Lesson 1

Question 1

what is animal bahavior

Answer 1

any internally coordinated, externally visivle pattern of activity that responds to changing external internal conditions

Question 2

Niko Tinbergen

Answer 2

• pointed out that behavioral biologists need to answer all kinds of questions

Question 3

proximate questions

Answer 3

mechanistic questions and developmental questions

Question 4

mechanistic questions

Answer 4

how does the animal accomplish the task? can also include physiological questions

Question 5

developmental questions

Answer 5

how does the behavior develop over the animal’s lifetime - learned? innate?

Question 6

ultimate questions

Answer 6

(evolutionary questions)
- surival value (adaptive value)
- how did it evolve? phylogenty

Question 7

example of a proximate question for the mass-nesting of olive ridley sea turtles in costa rica

Answer 7

• how do you know that they are supposed to go to the particular beach?
• how do they know it is time to leave their feeding areas?

Question 8

ultimate questions about the turtles

Answer 8

why do they do this crazy thing? what is the adaptive value?

Question 9

research hypothesis - informal

Answer 9

Explanation that allows us to make a
testable prediction

Question 10

formal hypothesis

Answer 10

alternate and null

Question 11

alternate hypothesis

Answer 11

Statistical hypothesis that the
proposed explanation for observations
does have a significant effect

Question 12

null hypothesis

Answer 12

Statistical hypothesis that observations
result from chance

Question 13

Research hypothesis (the big idea) - turtles

Answer 13

Maybe turtles find the beach using
their sense of smell

Question 14

Alternate hypothesis (something
testable)

Answer 14

Turtles will swim towards a source that
smells like that particular beach

Question 15

null hypothesis ( what statistics actually test for)

Answer 15

Smells have no effect on the course
that turtles set

Question 16

THE SCIENTIFIC
METHOD: A BRIEF WORD
ABOUT STATISTICS

Answer 16

 In a statistical test, we usually
determine a probability or “p-
value” and by convention look
to see if p<0.05.

 That is, is the chance of the
null hypothesis being true less
than 5%?

 That would mean that the
chance of the ‘alternate
hypothesis’ being true is
greater than 95%!

Question 17

ethogram

Answer 17

Formal description or inventory of an
animal’s behavior

Question 18

time budget

Answer 18

A summary of the total time and
relative frequency of different behaviors
of an individual

Question 19

Research question: – elephants

Answer 19

What
behaviors do captive Asian
elephants exhibit? (Rees 2009)

Question 20

Elephant ethograms methods:

Answer 20

-Studied Asian elephants (Elephas
maximus) at zoo

• Recorded behavior every five
  minutes for an entire day once a
  week for 11 months

-This is one of the few sorts of studies
that don’t use statistics to test
hypotheses – but can lead to a
statistical analysis as we shall see

Question 21

results: elephant

Answer 21

Elephants spent about one-quarter of their time feeding
Stereotypic behavior (thought to indicate boredom) negatively
correlated with feeding behavior – can demonstrate statistically

Question 22

A series of experiments performed in the 1790s by
Spallanzani:

Answer 22

• how do night-flying owls and bats find their way in the dark

Question 23

SPALLANZANI’S 1ST EXPERIMENT
(manipulation and result)

Answer 23

Manipulation: place owls in
complete darkness and test
flying ability

Result: owls could not fly well
compared to controls (owls
that had light for vision)

Conclusion: Conclusion: owls need sight
for flight

Question 24

SPALLANZANI’S 2ND EXPERIMENT

Answer 24

• Manipulation: place bats in
  complete darkness and test flying
  ability
• Result: bats flew fine when
  compared to controls (bats in light)
• Conclusion: bats don’t need sight
  for flight

Question 25

SPALLANZANI’S 3RD EXPERIMENT

Answer 25

• Manipulation: put black hoods on
  bats and test flying ability (was
  worried not dark enough)
• Result: black-hooded bats couldn’t
  fly
• Conclusion: bats need sight for
  flight

Question 26

SPALLANZANI’S 4TH EXPERIMENT

Answer 26

• Manipulation: put transparent
  hoods on bats and test flying ability
  (testing if hood itself had effect)
• Result: clear-hooded bats couldn’t
  fly as well as controls
• Conclusion: the hood was the
  trouble whether light got through or
  not!

Question 27

SPALLANZANI’S 5TH EXPERIMENT

Answer 27

• Manipulation: blind bats without
  covering ears using opaque disks
  of birdlime over the eyes
• Result: blinded bats flew just fine
  when compared to controls
• Conclusion: bats don’t really need
  sight for successful flight

Question 28

SPALLANZANI’S 6TH EXPERIMENT

Answer 28

• Manipulation: plug ears of bats with
  grease or cotton plugs and test
  flying ability
• Result: deafened bats did not fly
  well and did not feed
• Conclusion: bats need good
  hearing for successful flight

Question 29

SPALLANZANI’S 7TH EXPERIMENT: A CONTROL

Answer 29

The problem: perhaps deafened
bats were distressed by the objects
in ears and deafness had no real
role in the lack of flying

• Manipulation: place hollow brass
  tubes in ears and test flying ability
  with 1) tubes plugged with pine
  pitch or 2) tubes unplugged
• Result: bats did not fly well or feed
  with plugged tubes, but were fine
  with unplugged tubes
  Conclusion: bats need good
  hearing for successful flight; object
  in ear not the problem

Manipulation: coat wings with
varnish or flour paste to interfere
with sense of touch
Compare flying and feeding
Results: varnished bats did fine
 Conclusion: touch not required for
normal flying or feeding

Question 30

phylogeny

Answer 30

The natural, evolutionary relationships
between groups of living things, inferred using a variety of techniques to establish the relative importance of various
shared features