Animal BehaviorBiology 342 Fall 07 |
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Week 1. What is Animal Behavior and How is it Studied?August 28th History of Animal Behavior.August 30th What is Animal Behavior?read: Tinbergen's1963 paper represents a seminal contributions to Behavior as it formulates a method for studying animal behavior. This method still forms the basis for most courses on animal behavior. These issues are central to developing a philosophical approach to animal behavior. The ethological approach had a strong Darwinian tradition underlying its development. Much of the work in ethology was aimed at understanding the ultimate evolutionary reasons for behavior. Tinbergen listed four areas of inquiry that could be used to understand issues of animal behavior. The following mnemonic can be used to remember these four areas ABCDEF
[Lehrman, 1965]: Below is another diagram that may help you to understand these 4 areas.
Your goal should be to understand these areas of biology, not memorize
them. More specifically, consider how they apply to animal behavior.
You may disagree with the exact distinctions, and you may see some
areas of inquiry that are difficult to pigeon hole into one of these
4 topics. Great! bring your thoughts and objections to class.
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