatigue” with this sampling type than with other methods

Disadvantages:
- not appropriate for recording even behaviors
- scan sampling of the entire primate group should be instantaneous, BUT in practice, observing, classifying and recording the behaviors of each individual takes time
- other methods are better for studying rates of a behavior