L1 - Intro to Animal Behaviour Flashcards
What is behaviour?
“Behaviour is: the internally coordinated responses (actions or inactions) of whole living organisms (individuals or groups) to internal and/or external stimuli, excluding responses more easily understood as developmental changes” (Levitis et al. 2009)
Why is it important to study not just vertebrates?
Because less than 5% of known animal species are vertebrates
What are 5 reasons studying animal behaviour is important?
- Aquaculture: post-release mortality rate
- Resolving human-wildlife conflict
- Conservation
- Neuroscience
- Public engagement
What are the two generic starting points used to study animal behaviour?
Question or System
What is an ethogram?
A comprehensive list, inventory, or description of all the behaviours of an organism
Name, describe and give examples of the two main types of data animal behaviouralists record
Events - behaviours of short duration, generally counted not timed. E.g yawning, sneezing, vocalisation
States - behaviours that occur for an extended duration. E.g foraging, movement, freeze response
What does how animal behaviouralists collect data depend on?
- How easy it is to observe
- Specific question
- How data will be analysed
- Constraints e.g people power
Describe the Ad libitum sampling
Researcher records individual or group behaviours, with little or no reference to specific, well‑defined methods
Strengths and weaknesses of Ad libitum sampling
Strengths:
- Initial observations/ ethograms
- Question formation
Weaknesses:
- Limited in quantity and quality of data
Describe the focal animal sampling
Observations of one focal individual. Record either:
- all behaviours of individual
- all occurrences of specific behaviour/s of interest exhibited during a set period of time
Strengths of focal animal sampling
Provides data on specific behaviours and is more reproducible than ad-libitum sampling
Describe all occurrences sampling
Select one or more specific behavioural events and record every occurrence within the animal group
Strengths of the all occurrences sampling
A useful technique to determine the rate, frequency, or synchrony of specific behaviours
Describe binary sampling
Records whether specific behaviours did (1) or did not (0) occur during observation of individual or group, during a set time period.
Weakness of binary sampling
Limited usefulness because information is lost by categorising the occurrence of behaviours so rigidly.
Describe scan sampling
Records instantaneous activity or behavioural state of all animals in the group at predetermined time intervals (e.g., once per minute).
Strength of scan sampling
Useful to understand the frequency with which all animals in the group display certain behaviours or behavioural states
What are the three types of information animal behaviourists measure?
Latency, frequency and duration
What is anthropomorphism?
Applying human qualities (emotions/intentions) to non-human animals or things
What are Tinbergen’s 4 reasons for why an animal performs a behaviour?
- Mechanism: underlying causation
- Ontogeny: developmental history of individual
- Function: impact on fitness
- Phylogeny: evolutionary history of species
What are the two categories Tinbergen’s 4 reasons for animal behaviour are grouped into? And which reasons go into each group?
Proximate and Ultimate
Proximate: mechanism and ontogeny
Ultimate: function and phylogeny
Give an example of an experiment answering a proximate question regarding beewolf wasps
- Experiment looked at how do wasps navigate to their nest hole after a foraging trip
- Hypothesis was wasps use info from surroundings to find their nest again
- Data provided evidence for hypothesis
(deals with behavioural mechanism therefore proximate)
Give an example of an experiment answering a ultimate question regarding black headed gulls
- Experiment looked at why do gulls remove egg shells from their nests after the chick has hatched?
- Hypothesis was egg shells make nests more visible to predators
- Data provided evidence for hypothesis
(deals with function and adaptive significance of behaviour therefore ultimate)
