Behavioural biology notes
7 sin practical is not online → prepare at home the day before the practical
Lecture 1
Chapter 1 - the science of animal behaviour
What is an animal - not that easy
● Multicellular eukaryotic → all cells have a nucleus
○ Not always true, mammalian red bloods cells do not
● Dependent on organic materials
● Breathe, move, nervous system, sensory system
● Have a blastula ! → = hollow sphere of cells during embryonic
environment
Behaviour
● Is internally coordinated, externally visible that respond to changing internal or
external conditions = according to the book
○ internal= information processing
○ External = observable and measurable (to measure is difficult)
● According to professor: behaviour is anything an animal does
other explanations of behaviour
- Ultimate expression of the complexity of an animal
- Integrates physiological and morphological parameters in interaction with the
environment
- Individual behaviours dictate phenomena at higher levels (groups/ populations)
- Quantifiable: behavioural biologist quantify behaviour → motor
patterns
Quantification of behaviour is the most important according to behavioural biologists.
The way you measure behaviour is also important
● Ectogram = formal description of an animal’s behaviour
○ Terms given to behaviour with description which is easily understandable
● Be aware of how you formate things (like stereotypy= no obvious
purpose, but that is not per se true → be critical)
Niko Tinbergen -philosophy of behaviour
● Proximate (how)
○ Development
○ Mechanism
, ● Ultimate (why)
○ Function
○ Evolution
● He defined how behavioural biologist should approach behaviour
Proximate and ultimate is the most important of this chapter
Understand the 7 sins (paper by Millinski) → questions on exam
Chapter 2 - methods for studying animal behaviour
Answering a research question:
Question → hypothesis → testable predictions → quantification behaviour →
statistics → report
- H0: A=B
- H1: A is not B
● Observational method
○ causality is unclear
○ Used to test hypotheses and describe behavioural patterns
● Experimental method
○ direction of causality is clear
○ manipulate animals but think about ethics:
■ Refinement → keep the level of discomfort as low as
possible,
■ replacement→if there is a different model is available (like cill
cultures) do the experiment with that,
■ reduction→the lowest number of animals to get significant data
● Comparative method
○ Mainly for ultimate explanations understand evolution of behaviours
comparing closely related species, ancestral or derived traits
, ○ traits - in the understanding of evolution (relatedness), looking at
integration, physiology ect.
● Modelling
○ Yields testable predictions
○ meta-analysis
You can study animals anywhere you can see behaviour
● The best to study under (semi)natural conditions
● There are always pros and cons
● Standardisation vs real life
● Domesticated species vs wild caught species
“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”
Evolution= change in he (alleles) inherited characteristics of biological populations over
successive generations
3 things you need for evolution to happen:
● Heredity (DNA/RNA, genes)
● Variability (mutations, recombination, gene flow)
● Selection (natural/sexual selections, drift)
Heredity
Individual has a genotype (genetic make-up) and phenotype (selections works on
phenotype, geno- and phenotype interacts on each other and environment is also very
important)
, Maternal and transgenerational effect (non-genetic inheritance)
● No cross- but transgenerational
● Like histone modification or DNA methylation
primoridial cells → are passed on in generation =
epigenetics phenomena
● Individual: genotype x environment
○ gene-environment interaction shape phenotype
○ Phenotype is under selection
Is a treat heritable?
Two things you can do to investigate
● Parent-offspring regression
○ To see if offspring behaviour resembles their
parents → regression line shows correlation
● Selection experiment
○ Artificial selection of individuals for a specific
trait →see if this trait stays over generations
Variability
● Random mutation = new alleles
○ E.g. replication errors, exogenous substances
● Recombination = new allele combination
○ meiosis
● Gene flow = new alleles from different populations (“species”)
● Non-genetic inheritance (parental effects) = phenotypic variation (learning)
● Absence of selection pressures
→ may lead to interesting patterns
Frequency dependent selections: the fitness of a trait depends on its
frequency relative to other phenotypes → two ways (important to know)
● Positive: the fitness increases (drives out other phenotypes as its fitness
increases when it becomes more common)
● Negative: fitness decreases when it becomes more common – maintains
variation
○ Example of fishes → left and right jawed fish, if you are in
majority you do worse
■ The norm is not always 50% can shift a bit
7 sin practical is not online → prepare at home the day before the practical
Lecture 1
Chapter 1 - the science of animal behaviour
What is an animal - not that easy
● Multicellular eukaryotic → all cells have a nucleus
○ Not always true, mammalian red bloods cells do not
● Dependent on organic materials
● Breathe, move, nervous system, sensory system
● Have a blastula ! → = hollow sphere of cells during embryonic
environment
Behaviour
● Is internally coordinated, externally visible that respond to changing internal or
external conditions = according to the book
○ internal= information processing
○ External = observable and measurable (to measure is difficult)
● According to professor: behaviour is anything an animal does
other explanations of behaviour
- Ultimate expression of the complexity of an animal
- Integrates physiological and morphological parameters in interaction with the
environment
- Individual behaviours dictate phenomena at higher levels (groups/ populations)
- Quantifiable: behavioural biologist quantify behaviour → motor
patterns
Quantification of behaviour is the most important according to behavioural biologists.
The way you measure behaviour is also important
● Ectogram = formal description of an animal’s behaviour
○ Terms given to behaviour with description which is easily understandable
● Be aware of how you formate things (like stereotypy= no obvious
purpose, but that is not per se true → be critical)
Niko Tinbergen -philosophy of behaviour
● Proximate (how)
○ Development
○ Mechanism
, ● Ultimate (why)
○ Function
○ Evolution
● He defined how behavioural biologist should approach behaviour
Proximate and ultimate is the most important of this chapter
Understand the 7 sins (paper by Millinski) → questions on exam
Chapter 2 - methods for studying animal behaviour
Answering a research question:
Question → hypothesis → testable predictions → quantification behaviour →
statistics → report
- H0: A=B
- H1: A is not B
● Observational method
○ causality is unclear
○ Used to test hypotheses and describe behavioural patterns
● Experimental method
○ direction of causality is clear
○ manipulate animals but think about ethics:
■ Refinement → keep the level of discomfort as low as
possible,
■ replacement→if there is a different model is available (like cill
cultures) do the experiment with that,
■ reduction→the lowest number of animals to get significant data
● Comparative method
○ Mainly for ultimate explanations understand evolution of behaviours
comparing closely related species, ancestral or derived traits
, ○ traits - in the understanding of evolution (relatedness), looking at
integration, physiology ect.
● Modelling
○ Yields testable predictions
○ meta-analysis
You can study animals anywhere you can see behaviour
● The best to study under (semi)natural conditions
● There are always pros and cons
● Standardisation vs real life
● Domesticated species vs wild caught species
“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”
Evolution= change in he (alleles) inherited characteristics of biological populations over
successive generations
3 things you need for evolution to happen:
● Heredity (DNA/RNA, genes)
● Variability (mutations, recombination, gene flow)
● Selection (natural/sexual selections, drift)
Heredity
Individual has a genotype (genetic make-up) and phenotype (selections works on
phenotype, geno- and phenotype interacts on each other and environment is also very
important)
, Maternal and transgenerational effect (non-genetic inheritance)
● No cross- but transgenerational
● Like histone modification or DNA methylation
primoridial cells → are passed on in generation =
epigenetics phenomena
● Individual: genotype x environment
○ gene-environment interaction shape phenotype
○ Phenotype is under selection
Is a treat heritable?
Two things you can do to investigate
● Parent-offspring regression
○ To see if offspring behaviour resembles their
parents → regression line shows correlation
● Selection experiment
○ Artificial selection of individuals for a specific
trait →see if this trait stays over generations
Variability
● Random mutation = new alleles
○ E.g. replication errors, exogenous substances
● Recombination = new allele combination
○ meiosis
● Gene flow = new alleles from different populations (“species”)
● Non-genetic inheritance (parental effects) = phenotypic variation (learning)
● Absence of selection pressures
→ may lead to interesting patterns
Frequency dependent selections: the fitness of a trait depends on its
frequency relative to other phenotypes → two ways (important to know)
● Positive: the fitness increases (drives out other phenotypes as its fitness
increases when it becomes more common)
● Negative: fitness decreases when it becomes more common – maintains
variation
○ Example of fishes → left and right jawed fish, if you are in
majority you do worse
■ The norm is not always 50% can shift a bit
