L 10 Quantifying animal behavior

Ethology

• Originally developed in Europe—a return to the
natural world (we are skipping Pavlov’s dogs here)
• Also a return to evolution by natural selection,
instead of intentional experience etching
• Focus on the sensory umwelt – “self-centered
world” – the portions of the environment an animal
perceives

Foundational Ethologists

Konrad Lorenz: imprinting on ducklings as mother

Niko Tinbergen: mating ritual

Karl von Frisch: bee waggle dance

How to study behavior

• Descriptive and
discretized
• “Foraging”
• Quantitative
• “Probes/min”
• “Success/probe”
• Unbiased and
representative
• Repeatable

Organize these descriptions into a simple
classification: an ethogram

Measure of behavior

Latency

Frequency

Frequency

number of occurrences in a given
period (i.e., a rate)

Latency

time required for behavior to occur after a
stimulus or starting point
• Frequently, we are scaring animals

Duration

length of time over which a particular
behavior occurs
• Could be the duration of a behavior, or the percent time
over the observation period

Intensity

amplitude of a behavior
• Subjective, descriptive; arbitrary but should be defined
• High-physical contact; Medium-posturing; Low-alert

Sequence

temporal pattern of behavior categories
• A →B → C
• Interactive with other behavior (i.e., # courtship attempts
until copulation)
• Forage, forage, forage, nap

Just to work a quick example... find latency, frequency, total and mean duration, proportion of time, and sequence

Recording methods

• Sampling rules – which individuals to watch when
• Recording rules – specify how the behavior will
be recorded

Sampling Rules – ad lib

• No rules. Watch whoever you want whenever
you want.
• Ok for defining the behavioral repertoire
• NOT valid for quantitative analysis.

Sampling rules – focal sampling

• Watch 1 individual for the
full observation period
• Individual should be
predetermined (not just one
doing something
interesting)
• Random assignment
• Regular assignment (rotate
through everyone)
• Irregular assignment (i.e.,
first to emerge)
• Can also be applied to
groups (focal group)

Estimating Demand – Time Budgets

How much energy does a duck burn being a duck?

Sampling rules – scan sampling

• Rapidly scan the area/group and record the behavior of
each individual
• Easier to account for animals transiting the area
• Should reduce the impact of following weird individuals

Should give the same results as lots of focal
samples if individuals are equa

Sampling rules – behavior sampling

• Every occurrence of a particular behavior is recorded
whenever it occurs
• Useful if you’re interested only in a specific behavior that
is relatively rare
• Typically ignore other behaviors
• Why? Usually they don’t do anything else interesting

Sampling rules – who to watch? (7)

1. • Ad lib
   • Watch randomly
   • Good for figuring out to sample more robustly

2. Focal animal
   • Follow an animal for a long time
   • Useful, but challenging if they move; remote
   monitoring via telemetry can make this possible

3. Scan sampling
   • Most common because it’s just too hard to keep
   track of individuals for very long

4. Behavioral sampling
   • Most often used in controlled settings

5. Record all occurrences of behavior
   • And start/stop time

6. Provides complete record, giving true measures
   of frequency, duration, latency

7. Really, you need one human per animal
   • Often audio transcription because you can’t be
   writing and watching at the same time

   • Or video and a lot of student workers later
   • AI has helped, but not quite as much as you would
   think. Yet.

Recording rules – instantaneous recording

• Behavior is sampled at specific intervals; the
total sampling period is broken into short
sampling intervals (e.g., 10s, 1m)
• Often used with scan sampling, but can be
used in focal sampling
• Less busy, but you can easily lose track of
focal individual
• Provides estimates only of proportion of time
spent in different behaviors
• Does not measure frequency, duration, latency, or
sequence

• Inaccurate if sampling interval is longer than the
duration of the behavior or the interval between

Recording rules – measuring sequences

• Requires a continuous recording rule
• Simplify by recording only the order of the behavior, not the time
stamps; you’ll probably regret this later

Quantifying animal behavior

1.Define and describe behavioral repertoire
a) Conduct preliminary observations (ad lib)
b) Define categories that are distinct, unambiguous, and
objective
c) Classify and group behaviors – an ethogram
2.Decide on measure of behaviors to record
a) Latency, frequency, duration, intensity, sequences
3.Decide on recording methods
a) Sampling rules: ad lib, focal, scan sampling, behavioral
sampling
b) Recording rules: continuous, instantaneous, sequences-only