Section for this week will introduce you to observing animal behavior and hypothesis testing. Your TA will take you on a field trip during section to see some animals and behaviors on campus. They will also discuss areas of focus for this assignment. This field trip will introduce you to the possible study organisms and behaviors for your proposed experiment. This time during section is NOT what you base your write-up on, it is simply an introduction to build upon.
This introduction is to be followed up with additional observations that you will make outside of class. You should plan to observe your animal of choice for 1-2 hours. Based on these observations, you are to propose a complete methodology to test some idea of animal behavior in ONE of the following four categories:
This methodology should include your observational approach (i.e. scan sampling, focal animal sampling, time budget analysis, etc), how you will keep track of individuals if necessary for your design (i.e. marking, banding), and some key experiment to test your hypotheses (including controls if possible).
For example: Based on your natural history observations, what factors might be important in the foraging behavior of X? Assume you identify factor Y as potentially important. Establish your null and alternative hypotheses based on the effects of factor Y on feeding behavior. You would then outline the methodology and an experiment to test the importance of these factors.
You should also take notes on the behaviors of the animals you are observing, and then compile these observations into an ethogram diagram, of the kind shown in Chapter 7 for animal contests. Your ethogram could simply treat the foraging of animals but if they are foraging in groups, you must show how the individuals interact.
Your observations are to give you an idea of interesting behaviors and potential questions. You are only designing the experiment, you will not be using/analyzing behavioral data from the observations to produce actual results.
Given your designed experiments, anticipate which kinds of results/trends/data would support your null hypothesis. What other factors could be influencing your organism such that the null was supported? Which kinds of results would support your alternative hypothesis/es? How would these relate back to the big picture concerning your general behavioral category?
The full-length assignment is due TWO weeks from the field trip in section. It is to be no longer than 1 page (1-1/2 line spacing) and should include the following major categories, described in more detail above:
Introduction: The behavioral category of interest; the factors you observe to be potentially important and why; clearly stated null and alternative hypothesis/es Experiment Proposal: Your experimental subject; the design of your experiment in enough detail that someone could reasonably carry it out; control experiments Discussion: potential results both supporting and rejecting your null hypothesis; the implications of these results on your behavioral category
This ONE page write-up MUST be accompanied by the additional page(s) including your emailed summary paragraph and TA response.
Include your diagrammatic ethogram on a second page, with a legend describing the behaviors.
GRADING FOR ANIMAL OBSERVATION LAB