biology 441: 9/13/07 last time history of ethology & evolution review today types of questions...
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Biology 441: 9/13/07
Last time History of Ethology & Evolution review
Today Types of questions (Proximate vs. Ultimate) Behavioral research methods
Next time Discussion: P vs. U & infanticide Cricket set-up
Practice with Observation
Video clip: Trials of Life #1: Arriving
Two types of Questions
1) How questions (proximate) What mechanisms cause the behavior? How is the behavior (activity) carried out?
Two types of Questions
1) How questions (proximate)*Operational mechanisms within the organism*
Two types of Questions
1) How questions (proximate) 2) Why Questions (ultimate)
Why did the animal evolve the mechanism for the behavior?
What is the ultimate function or survival value of the behavior?
Two types of Questions
1) How questions (proximate) 2) Why Questions (ultimate)
*Evolutionary mechanisms*
Ultimate vs. Proximate
Example: Why does your cat rub against your leg when you come home? Proximate questions
Ultimate vs. Proximate
Example: Why does your cat rub against your leg when you come home? Proximate questions
How do cats select which people to rub on?
Ultimate vs. Proximate
Example: Why does your cat rub against your leg when you come home? Proximate questions
How do cats select which people to rub on? Do cats ‘rub’ at the same time every day?
Ultimate vs. Proximate
Example: Why does your cat rub against your leg when you come home? Proximate questions
How do cats select which people to rub on? Do cats ‘rub’ at the same time every day? How does the sight of their owner lead to the muscle
movements necessary to produce the rubbing behavior?
Ultimate vs. Proximate
Example: Why does your cat rub against your leg when you come home? Ultimate questions
Ultimate vs. Proximate
Example: Why does your cat rub against your leg when you come home? Ultimate questions
What benefit does the cat get from rubbing your leg?
Ultimate vs. Proximate
Example: Why does your cat rub against your leg when you come home? Ultimate questions
What benefit does the cat get from rubbing your leg? Why do cats rub on humans and not on other cats?
Ultimate vs. Proximate
Example: Why does your cat rub against your leg when you come home? Ultimate questions
What benefit does the cat get from rubbing your leg? Why do cats rub on humans and not on other cats? Did this behavior exist prior to the domestication of
cats?
Ultimate vs. Proximate
Example: Monarch butterfly migration
Details of Monarch Migration(from http://www.monarchlab.umn.edu/biology/AnnualLifeCycle.aspx)
Details of Overwintering
Monarchs clustered in an Oyamel Fir tree at the Sierra Chincua overwintering site in central Mexico.
Ultimate vs. Proximate
Example: Monarch butterfly migration Proximate questions?
Ultimate questions?
Ultimate vs. Proximate
Example: Monarch butterfly migration Proximate questions?
How do individuals ‘know’ in which direction to fly? How do they find their overwintering location? What mechanism causes them to delay breeding?
Ultimate questions? Why do they overwinter in the same spot every year? Why is it more beneficial for them to migrate 2000
miles each year than to stay in Mexico year-round?
Practice with Observation
Video clip: Trials of Life #1: Arriving
Behavioral Research Methods
1. Observational Methods Systematic recording of behavior
Behavioral Research Methods
1. Observational Methods Systematic recording of behavior
Multiple individuals Marking vs. naming
Behavioral Research Methods
1. Observational Methods Systematic recording of behavior
Multiple individuals Marking vs. naming
Multiple times (e.g., varying seasons; day vs. night) Multiple observers Construction of Ethograms
Behavioral Research Methods
1. Observational Methods Systematic recording of behavior
Observation techniques Focal animal Scan sampling One-zero sampling
Behavioral Research Methods
1. Observational Methods Tools for studying cryptic animals
Trapping Radio transmitters Fluorescent dye Animal sign
Behavioral Research Methods
1. Observational Methods Goals:
Generate questions and hypotheses
*inability to yield causal conclusions; lack of experimental control*
Behavioral Research Methods
2. Experimental Methods Manipulating something (independent variable) and
measuring its affect on something else (dependent variable) while holding other factors constant
Best suited for lab situations; psychology
Behavioral Research Methods
2. Experimental Methods Example: Method of isolation
Bird song in white-crowned sparrows
Behavioral Research Methods
2. Experimental Methods Problems with laboratory studies
Difficult to
generalize Artificial situation
affects behavior