Biology 441: 91307

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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

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Practice with Observation

• Video clip Trials of Life 1 Arriving

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Two types of Questions

• 1) How questions (proximate)
• What mechanisms cause the behavior?
• How is the behavior (activity) carried out?

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Two types of Questions

• 1) How questions (proximate)
• Operational mechanisms within the organism

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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?

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Two types of Questions

• 1) How questions (proximate)
• 2) Why Questions (ultimate)
• Evolutionary mechanisms

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Ultimate vs. Proximate

• Example Why does your cat rub against your leg
  when you come home?
• Proximate questions

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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?

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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?

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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?

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Ultimate vs. Proximate

• Example Why does your cat rub against your leg
  when you come home?
• Ultimate questions

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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?

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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?

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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?

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Ultimate vs. Proximate

• Example Monarch butterfly migration

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Details of Monarch Migration(from
http//www.monarchlab.umn.edu/biology/AnnualLifeCy
cle.aspx)
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Details of Overwintering

• Monarchs clustered in an Oyamel Fir
• tree at the Sierra Chincua overwintering site
• in central Mexico.

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Ultimate vs. Proximate

• Example Monarch butterfly migration
• Proximate questions?
• Ultimate questions?

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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?

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Practice with Observation

• Video clip Trials of Life 1 Arriving

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Behavioral Research Methods

• 1. Observational Methods
• Systematic recording of behavior

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Behavioral Research Methods

• 1. Observational Methods
• Systematic recording of behavior
• Multiple individuals
• Marking vs. naming

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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

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Behavioral Research Methods

• 1. Observational Methods
• Systematic recording of behavior
• Observation techniques
• Focal animal
• Scan sampling
• One-zero sampling

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Behavioral Research Methods

• 1. Observational Methods
• Tools for studying cryptic animals
• Trapping
• Radio transmitters
• Fluorescent dye
• Animal sign

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Behavioral Research Methods

• 1. Observational Methods
• Goals
• Generate questions and hypotheses
• inability to yield causal conclusions lack of
  experimental control

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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

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Behavioral Research Methods

• 2. Experimental Methods
• Example Method of isolation
• Bird song in white-crowned sparrows

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Behavioral Research Methods

• 2. Experimental Methods
• Problems with laboratory studies
• Difficult to
• generalize
• Artificial situation
• affects behavior