The purpose of this assignment is for you to demonstrate your understanding of the adaptive value of behavior. You will be expected to observe animals in their natural environment and, using correct terminology and logic, describe and interpret what you see. Observing and Describing Behavior You will make observations on an animal or group of animals over 3 different days for a minimum of 20 minutes each day. You must watch the SAME animals each time. Note: these don’t have to be the same individuals, but they do have to be the same species. For example, if you watch Acorn woodpeckers on day 1, you need to watch Acorn Woodpeckers on days 2 and 3. If you can’t find the same animal on subsequent visits, then you will need to choose a different animal. Going back to the same place and looking for the same animal but not finding it does not count as an observation. You may use the observation you made in the intro assignment as your first observation. However, you need to make sure you watch the same species for observations 2 and 3. Again, just as in the first observation assignment, you may NOT use your pet or any animal housed in a zoo or other captive situation. For each observation period you must include the following information: The date (month, day, year) on which you made the observations. The time at which your observations began and ended. Location where you made the observations. Again, proper scientific method dictates you provide as specific a location as possible, including the city and state. Don’t just say, “Next to my house” or even “at my house in IV”. You must give me an address or some other clear description of the area. For example, “the Ellwood Monarch Butterfly Preserve in Goleta, CA”. The idea here is that if I wanted to, I could repeat your observations at the same place. Photos of the animal(s). These MUST be photos you took during each of your three observations and not something you lift off the internet. Submitting a photo you did not take is plagiarism and is an act of student dishonesty. All instances of this will be reported to the Dean of Students and you will receive a score of 0 on this assignment. A failure to include 1 or more photos will result in a deduction of 20 points from your final score. While making your observations, it will help if you focus on some of the various types of behavior you’ve learned about. Is the animal foraging? What behaviors is the animal doing that makes you think this? Try to be as specific as possible – noting that “the animal is eating” is a bit too vague and leaves out a lot of valuable information. Try to include more of the little things it is doing while eating – “it takes a bite of food, then looks up and around before taking another bite..” This will be most helpful when making your interpretations later. The types of behaviors you are most likely to see are: foraging, anti-predator behaviors, and social behavior (interactions with other animals), if it is spring, you may also see mating behaviors and parental care. Make sure to focus on what the animal is doing. I’ll repeat, I do NOT need to know what you are doing (“I was getting my nails done…”), how you got there (“I was riding my bike and noticed…”), or what’s going through your mind (“It was a beautiful day so I thought I’d go to the beach.”). Please focus on telling me what you saw the animal do. You should also avoid anthropomorphizing (making human personality judgments, implying the animal is “thinking”, or give it human emotions [it seems sad, bored, angry, etc.]). 2 Write-up You must include the following information in your final paper. 1. A brief (about two paragraphs) introduction to the species you observed. This introduction should include the following information: the common and scientific names of the animal (please see list provided for the first description assignment for help in naming your animal). Remember, scientific names are ALWAYS written in italics or underlined. A failure to do this will result in the loss of points. A general physical description, e.g. size, color General life history characteristics, e.g. what it eats, type of environment it lives in (desert, grasslands) and if it is social (lives in a group) or solitary (prefers to be alone) The animal’s normal geographic range – where this animal is usually found (Coastal California, Europe). If it’s not native to this area, include a few sentences about how and when it got here You’re going to have to do a little research to get this information. You must include your sources at the end of the paper. Make sure those sources are correctly formatted following APA or MLA style. If you don’t know the proper way to do this, look it up! There are many websites that provide explanation and examples for how to correctly format citations in each of these styles. You will lose points for not having your sources correctly formatted. 2. A synopsis of the behaviors you saw. This is what you actually observed during each observation session. It’s okay to write this in an outline format if you want – you don’t need to use complete sentences for this part. Make sure to include the time, date and location of each observation, as well as a photo you took during each observation. The photo must be embedded in the document and saved as part of the document in order for it to be accepted by Canvas and turnitin.com. A failure to submit one or more photos will result in a deduction of 20 points from the final score. It doesn’t matter how great the photo is, I just need to be able to see the animal. Below is an example of what you should do. April 23, 2015. Goleta Beach Park in the far western parking lot closest to UCSB, Goleta, CA. 1:15 pm — Watching a single squirrel. As I approached it stood up on its hind legs and looked at me. Held its front feet close to its chest and its tail was tight to its back and curled away from its body at the tip. I took another step and it ran to the nearest tree. Running looked like a series of very fast hops – both front feet touch the ground and then both hind feet and then a leap forward about 6-10 inches and lands first front and then hind feet… It spiraled up the tree (head first) and stopped on the first big branch. Facing me again. Same posture as before (on hind feet, front feet up, tail up). But now the tail is flicking rapidly at the end. 1:20 — Still on branch. Tail flicking. I move about 10 feet away. 1:30 — Squirrel came down the tree — wow! he walked down head first….. 3 Note: This description was objective and focused on what the squirrel was doing and implied no human emotions. 3. The rest of the paper is a general summary and interpretation of the behaviors you observed. Using terms you’ve learned in class, describe and discuss the behaviors you saw and the contexts (e.g. foraging, self-defense) in which you saw them. Do NOT discuss behaviors you didn’t actually see. Include in your discussion an explanation of why you think the animal did those behaviors. In other words, explain the behaviors you saw from an adaptive point-of-view. Think about answering the question: how did the behavior help improve the animal’s fitness? If you don’t think the behavior was adaptive, say so and explain why. This summary and interpretation is the most important part of the paper. This is where you demonstrate to me that you understand what is meant by “adaptive value” with respect to animal behavior. It is also worth 30% of the points! For example, the squirrel observation from above could be summarized and interpreted: Most every time I encountered squirrels they reacted the same way. They held their front feet close to their chest and their tail was tight to their back and curled away from the body at the tip. If I moved closer, they ran to the nearest tree. They spiraled head first up a tree and stopped on the first big branch. Usually they turned to face me again. Based on my observations it seems as though the squirrel was being vigilant and checking for predators. When it saw me, its first response was to “freeze”. By doing this it drew less attention to itself while it assessed the situation and gave the potential predator a chance go away. When the predator didn’t leave, the squirrel fled as quickly as it could to the closest safe location where it continued to be vigilant. This behavior appeared to function for self-defense. By behaving in this way, the squirrel decreased its risk to predation, thus improving its chances to survive. Note: This summary and interpretation used correct and appropriate terminology and explained how the behavior was adaptive – e.g. “…decreased its risk to predation, thus improving its chances to survive”. The completed paper should be around 1500 words in length. I strongly suggest organizing your paper in the following way: Introduction to the animal you observed including all content listed in #1 above and the rubric below. Synopses of behaviors for each observation with all required content including photos you took during each observation. Photos must be embedded in the document. Overall summary and interpretation of what you observed over the 3 observation periods. I recommend summarizing & interpreting each different type of behavior you observed. I.e. summarize and interpret foraging behaviors, then self-defense behaviors, etc. Bilbliography with sources correctly formatted. Once you have completed your paper, make sure you have embedded a photo from each observation period in to the document. If you save the completed document as a PDF file you should be able to upload the entire document without any trouble! The assignment will be graded using the rubric on the next page: 4 Content Introduction: common and scientific name of your animal description of animal life history geographic range Synopsis of observations: date, time, location, photo of each observation synopsis of behaviors for each observation Overall summary and interpretation: overall summary of behaviors using correct terminology interpretation from an adaptive point-of-view Max Points Available 4 5 5 3 15 18 10 20 Presentation writing – coherent sentences & paragraphs correct grammar words spelled correctly reference(s) in proper format 5 5 5 5 Deduction for 1 or more missing photos Total Score (-20) 100
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