I am now in charge of the French version of this course only

BIO3176
Animal Behaviour

3 hours of lecture per week, 1 hour of discussion group per week

Introduction to the study of animal behaviour; evolution and adaptive value of behaviour.
The emphasis is on the sub-discipline of behavioural ecology.
Prerequisite: BIO2129

Welcome on the course web site for "Animal Behaviour" in the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa. On this web site, you will find information from the course outline and the slides I will use during lectures in PDF format. I also have a “news” section where you will find important messages regarding this course.

Visit this site regularly!

 

Professeur / Professor

 

 
 

Gabriel Blouin-Demers, PhD
Professeur agrégé / Associate Professor
Directeur EVS / Director EVS

Département de Biologie / Department of Biology
Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
377 Gendron, 30 Marie-Curie
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5

T: 613-562-5800 x6749
F: 613-562-5486
gblouin@uottawa.ca
www.science.uottawa.ca/gblouin/

 

Heures de bureau / Office hours

 

 

Sur rendez-vous par courriel / By appointment via email

 

 

Lecture Schedule

Tuesdays from 8:30 to 10:00 in VNR 331
Fridays from 10:00 to 11:30 in VNR 331

 

DGD Schedule

Mondays from 10:00 to 11:00 in FTX 136 or
Mondays from 16:00 to 17:00 in LMX 223 or
Tuesdays from 11:30 to 12:30 in LMX 223 or
Wednesdays from 13:00 to 14:00 in LMX 223

Textbook

The mandatory textbook for the course is:

Danchin, Giraldeau & Cézilly (eds). 2007. Behavioural ecology: An evolutionary perspective on behaviour. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

The textbook is available at the Campus Bookstore (ca. $72) and at the Agora (ca. 67$).

A good portion of the material covered in lecture comes from the textbook, but another portion comes from various sources, especially from the primary literature. The lecture sequence does not follow exactly that of the textbook. The textbook is a complement and a supplement to the lectures.

  

There are several other textbooks on behavioural ecology that you may find useful. Among others:

  • Alcock. 2005. Animal behavior: an evolutionary approach. Eight edition. Sinauer Associates.
  • Barnard. 2004. Animal behaviour: Mechanism, development, function, and evolution. Prentice Hall.
  • Bolhuis & Giraldeau. 2005. The behavior of animals: Mechanisms, function, and evolution. Blackwell Publishing.
  • Broom. 1981. Biology of behaviour: Mechanisms, functions, and applications. Cambridge University Press.
  • Danchin, Giraldeau & Cézilly (eds). 2007. Behavioural ecology: An evolutionary perspective on behaviour. Oxford University Press.
  • Drickamer, Vessey & Jakob. 2002. Animal behavior: mechanisms, ecology, evolution. Fifth edition. McGraw-Hill.
  • Dugatkin. 2009. Principles of animal behavior. Second edition. Norton & Company.
  • Goodenough, McGuire & Wallace. 2001. Perspectives on animal behavior. Second edition. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Halliday. 1994. Animal behavior. University of Oklahoma Press.
  • Krebs & Davies. 1993. An introduction to behavioural ecology. Third edition. Blackwell Science.
  • Krebs & Davies. 1999. Behavioural ecology: An evolutionary approach. Fourth edition. Blackwell Science.
  • Ridley. 2005. Animal behavior. Second edition. Blackwell Publishing.
  • Scott. 2005. Essential animal behavior. Blackwell Publishing.
  • Siiter. 1999. Introduction to animal behavior. Brooks & Cole.
  • Wallace. 1979. Animal behavior: Its development, ecology, and evolution. Goodyear.

Evaluation

Mid-term exam: 25%, Tuesday 21 October in ART 257
Discussion group: 25% (10% participation, 15% presentation)
Final exam: 50%, Wednesday 17 December 9:30 to 12:30

Exams are mostly composed of short essay questions. I will put the emphasis on your understanding of the material, not on your ability to memorize random facts. The material for the mid-term exam will be announced at least a week before the exam; it will be everything we have covered in lectures and during the DGD from the beginning of term until about a week before the exam. The final exam will be recapitulatory (it will cover everything we have seen during the term), but will emphasize the material covered since the mid-term. The marker for this course is Aziz Al-Habsi (aalha027@uottawa.ca, extension 6009).

The discussion group is mandatory and attendance is taken. All DGD sessions missed will have to be justified with a note from a doctor specifying that you were not in a condition to attend a discussion group. As stipulated in the Faculty of Science regulations, you will not be allowed to take the final exam if you were not present for at least 80% of the learning activities. The participation mark for the DGD will reflect the quantity, but mostly the quality and the relevance of your interventions during the discussions.

Exams from previous years

The exams in the English version of this course are similar in format and content to the exams in the French version of the course.

Outline of Lectures

Animal behaviour is a vast discipline, including such diverse aspects as the neuro-physiological basis of perception and the evolutionary basis for deviant human behaviours. Therefore, in a one-semester course, we will have to concentrate on some aspects of this vast discipline. We will concentrate on the sub-discipline of behavioural ecology. Behavioural ecology considers the behaviours of animals as adaptations to solve problems imposed by their environment (e.g., how to find food without becoming food themselves). The concept central to this approach to the study of behaviour is the theory of evolution. The questions that interest us most particularly are those of finality (the why) and not those of causality (the how). Thus, using feeding as an example, we will be more interested by the reasons why an animal prefers a certain food type in particular and not by the way this animal distinguishes different food types.

The course will begin with a historical survey of the study of animal behaviour to understand better the theoretical and philosophical development of behavioural ecology. Then, we will see how behaviour is studied from a scientific perspective (developing and testing hypotheses). Finally, we will spend the majority of our time studying in more details some specific subjects such as feeding, group living, reproduction, parental care, sociality, etc.

The program below gives the sequence of topics I will cover in lecture. The links permit to download the slide presentations I will use in class in PDF. I expect you to have acquainted yourselves with the presentations and to have read the relevant chapters in the textbook before coming to class.

  1. Introduction
  2. History of behavioural ecology (chap. 1 & 2)
  3. Hypothesis testing in behavioural ecology (chap. 3)
  4. Foraging and optimality models (chap. 7 & 8)
  5. Predators and prey (chap. 17)
  6. Competition for access to resources (chap. 14)
  7. Group living (chap. 14)
  8. Fighting and assessment
  9. Sexual selection I: intersexual conflict (chap. 11)
  10. Sexual selection II: intra-sexual selection (chap. 11)
  11. Sexual selection III: inter-sexual selection (chap. 11)
  12. Sexual selection IV: sperm competition (chap. 11)
  13. Parental care (chap. 12 & 13)
  14. Mating systems (chap. 12)
  15. Alternative mating strategies (chap. 12)
  16. Social relationships (chap. 15)
  17. Social insects (chap. 15)
  18. Communication (chap. 16)
  19. Behavioural ecology and human behaviour (chap. 19)
  20. Behavioural ecology and conservation biology (chap. 18)

Guest lecture on sexual size dimorphism by Grégory Bulté.

Outline of Discussion Groups

The discussion groups will allow us to broach some topics in animal behaviour in greater depth and will allow you to get acquainted with research in this field. We will watch a few movies that will illustrate the concepts covered in lecture. These movies will be presented in an interactive fashion and will be followed by a short discussion. We will discuss papers published in good journals in the field (e.g., Animal Behaviour, Behavioral Ecology, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Ethology) by Canadian researchers. Thus, you must have read, analyzed, and understood the articles before arriving at your discussion group. Finally, at the end of the semester you will do oral presentations on topics that interest you particularly in behavioural ecology.

The oral presentations will be done in groups of 2 (one group of 3 if you are an odd number) and will last 8 minutes (5 presentations per DGD). The marks are awarded for the group. Thus, choose your partners wisely. You will pick a behaviour that fascinates you particularly and, using the primary scientific literature, you will present this behaviour and its adaptive value. Presenting the adaptive value is key. Consult with the TA to ensure that the behaviour you picked is appropriate.

You can download the evaluation sheet for the oral presentations.

The TA in charge of the DGD sessions is Alana Plummer. Alana is doing her MSc in our research group. Her office is in 451 GNN (Herpetology Laboratory) and she can be reached by phone (613-562-5800 ext. 2574) or by email.

Week 1
8-9-10 Sep

Introduction to the discussion group and introductions of the TA and the group members.

Film: Trials of Life by David Attenborough, Hunting and Escaping.
Week 2
15-16-17 Sep		 Paper discussion: McAleer & Giraldeau. 2006. Feeding.
Week 3
22-23-24 Sep 		Film: Trials of Life by David Attenborough, Living together.

Week 4
29-30 Sep 1 Oct

Paper discussion: Sameniuk & Dill. 2004. Group living.
Week 5
6-7-8 Oct 		Film: Trials of Life by David Attenborough, Fighting.
Week 6
13-14-15 Oct		 DGD cancelled because of Thanksgiving holiday

Week 7
20-21-22 Oct

Film: Trials of Life by David Attenborough, Courting.
Week 8
27-28-29 Oct 		Paper discussion: Burness et al. 2004. Sperm competition.
Week 9
3-4-5 Nov 		Paper discussion: Neff & Gross. 2004. Parental care.
Week 10
10-11-12 Nov

Paper discussion: Blouin-Demers et al. 2005. Sexual selection.
Week 11
17-18-19 Nov

Presentations
Week 12
24-25-26 Nov

Presentations

 

News

Sun 30 Nov: The final exam is Wednesday 17 December and is recapitulatory: it covers everything we have seen in lecture (including the guest lecture on sexual size dimorphism) and during the discussion groups. If you have questions before the final exam, please make an appointement by email and come to my office. I am proctoring the final exam, so I will see you then if I do not see you before. Courage in your studying and have a restful Winter Holiday.

Sun 30 Nov: Our last lecture is on Tuesday 2 December. I will do a short (30-40 min) section on the links between behavioural ecology and conservation biology. I will take the remaining time to answer questions on the material we have seen this term. If you want this session to be productive, please prepare questions as I will not be doing an organized review. I had fun teaching this course this term (even with the very short notice...). I hope you found the course interesting and that you learned things that will be useful.

Fri 31 Oct: I distributed the marked midterm exams in class today and went over the kinds of answers I was expecting. The class average is 71%. If you were absent, you can pick-up your exam in my office. If you have questions regarding the marking, you must see the marker (Aziz).

Tue 28 Oct: As I said at the beginning of term, on Tuesday 4 November I have a commitment that is not possible to reschedule. Therefore, next Tuesday my PhD student Greg Bulté will deliver a guest lecture on sexual dimorphism and his work on northern map turtles.

Thur 16 Oct: The final exam schedule has been posted. The final exam for this course will be on Wednesday 17 December from 9:30 to 12:30.

Tue 14 Oct: A reminder that our class is cancelled this coming Friday because of University of Ottawa Day. Our mid-term exam is next Tuesday (21 Oct) in ART 257. I have posted some sample questions above to help you prepare for this exam. The material for this exam is everything we have seen since the begining, including the section on intrasexual selection (section #10), in lecture and during the DGD.

Thur 25 Sep: A reminder that I will be representing the Faculty of Science at the Ontario Universities Fair in Toronto on 26-27-28 September. Therefore, there will be a film from the Trials of Life series during lecture time on Friday 26 September. Thank you for your understanding.

Lun 29 Sep: The DGD sessions are cancelled for the week of 13 October because the Monday (for which there were 2 DGD sessions scheduled) is a holiday (Thanksgiving).

Fri 19 Sep: More copies of the textbook for this course have been received at AGORA.

Tue 16 Sep: Please note that classes are cancelled on 17 October for the University of Ottawa Day. There will thus be no lecture on 17 October. You have until 3 November to drop this course and not have it appear on your transcript.

Wed 10 Sep: Please note that the mid-term exam will be in ART 257 as our normal lecture room is too small to hold an exam for 70 students.

Fri 5 Sep: A gentle reminder that the discussion groups start next week. Make sure you attend the session for which you are registered.

Thurs 4 Sep: As I accepted to teach this course with less than 7 days of notice, I had no time to take a head-start on translation. I have given the French version of this course twice and will have to translate my slide presentations from French to English as I go. Please be patient. I will endeavour to be a few lectures ahead of you.

Wed 3 Sep: As I accepted to teach this course with less than 7 days of notice, I had a few prior commitments that I was unable to re-schedule. As such, I will not be lecturing on Friday 26 September and on Tuesday 4 November. I will have guest lecturers or some movies related to animal behaviour instead.

 

MÀJ: 7-09-2009 20:50