What characterizes animals? What traits are unique to animals?
● Nervous system
● Heterotrophs
● Cell wall
● Mobility
● Free will??
● Learned behaviors
● sexual production could count but plants and fungi also have sexual production so its not unique to animals
**Animal definition
● Animal: an organism that feeds on organic matter, typically having specialized sense organs and nervous system and able to respond rapidly to stimuli
**What kingdom are animals in? what makes it special?
● Kingdom Animalia
● One of the 3 kingdoms of multicellular organisms (the other two are plants and fungi)
“Nothing in biology and psychology…..______ ________ ________ ___ ______ ___ ________________”
Nothing in biology and psychology makes sense except in light of evolution
uses of animal behaviour reserach?
- entertainment
- protection of rare endangered animals
- model systems for human applications
- control of pests and damage reduction
- we are animals
> helps us understand our own behaviours (EX: aggression gene in fruit flies)
> we depend on animals to survive as food
How do animals affect our daily food? ( EX: apples)
- pollination
- pests
- biological control
- seed dispersal
- fertilizer
steps of the scientific method (6)
- Observation
- Hypothesis formulation
- Testable predictions/ experiment
- analyze data
- draw conclusions
- communicate result
Causes of observed improvements in control treatments
● Spontaneous improvement
● Statistical regression to the mean
● Placebo effect
● Biases (EX: patient being polite)
● Co-interventions (EX: painkillers)
Causes of observed improvements in no treatment
● Spontaneous improvement
● Statistical regression to the mean
● Other interventions (EX: painkillers)
Explain Animal life history
● Most animals start life small
● Individuals that stay alive grow (develop) to sexual maturity (and sometimes continue growing)
● Of individuals that stay alive, some reproduce, all age and die
- Different species will have different life histories, with focus and resources allocated for one area vs another.
- behaviours within an animal’s life history will change depending on the stage they are on. the behaviours and time spent in each stage will be different depending on the species
● Survival
● Growth
● Reproduction
● Aging
What are the intellectual standards?
- clarity (can i understand)
- accuracy (is it right or wrong)
- precision (can it be more specific, details?)
- relevance ( is it sufficiently related to the issue?)
- depth (complexities and interrelation ships?)
- breadth (multiple points of view?)
- logic ( does it follow from the evidence/ make sense?)
- significance (is it important?)
- fairness (conflict of interest? biases?)
What are the elements of analytic thinking
- Examples
- whats the purpose, question/ problem?
- assumptions
- data, facts, experiences
- concepts, theories
- conclusions
- implications, consequences
What are the Scientific approaches
● FUNCTION (WHY) vs mechanism (how)
● ULTIMATE vs Proximate mechanisms
● ADAPTIVE SIGNIFICANCE vs machinery (genetics, physiology, neurobiology, endocrinology)
Explain/ compare the scientific approaches, FUNCTION (WHY) vs. Mechanism (how)
Explain/ compare the scientific approaches, ULTIMATE vs Proximate mechanisms
Explain/ compare the scientific approaches, ADAPTIVE SIGNIFICANCE vs machinery (genetics, physiology, neurobiology, endocrinology)
What is animal behaviour?
Self generated movement of either a body part ot the whole body in animals
What are the essential behaviours of Animal behaviour? (4 F’s)
feeding
fleeing (evading predation)
fighting
fornicating (sexual behaviour and reproduction)
● (sleep) could be argued as physiological
● (social interactions) typically related to sexual behavior
Explain the essential behaviours of animal behaviour (4 F’s)
● FEEDING: Acquiring nutrients necessary for survival, tissue maintenance and repair, energy expenditures on the two essential behaviors and growth
● FLEEING/ PREDATOR AVOIDANCE: Staying away from dangerous locations, fleeing when predators approach
● FORNICATING/ REPRODUCTION: Producing offspring in females; successful mating in males
● FIGHTING/ AGGRESSION:
○ Not necessary condition, but is quite common in
most species
○ Fighting within species
○ Why
■ Access to better quality or safer food sources
■ Access to femalesWhat mechanisms can change behaviour over time? Explain.
- Evolution
- Learning
all behaviours have originated through their evolution or learning
Define evolution
A change over GENERATIONS in the proportions of individual organisms differing genetically in one or more traits
Which Mechanisms can change other biological traits?
● Natural selection
● Genetic drift
● Mutations
● Non random mating
● Gene flow
● injury/disease
● Evolution
● Epigenetics
○ Non heritable changes in genetic material from
parents to offspring
● Development / aging
● Acclimatization
Define learning
- is the ability to acquire an internal representation of new info
- an individual may use that info to determine subsequent behaviours
Explain Individual vs Social Learning
● Information learned by an individual is lost when it dies
● Information that is learned from others can remain in the population for many generations
● Social learning allows faster spread of a newly learned behavior among individuals and transfer of that behavior between generations
