Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 3 sessions / week; 1 hour / session
Course Overview
Topics for special emphasis include:
- Key concepts in learning.
- Habitat selection. Nest site selection; territoriality; dispersal; migration.
- Feeding. Foraging or stalking; prey capture; storage / hoarding; consummation.
- Antipredator behavior. Detection; tricking the predator; defenses-individual, social; other adaptations.
- Sexuality. Dimorphisms in body and behavior; social organization, dominance structures; evolution of sexual signals, emancipation from original uses.
- Mating and reproduction. Pair bonding varieties and advantages; brood tending and its evolution; similarities of emancipated actions across widely different species.
- Cooperation among conspecifics.
- Tool use.
Course Format
The class sessions will include:
- Lecture / discussion of key concepts in readings, using the study questions for guidance.
- Some sessions will include viewing of selected videos.
- Student discussion and presentations.
Requirements
- Do all assigned readings. Attempt to answer study questions before class; these will be discussed in class, along with additional material.
- Weekly short quizzes or homework assignments.
- Midterm and final exams.
- Project.
Grading of Course
| ACTIVITIES | PERCENTAGES |
|---|---|
| Quizzes & Homeworks | 35 |
| Presentation | 20 |
| Midterm Exam | 15 |
| Final Exam | 30 |
Grading of Final Project Presentation
| CRITERIAS | DESCRIPTIONS | % OF ASSIGNMENT GRADES |
|---|---|---|
| Relevance to class | Cite specific ideas or principles of ethology and sociobiology | 20 |
| Sources | Search effort, reading effort, adequacy for the report and accuracy of understanding | 20 |
| Organization & clarity of descriptions | Organization of ideas with helpful use of headings; clarity of descriptions | 20 |
| Examples & Interest | Examples used to explain the topic clearly and effectively; interest shown by student and generated in audience | 20 |
| Critique of existing studies and future directions | Critique of studies read and future directions (your ideas about relevant work you think should be done if you were working in this field). | 20 |
Course Calendar
| LEC # | TOPICS | KEY DATES |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction: class requirements, various approaches to animal behavior and its study | Initial assignments for student reports |
| 2 | Introduction to ethology; three-spined stickleback fish | |
| 3 | Introduction to ethology (cont.); field studies of birds; Niko Tinbergen’s questions |
Homework 1 due Quiz |
| 4 | Ethology (cont.); Konrad Lorenz’ Jackdaws | |
| 5 | Ethology of geese; fixed action patterns and the CNS | |
| 6 | Fixed action patterns and the CNS (cont.) | |
| 7 | Input and output sides of innate behavior; motivation | |
| 8 | Innate behavior and motivation (cont.); Lorenz on fundamentals of ethology: The “fixed action pattern” | |
| 9-11 | Lorenz on fundamentals of ethology (cont.) | Homework 2 due in Lecture 9 |
| 12-13 | Evolution; development & plasticity of behavior | |
| 14-15 | Communication; Meerkats of the Kalahari Desert | Homework 3 due in Lecture 14 |
| 16 | Foraging; anti-predation behavior | Homework 4 due |
| 17 | Anti-predation behavior (cont.) | |
| Midterm Review | ||
| Midterm exam | ||
| 18 | Mating & Reproduction | |
| 19 | Introduction to Sociobiology | |
| 20 | Sociobiology subject matter | |
| 21 | Genetic influences on social behavior | |
| 22 | Videos: Domestic cat | |
| 23 | Domestic cat; scientific method in sociobiology | |
| 24 | Discoveries of sociobiology | Homework 5 due |
| 25 | Discoveries of sociobiology (cont.) | |
| 26 | Critique of cultural determinism | |
| 27 | Sociobiology and culture; Practical issues and sociobiology | Homework 6 due |
| 28 | “The triumph of sociobiology”; Konrad Lorenz on learning | |
| 29 | Konrad Lorenz on learning (cont.) | Homework 7 due |
| 30 | Konrad Lorenz on learning (cont.); Video: The Great Apes | |
| 31 | Video: The Great Apes (cont.) | |
|
Written reports due Extra credit homework due |
||
| 32-35 | Student report presentations |
