Lecture A2 (2025-08-28): Physiology and Evolution in Animal Behavior

In this lecture, we consider the different historical approaches that have led up to modern behavioral ecology, including ethology and behaviorism. This gives us an opportunity to discuss von Uexküll's "umwelt" and give various examples of animals whose sensory and perceptual experience is notably different than the experience of a human. This sets us up to discuss how important it is to consider the physiological mechanisms and constraints that can limit what kinds of behaviors are able to evolve, and we use ring dove mating as an example of this. We close by looking ahead to the next unit on behavioral genetics and discuss how the four different mechanisms of evolution (natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, and migration) also can shape the patterns of behaviors that can evolve. Overall, this lecture helps to draw boundaries around what is the field of behavioral ecology while also establishing that those boundaries are necessarily porous and permeable and must both be influenced by and influence surrounding fields from physiology and evolution.

DUE TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, THE START OF THIS LECTURE HAD TO BE DONE ON THE WHITEBOARD. EVENTUALLY, WE FLIP BACK TO THE SLIDES (which are easier to review in the recording).

Topic highlights:

• historical approaches to animal behavior, including:
  • behaviorism
  • ethology (in a classical sense)
• umwelt
• the relationship between animal behavior and each of physiology, neuroscience, sensory biology, and endocrinology
• the relationship between animal behavior and each of genetic drift, natural selection, mutation, and migration
• refresher on the meaning of genetic drift

Important terms: behaviorism, ethology, umwelt, genetic drift, mutation, migration, natural selection 

Lecture A1 (2025-08-26): Animal Behavior and the Scientific Process

In this lecture, we review the scientific foundations of animal behavior. We define a causal question, a hypothesis, a theory, an experiment, and a prediction and how they all relate to each other. We emphasize that a hypothesis is not an IF–THEN statement, but a prediction is. We also cover Tinbergen's four questions (the four different levels of analysis in biology and behavioral ecology). This is all done in the context of talking about the cephalopod eye (with an octopus and a cuttlefish example) and its comparison to the vertebrate/human eye. We end with a short discussion of how to define "behavior" most generally and with the most utility.

Topic highlights:

• cephalopod eye structure
• scientific-process terminology:
  • causal question
  • hypothesis
  • prediction
  • experiment
  • theory
• "Tinbergen's four" (questions/causes), the four levels of analysis:
  • function/adaptation/utility
  • phylogeny/evolution
  • ontogeny/development
  • mechanism (also sometimes called "causation", but I have omitted that from this course as it might be confusing)
• phylogenetic trees
  • chronograms
• evolutionary and developmental constraints between function and mechanism
• the difficulty  in defining "behavior"

Important terms: causal question, hypothesis, prediction, experiment, theory, Tinbergen's four questions (or causes), function/adaptation/utility, phylogeny/evolution, ontogeny/development, mechanism, chronogram

Lecture 0 (2025-08-21): Course Introduction

This lecture introduces BIO 331 (Animal Behavior) and its policies. Most of the lecture covers administrative and structural aspects of the course, but in the middle there is an examination of the "stotting" behavior that occurs in many ungulates where students propose different hypotheses for the phenomenon. The stotting example is meant to motivate the kinds of things that will go on in the course.