Importance Of Animal Behaviour Science

Question 1

Why is animal behaviour science frequently considered subjective and non-scientific by those outside the discipline?

Answer 1

Animal behaviour science is not see as a ‘hard science’

It doesn’t explain the underpinning processes driving an organism

It is seen as anthropomorphic and often associated with animal rights

Question 2

What is hard science also known as?

Answer 2

Natural science

Question 3

Give examples of natural sciences?

Answer 3

Physics

Geology

Question 4

Why are animal behaviour science not seen as a ‘hard science’?

Answer 4

Animal behaviour science is seen as not having as much methodological rigor, exactitude and objectivity

Question 5

How does animal behaviour science not explain the underpinning processes driving an organism?

Answer 5

Animal behaviour science doesn’t explain how the body works effectively

Question 6

Why is animal behaviour science seen as anthropomorphic and often associated with animal rights?

Answer 6

This is particularly seen in its application to animal welfare but also when poorly interpreted for entertainment media
There’s often attribution of emotion and intent to behaviour that is not scientifically justified

Question 7

Give examples of misnomers in animal behaviour science?

Answer 7

Assumptions of subjective scales and just rating emotional intent
They don’t expect behaviour to be recorded in an objective way

Assumptions that data interpretation of behavioural data is subjective unlike physiological data
However physiological data interpretation can also be subjective like with EEG’s and heart rates

Question 8

Why may people do poor science under animal behaviour science?

Answer 8

They were not trained in the discipline
They only ‘dabble’ in animal behaviour science
The researcher could’ve interacted with the study animal influencing their behaviour and the results

Question 9

What happens when people do poor animal behaviour science?

Answer 9

These studies are then taken to represent the field, which is not necessarily the case

Question 10

Which 2 groups of ideologies and methodologies are disagreeing with eachother in animal behaviour science?

Answer 10

Researchers studying behaviour under laboratory conditions

Researchers studying behaviour in the field

Question 11

What are laboratory conditions?

Answer 11

All variables are controlled except 1

Question 11

What are laboratory conditions?

Answer 11

All variables are controlled except 1

Question 12

What do the researchers studying behaviour in the field believe?

Answer 12

They believe we can’t really understand behaviour unless it’s in its natural context

Question 13

What 5 ways can animal behaviour science be a hard science and measured objectively without anthropomorphism?

Answer 13

1) Counting something
2) Measuring duration/time an animal is doing something
3) Absence or presence of a behaviour within a fixed period

4) Latency
We can look at how long after a key event/ behaviour occurs something happens

5) Quantity sequences of behaviour and how they vary with context

Question 14

In 2012 the National Science Foundation held a workshop examining research methods used in behavioural research, what were their 7 conclusions?

Answer 14

1) Behaviour is central to life. It is the phenomenon that interfaces all that is inside an organism to all that is outside of it

2) The first response to change by an organism is an action
Action = Behaviour

3) Because behaviour is visible and measurable it reveals the outcome of complex inputs more clearly than any other response variable

4) Behaviour is the phenomenon that explains how organisms have formed in the first place; interactions amongst primordial cells led to potent mutualism and the formation of multicellular organisms
“Interactions amongst primordial cells” means behaviour expressed between cells

5) Behaviour ultimately ties genotype to phenotype
Behaviour shows how the genotype is expressed

6) Behaviour impacts ecology and ecosystems
7) The first responses to climate change will be behavioural ones

Question 15

What did Griffin’s study?

Answer 15

Bats

Question 16

What did Griffin’s understanding of how bats use echolocation, by examining their behaviour, led to the production of?

Answer 16

Sonar
Medical advances to look inside the body
Ultrasounds are an example of this

Question 17

How can understanding bird behaviour contribute to human safety?

Answer 17

By reducing bird strike you can reduce deaths and injuries

Question 18

Bird strikes causing death is rare but how many people died from bird strikes from 1998 to 2013?

Answer 18

255

Question 19

When do the majority of bird strikes happen?

Answer 19

Take off and landing

Question 20

Name 4 deterrence methods used by the airport to avoid birds coming to the airport?

Answer 20

1) Shooting
2) Poisoning
3) Capture and relocation
4) Scare technologies
An example is playing predator noises but the birds become habituated to the noises so this isn’t a long term solution

Question 21

In 2009 what happened?

Answer 21

In 2009 Bernhardt et al did a study at JFK international airport to study a particular bird species causing problems

Question 22

What was Bernhardt et al 2009 studying?

Answer 22

What the bird species ate and if any food sources were around the JFK airport to attract them

Question 23

What did Bernhardt et al 2009 find?

Answer 23

Bernhardt et al 2009 identified bayberry bushes at the airport as potential food sources causing the airport to remove those bushes
Removal of food sources caused 75% reduction in bird strikes

Question 24

What happened in 2016?

Answer 24

Swaddle et Al did a study on the efficacy of a sonic net used to scare birds on an air field

Question 25

How did Swaddle et al conduct the experiment?

Answer 25

Swaddle et al looked at 3 locations on the study site at 4 30 minute blocks per week to see the number of birds at each test site
The experiment lasted 8 weeks with 4 weeks of no sonic net usage to act as the control and 4 weeks the sonic nets were used
Then Swaddle et al compared 1 site against 2 reference areas when it had the sonic net in use
The site with the sonic net had a sound level of 80 decibels
80 decibels is the same as a lawnmower or busy restaurant
The reference sites had a sound level under 60 decibels
60 decibels is about the sound of normal conservation

Question 26

What were Swaddle et al 2009 findings?

Answer 26

There’s little to no difference in bird numbers in the reference sites
Substantial reduction in bird numbers in the test site after the sonic net was used
82% reduction in bird abundance, which persisted across weeks
Reduced species range
Particularly effective with high risk species that’d cause bird strikes

Question 27

What is a criticism of Swaddle et al 2009 study?

Answer 27

There were less numbers of birds in the test site originally though which should be noted

Question 28

In what 7 ways can animal behaviour have major impacts on conservation?

Answer 28

1) Improving survivability with training
Training the animal key behaviours it needs to survive

2) Understanding how an animal can adapt to a new environment and facilitating it
3) Improving breeding viability
4) Controlling invasive species

5) Understanding impacts of culling
Culling could lead to loss of cultural knowledge within the animal population

6) Reducing conflicts with humans

7) Indicating environmental changes
Changes in behaviours of specific species is often a really good indicator of environmental changes due to it being a sensitive measure

Question 29

What happened in 2015?

Answer 29

Martin-Wintle et al did a behavioural study on mating in pandas

Question 30

Conservation efforts cost a lot of money and will only be cost effective if they work. How is a conservation project successful?

Answer 30

For a conservation project to be successful it’s not enough to maintain captive population levels, you need to have a captive population level over the maintenance level to increase the wild population
This will lead to self sustainable populations

Question 31

In conservation institutions they choose the mating pairs to avoid inbreeding however what does this not take into account?

Answer 31

Animal choice plays an important part in breeding in the natural environment

Question 32

What 3 aspects of panda breeding and nurturing did Martin-Wintle et al 2015 look at to study mate choice in panda’s?

Answer 32

Did copulation occur?
Were cubs born?
Were cubs maternally reared?

Question 33

How did Martin-Wintle et al 2015 conduct their experiment?

Answer 33

They placed 1 panda between 2 potential mates
1 potential mate was chosen by the institution to prevent inbreeding
1 potential mate was a random sexually mature panda
Martin-Wintle et al 2015 would then look at:
- pre-mating behaviour displayed by both sexes
- the number of negative interactions directed towards eachother
These aspects of behaviour were recorded in 30 minute periods
Then once they established oestrus had occurred they allowed the pandas to mate

Question 34

What is usually the biggest factor in the natural environment?

Answer 34

Female choice

Some species use male preference as the deciding factor for mate choice

Question 35

What were Martin-Wintle et al 2015’s findings?

Answer 35

• Female pandas that got to choose a mate had higher percentage of becoming pregnant
• Female pandas that choose a mate had higher percentages in producing cubs
• Maternal rearing of cubs could not be distinguished as better or worse due to low numbers of female pandas maternally rearing their offspring without a mate choice in the study
• If the male preferred the female but the female didn’t prefer the male they’d have a significantly high chance of mating
• If both male and female pandas preferred eachother then there was a significantly much higher chance of mating than if neither panda preferred eachother
• If the female prefers the male but the male does not prefer that female cub production will not be affected
• If the male prefers the female but the female does not prefer the male then there’s still no significant difference in cub production
• If both pandas prefer eachother then panda cub production is significantly increased

Question 36

What have changes in species presence and behaviour been used to indicate?

Answer 36

Water quality
Air quality
Climate changes
Ecosystem changes

Question 37

What have some sentinel species been used for?

Answer 37

Some sentinel species have been used to predict how changes may affect other animal species, including human

Question 38

What can animal behaviour aid in understanding?

Answer 38

How non-adaptive changes in behaviour occur and how they may relate to human activities
In doing so we can generate mitigation strategies

Question 39

What happened in 2013?

Answer 39

There were mass strandings of toothed whales and some baleen whales
Due to this Goldbogen et al looked at the effects of sonar on baleen whale behaviour

Question 40

How did Goldbogen et al 2013 conduct their study?

Answer 40

They did a field study where they simulated simulated sonar in the ocean, and used pseudo-random noise with a similar sound composition to sonar but with different temporal patterns as a control
Goldbogen et al 2013 studies the effect on blue whales by attaching tags onto the blue whales that measured:
- the whales body orientation
- the whales swimming activity
- sound levels
This allowed them to know how loud the sounds would be to the whales

Question 41

What were Goldbogen et al 2013’s findings?

Answer 41

Whales staying at the surface where relatively unaffected as shown by little change in their dive patterns and speed in which the whales swam
However when whales dived deeper the sonar caused the whales to immediately swim to the surface and remain there for the majority of their time with shorter shallower dives
Goldbogen et al 2013 also noted that when the blue whales are moving and sonar is played the whales will immediately increase their speed and move away from the sonar source
In rapidly moving away from the sonar source the blue whales could accidentally beach themselves

Question 42

What did Goldbogen et al 2013’s findings mean to the blue whales?

Answer 42

The blue whales would abandon there foraging trips which they need in order to consume the large amounts of krill they need to maintain appropriate energy and biological function
It was suggested that in abandoning the foraging trips those blue whales would lose out on around 1 metric tons of krill

Question 43

How does understanding animal behaviour contribute to protecting crops?

Answer 43

Understanding pheromones to be used as pest control

Question 44

What happened in 1870?

Answer 44

Jean-Henri Fabre observed that wherever he placed a female great peacock moth in his house male moths arrived
This happened even on stormy nights or if the female was surrounded by volatile chemicals like naphthalene
After several experiments Jean-Henri Fabre concluded that the males were attracted to the female via smell

Question 45

What happened soon after Jean-Henri Fabre’s findings?

Answer 45

Joseph A Linter started studying the spicebush silkmoth
Joseph A Linter proposed from his research that from his research the female silkmoth must release a chemical which is highly sensitive to the males
Joseph A Linter then suggested that the chemicals produced could be used to control insect pests by attracting them to areas away from the crops
However at this time technology and techniques weren’t sophisticated enough to indentify the chemicals attracting the males

Question 46

What happened in 1959?

Answer 46

Adult Butenandt identified an alcohol which caused male silkworm moths to shake/flutter their wings in a kind of excitement
Adult Butenandt discovered the alcohol by looking at male silkmoth responses from female silkmoth extracts

Question 47

What happened after Adult Butenandt’s 1959 findings?

Answer 47

German biochemist Peter Karlson and Swiss entomologist Martin Lüscher coined the term pheromone while studying chemicals used by termites to maintain their hierarchical system

All the way through the 1960’s Peter Karlson and Martin Lüscher used behavioural assays to identify the pheromones of pest species
Biologists used behavioural assays to find pheromones until the electro-antenegram was invented
Advances in gas chromatography has also allowed us to better understand what the chemicals might be

Question 48

How do electro-antenegrams work?

Answer 48

First you’d dissect the antenna of a male moth
Then you’d bathe the dissected antenna in a saline solution
Electrodes were then connected to the antenna in saline solution
This allows you to determine when an electrical impulse was generated in the presence of a particular chemical

Question 49

What happened in 1970?

Answer 49

English entomologist John Kennedy invented the wind tunnel
John Kennedy used the wind tunnel to track sex pheromones
The wind tunnel is still used today so the number of insects used in studies are kept to a minimum when tracking sex pheromones
If the insect is stimulated to fly upwind in the tunnel towards the scent researchers will conclude that chemical is a pheromone
This is because the insects would waste energy flying upwind if it wasn’t for a good reason

Question 50

What is a wind tunnel?

Answer 50

It’s is a plastic tunnels with a fan and odour at one end of the tunnel.
The floor of the tunnel will also move to mimick changes in territory in the insects flight path

Question 51

What do farmers now use instead of pesticides?

Answer 51

Pheromones

Question 52

What can pheromones also be used for?

Answer 52

Mass trapping

Disrupt insect mating

Question 53

What has understanding animal behaviour allowed us to understand in human medicine?

Answer 53

Human psychological disorders
Human physical disorders
Development of treatments

Question 54

Understanding animal behaviour has aided in development of treatments by increasing our knowledge of what?

Answer 54

Sensory systems
Nervous systems
Memory & emotion disorders
Aggression
Stress
Neurological disease
Recovery process after a stroke
Recovery process after a brain injury
Anxiety
Depression

Question 55

Understanding animal behaviour has aided in understanding learning and reinforcement which has contributed in therapies for what?

Answer 55

Alcoholism
Drug abuse
Obesity
Neuroses
Compulsions
Phobias

Question 56

How was all the knowledge gained to deal with human medical problems?

Answer 56

By testing various pharmacological strategies for dealing with these problems on animal models

Question 57

Name an example of animal behaviour aiding in human medicine?

Answer 57

Elevated plus maze

Question 58

What is the elevated plus maze?

Answer 58

The elevated plus maze was first described for rats
The elevated plus maze used the natural behaviour of rats to assess anxiety and how drugs that affect anxiety alter their behaviour
The rats would naturally be afraid of the mazes open spaces while being more comfortable in the enclosed spaces of the maze
The researchers measured how much time the rats spent in each area as an indicator of the rats degree of anxiety

Question 59

How can understanding behaviour contribute to our understanding of disease transmission and control?

Answer 59

Early detection
Recent studies have shown subtle changes in behavioural repertoires/patterns can occur before clinical signs
Litten et al 2008 saw behavioural changes in rat exploration before clinical signs of Huntington’s in their rat models

Management
Understanding behaviour can aid in understanding disease transmission
This then allows us to make strategies/methods to reduce disease transmission
It can also help us understand if those methods to reduce the disease are effective

Assessment of mitigation strategies
This can be seen when the UK government culled badgers
The badgers on the periphery of the cull sites would move to other sites
This meant that if those badgers were infected the culling aided in spreading TB further

Question 60

Name a study that shows how understanding animal behaviour can aid in understanding disease transmission and control?

Answer 60

Woodroffe et al 2016 study on TB in badgers and their TB transmission risk

Question 61

What did Woodroffe et al 2016 decide to study?

Answer 61

How TB transmission occurred between badgers and cattle

The risk of TB transmission

Question 62

How did Woodroffe et al 2016 conduct their experiment?

Answer 62

Woodroffe et al 2016 put tracking devices on cattle and badgers
The tracking devices on the cattle would also be able to sense how close the badgers tracking devices were to the cattle
This allowed Woodroffe et al to look at:
- where interspecies contact occurred
- when interspecies contact occurred
- which individual animals came into contact with each other

Question 63

What were Woodroffe et al 2016’s findings?

Answer 63

Woodroffe et al 2016 found that badgers did prefer cattle pastures, however never came in contact with cattle
The badgers never went close enough to the cattle for the cattle to become infected with TB via an aerial transmission route
Due to this Woodroffe et al 2016 theorised that TB transmission may occur through a n environmental route with prolonged infection risk
This meant simply culling badgers did not prevent TB transmission since the environment is already contaminated
Woodroffe et al 2016 also estimated that 6% of new cattle infections were coming from contact with badgers
However, the transmission route of TB went in both directions
Due to this it was hard to say if the current TB management strategies in 2016 were going to have any effect on TB transmission

Question 64

Give an example of when animal behaviour was used to help our understanding of animal welfare?

Answer 64

The Bramble Committee report 1965

Question 65

What is ethology?

Answer 65

The science of animal behaviour

Question 66

What did the Bramble Committee report 1965 say about what animal behaviour was important for understanding?

Answer 66

How we accommodate normal behaviour and highly motivated behaviours in animals

Abnormal behaviour
We can try to understand how these abnormal behaviours come about and if they’re maladaptive

Whether animals are capable of emotional states and cognitive abilities

Animal choice
This allows us to understand the animals choice and there perspective on what was happening

Question 67

What does Barnard 2007 believe?

Answer 67

That the concern of behaviour with “the decision-making propensities of animals makes animal behaviour “the only avenue for establishing a meaningful animal centred concept of animal welfare”
This is because Barnard 2007 believed that animal behaviour contextualises:
Clinical changes
Physiological changes
Other changes

Question 68

The banning of battery caged hens was heavily dependent on behavioural research by who?

Answer 68

Nasr et al 2012 study on keelbone fractures in hens

Question 69

Previous surveys before Nasr et al’s 2012 study suggested what about keel bone fractures in hens?

Answer 69

36-86% of hens in a flock could have keel bone fractures

Question 70

What did Nasr et al’s previous work show?

Answer 70

Hens with keel bone fractures had restricted mobility
The hens took longer to:
- go down a runway to get food
- come down from a perch to get food

This was a welfare issue as it made it harder to get to resources

Question 71

How did Nasr et al conduct their experiment?

Answer 71

Due to Nasr et al’s previous findings they looked at how long it took for the hens to fly down to food from a perch at various heights
The food provided was split into 4 groups:
Control (hens without keel bone fractures)
- Food & saline
- Food & morphine
Study group (hens with keel bone fractures)
- Food & saline
- Food & morphine
If the chickens felt pain they would eat the food with morphine and be able to move faster

Question 72

What were Nasr et al’s 2012 findings?

Answer 72

At a perch 50cm high the analgesic had little effect on how long it took the hens to get down to the food
Birds with keel bone fractures took much longer than healthy birds to come down from a perch +1 meters high
Birds with keel bone fractures that ate the analgesic were faster to reach the ground from a perch +1 meters high

This suggests that the analgesic did reduce some degree of pain in the hens
As a result it shows that keel bone fractures do cause pain
This provided evidence that we needed to do something to reduce the number of keel bone fractures in populations of egg laying hens

Question 73

What can understanding an animals cognitive and emotional capabilities do?

Answer 73

Help us understand our own evolution

Alter human attitudes towards other animals

Question 74

What was Sato et al’s 2025 study about?

Answer 74

Do rats show empathy?

Question 75

Define empathy

Answer 75

The ability to understand and share the feelings of another

Question 76

How did Sato et al 2015 conduct their experiment?

Answer 76

There was a large box split in two with a transparent wall and a door between the compartments
In one compartment (1) of the box there was either:
- a pool of water
- a new object
- an empty area
- a companion in a pool of water
In the other compartment (2) there was a dry rat
Sato et al measured how long it took for the rat in compartment (2) to learn how to open the door

Question 77

What were Sato et al’s 2015 original findings?

Answer 77

That in 9/10 times the rat on the side to open the door opened the door to save the ‘drowning’ rat

Question 78

What were Sato et al’s 2015 second findings?

Answer 78

Sato et al 2015 found that rats on the side to open the door would react faster to open the door to save the ‘drowning’ rat than when they just had to open the door to reach the other compartment without a ‘drowning’ rat

Question 79

What were Sato et al’s 2015 third findings?

Answer 79

Sato et al 2015 noticed that the rats that had previously been in the pool learnt faster how to open the door than the rats that had not been in the pool before learning to open the door

Question 80

What were Sato et al’s 2015 fourth findings?

Answer 80

That when the neighboring rat was safe and not distressed, the rat on the side to open the door barely opened the door

Question 81

What does Sato et al’s 2015 study suggest?

Answer 81

Rats have the capability to show empathy or at least a more basic emotion similar to empathy

The data suggests that rats opened the doors faster when the rat on the other side was in distress and when the rat had previously experienced the distressing experience

Question 82

Give examples of why we train animals to help humans and other animals?

Answer 82

Rescue animals
Dogs for the sensory impaired
Managing sheep
Bomb detection
So we can give them an inspection without causing stress
Entertainment
Carry messages

Question 83

Give some other broad examples for why animal behaviour science is so important

Answer 83

Development of technology
Understanding how phenotypes derive from genes
Understanding ecological impacts on species
What confers flexibility to adapt to rapid change
Understanding cellular societies
Understanding neural mechanisms
Understanding forces shaping human behaviour
Understanding microbial and parasitic motivators of behaviour
Understanding how individuals contribute to collective behaviour

Question 84

Give the main reasons for animal behaviour science

Answer 84

Understanding:

        - animal learning and training
        - animal welfare
        - animal cognitive and emotional capabilities
        - disease transmission and control
        - human medicine
        - animals for conservation
        - how to protect crops
        - anthropogenic impacts on species and ecosystems