Lesson Plan for Taxonomy Project

Introduction Ethology, the study of natural animal behaviour, seeks to understand behaviour as it relates to the animal’s adaptive strategies, reproductive strategies, and energy requirements. Ethologists spend long hours making field observations, often under inhospitable conditions. These observations may be supplemented by experiments performed either in the field or in the laboratory. In this lab, you will conduct independent ethological research, observing the behaviour of an animal species at the Race Rocks Marine Ecological Reserve. This data may be collected either by travelling to the Reserve, or by watching the animal via a video link using the web site racerocks.com. One advantage to using the real-time video available at racerocks.com is that you (the observer) have no impact on the animal’s behaviour. This is an ideal way to gather ethological data, as this science, by definition, involves the analysis of natural behaviour. If you will be observing from the Marine Reserve itself, you should try to have no influence on the observed animal’s behaviour. This means that you ought to observe from an adequate distance so as to not be detected by the subject (observed animal). You might try to camouflage yourself and observe through binoculars to achieve this aim. You should also attempt to remain silent and as motionless as possible throughout the observation period. You will be collecting data for one of the time periods designated by your teacher. For a n actual in depth study, where you can actually go to the island, two 1-hour periods are necessary. For a scaled down version of the lab which still gives you experience in doing a study using the techniques of the Ethologist, presenting the data in two forms: as an ethogram, and also as a time budget. An ethogram is a qualitative list of the behaviours observed, whereas a time budget is a quantitative table that gives the percentage of time the animal spends engaged in each form of behaviour. The ethogram should be prepared prior to the time budget. This lab involves observation and analysis only. No experiments will be conducted.

Find some videos for behavioral studies of marine mammals.

Materials Decide in advance the methods by which observations will be recorded. Some of the following materials will be useful: o Pen and paper o Portable tape recorder o Binoculars o Watch (absolutely required for compiling a time budget) o Camera (to illustrate specific behaviours for your lab report)

For behavioural studies of marine birds go here.

Collecting data Observations should be made for two 1-hour periods, both occurring within a one-week period and at approximately the same time of day. For example, you might observe on September 17 from 3:10 pm to 4:10 pm, and then on September 19 from 3:03 pm to 4:03 pm. Why do you think you should collect data at the same time of day? Why should data be collected from the same time of year? When choosing a time of day for observation, select a time when the subject (animal of choice) is reasonably active. Hours of "resting" will not make a very interesting report. You should establish a predetermined period for observation of a given individual (i.e. 1 minute, 5 minutes) when preparing the time budget, as it is often impossible to observe a single individual for the entire 1-hour period. Once you have decided how long to observe one subject, stick to this time period. It will be tempting to shift to the individual that is most active at any given time, but this practice would skew the resulting time budget in the direction of that behaviour. If the animal you are observing leaves the area (i.e. dives below the surface) before the prescribed observation time is up, just make a note of it and move to another individual of the same species. You may be able to tell male from female, and juvenile from adult of the species you are observing. If so, you ought to decide if you are going to observe a single category (i.e. adult males only), or if you are going to split your observation time between the groups. In the introduction of your lab report, you should identify the species observed and provide a detailed description of the animal’s habitat. Location of the study site (including local name, latitude, longitude), time of day and year (date), and weather conditions should also be given. Later, in your evaluation of the data, you will consider the potential effects of the physical context (i.e. temperature, wind, precipitation) on the animal’s behaviour.

Compiling the ethogram The data collected from your 1st observation period will be used to compile an ethogram. An animal’s behaviour may be described considering only the physical activity (i.e. diving into ocean), or as an action with a specified function (i.e. hunting for food). In your observations, you will continually be presented with the dilemma of deciding which type of description to use. The simple physical description is more objective, and therefore less likely to be incorrect. The functional description is more informative, but more likely to be incorrect because it requires interpretation on the part of the observer. You will use both types of description in your final ethogram. In your evaluation, indicate which functional descriptions you are confident of (i.e. due to anecdotal information gathered from a qualified source, information on the species gathered from the literature, or common sense), and those which you are less sure of. The ethogram should be hierarchical in presentation. Broad categories of behaviour (i.e. searching for food) will be broken down into subcategories (i.e. exploring the environment), which may then be broken down further (i.e. smelling). Some of the classes of animal behaviour that you ought to monitor include: o Searching for/acquiring/consuming food o Social interaction (i.e. aggressive, reproductive) o Evading (avoiding/escaping from) predators o Activities contributing to individual well-being (i.e. preening, urinating, defecating, behavioural thermoregulation) o Monitoring the environment o Resting/doing nothing (Keep in mind that the subject may be quietly monitoring the environment, avoiding predators, thermoregulating, etc.) When you have collected all data that will contribute to the ethogram, devise a coding system of behavioural classes displayed by the species you observed. This organization will help greatly when you gather data for the time budget.

Note: Most descriptions are physical (i.e. "listening"), but they have been interpreted by the observer as contributing to the quest for food. The more inclusive categories of behaviour have been given codes (i.e. "01-B") for use in compiling a time budget. If an activity occurs too rapidly to be accurately timed, it may appear on the ethogram without a code. Compiling the Time Budget Part of a sample ethogram follows: Searching for food (01) Exploring ground environment (01-A) Standing upright Visual survey Smelling Listening Moving Rapidly in a straight line Slowly, on a meandering course Digging (01-B) Forepaws Hindlegs Snout

The data collected during your 2nd observation period will be used to compile a time budget. To acquire this data, start the clock at the beginning of your observation period. Then write down the time each new behaviour begins and the code for that behaviour (from your ethogram). Your activity level during this one-hour period will, of course, depend upon the level of activity of your animal subject. If you see a behaviour that was not listed in your ethogram, take note and include it in the evaluation section of your lab write-up. When your 2nd one-hour observation period is over, add up all the time the animal(s) spent engaged in each particular activity. This data, converted to percentage values (of the total time observed), forms your time budget. Unfortunately, the time budget loses some of the information contained in your raw data (i.e. sequence of behaviours, individual-to-individual variation in behaviour). You may want to elaborate on some of these specifics in the evaluation section of your write-up. A sample time budget follows:

Table 1. Time budget of Shield-backed Kelp Crab (Pugettia producta) Adult juvenile Number of 5 min. observation periods 6 6 Number of individuals observed 3 2 Total minutes of observation 30 30 % time acquiring food 28.5 17.0 % time avoiding predators 21.1 36.3 % time monitoring environment 40.2 31.8 % time in social interaction (aggressive) 10.2 14.9

Report Use the literature (library books, journal articles, reputable internet sites) when writing your report. Many questions asked here might already have been answered in previous studies, and should be compared with your results. Your write-up will satisfy the data collection, data analysis, and evaluation IB assassment criteria. Your raw data (observations as collected in the field) should properly labeled and in list form. This data will be transformed and presented as an ethogram and a time budget The following questions should be considered in your evaluation: 1. What are some advantages/disadvantages of your method of recording data? 2. What improvements in this procedure would allow for more accurate recording of data? 3. What environmental information is relevant to the animal’s behaviour? 4. How might loss of animals before the end of the predetermined observation period affect the time budget? 5. Is it difficult to classify behavioural activities into broad categories? 6. How representative do you think your data are for describing the species? 7. How do your data relate to the energy requirements of the species? 8. Do your data shed any light on the adaptive stratagy of the species you selected?

(Adapted from a lab entitled "Ethology lab" by Matt Rise who adapted with permission from "Compiling an ethogram and measuring a time budget for an animal species", written by Dr. Greg Beaulieu for University of Victoria Biology 210. G. Beaulieu adapted the lab from T. Schoener, E. O’Connor, and B. Nicotri at the University of Washington.) This laboratory pertains to assessment statements (A.S.’s) E.1.4, E.1.5, and E.1.6 in Option E (Neurobiology and behaviour) of the IB Biology Syllabus.

Link to .a sample writeup of this lab done by a student

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