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Module

BIO2013 : Animal Behaviour

  • Offered for Year: 2020/21
  • Module Leader(s): Professor Lucy Asher
  • Lecturer: Dr Catherine Douglas
  • Owning School: Natural and Environmental Sciences
  • Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus
Semesters
Semester 1 Credit Value: 10
ECTS Credits: 5.0

Aims

The study of animal behaviour is a large discipline encompassing both the mechanisms and evolutionary functions of the ways that animals interact with their environment and with each other. This module provides the student with a comprehensive introduction to the scientific approach to studying, quantifying, and interpreting animal behaviour. Lectures focus on examples from the literature which illustrate important principles of animal behaviour taking both a mechanistic and a behavioural ecology approach. Practicals enable the students to design, conduct, analyse, and interpret scientific experiments using lab-based assays of animal behaviour.

Outline Of Syllabus

The topics covered in this module include:

* Introduction to the study of animal behaviour
* Evolutionary and immediate causes of behaviour including neural and physiological mechanisms of behaviour
* Major themes in animal behaviour which may include sexual selection, mating systems, parental care, foraging, predator-prey interaction, group living, human influence
* Methods for studying animal behaviour, including data analysis and scientific hypothesis testing

Teaching Methods

Module leaders are revising this content in light of the Covid 19 restrictions.
Revised and approved detail information will be available by 17 August.

Assessment Methods

Module leaders are revising this content in light of the Covid 19 restrictions.
Revised and approved detail information will be available by 17 August.

Reading Lists

Timetable