Week 1 - Sept 3 & 4
Observing and Recording Behavior
General Expectations
Student pairs are expected to use animal behavior videos they have recorded
themselves. These should be 3-5 videos, each 1-5 minutes long, each focusing
on a different individual engaged in a similar behavior. For example,
squirrels foraging, fish feeding, a spider spinning a web etc.
Following a brief explanation of different Sampling and Recording Rules,
students will work in pairs to create an ethogram for their animal. Using
Jwatcher (http://www.jwatcher.ucla.edu/),
students will code the behavior for each movie, and use
Jwatcher to assess inter-observer reliability, summarize and analyze the
data using sophisticated sequence analysis features available in Jwatcher.
The JWatcher manual will be available in class or can be viewed before
class. CLICK HERE
Students will produce a kinematic diagram to describe behavioral sequences.
strongly suggested reading:
Martin and Bateson "Measuring Behavior"
chapter 4 - 7 (pg 56-113) This book is on reserve in the library.
or
Altmann (1974) Observational
study of behavior: sampling methods. Behaviour 48:227-65.
also available in the book Foundations of Animal Behavior.
TO BE EVALUATED
Every student team will create a folder on the courses server in
which they will save:
a global definitions file (*.gdf),
a focal master
file (*.fmf),
a focal analysis file (*.faf),
all raw data files (*.dat),
the analyzed result files (*.cd.res),
the summary (*.rsm).
and the sequece results file (*seq.res)
and the final kinematic diagram
At the end of class every student team will complete
a 1 page summary, the details of which are described at the end of the
handout. This will be attached to the lab notebooks.
Every student is expected to keep their own lab notebook and not rely
on the notebook of a labmate.
Lab notebooks will be evaluated!
|