BIOL.4360 Behavioral Ecology

Id: 041805 Credits: 3-3

Description

Animals learn songs, practice agriculture, and craft tools. They build elaborate structures without a blueprint and migrate across the globe without a map. This course explores the mechanistic and evolutionary causes of animal behavior, A combination of lectures, discussions, and animal demos will introduce students to major themes in the field, while emphasizing experiments and ecological context as fundamental to the study of behavior. Students will discuss historic debates and emerging research on the evolution of exaggerated sexual ornaments and defensive structures, sensory bias, heritability of behavior, reciprocity & kinship, and the emergence of animal societies. By the end of the course, students will be able to interpret the behaviors of animals in an evolutionary framework. Students from other departments, including Psychology, and Environmental Science can join this course with instructor permission.

Prerequisites

BIOL.2400 Evolution, Ecology and Conservation, or permission of instructor.

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Course prerequisites/corequisites are determined by the faculty and approved by the curriculum committees. Students are required to fulfill these requirements prior to enrollment. For courses offered through online or GPS delivery, students are responsible for confirming with the instructor or department that all enrollment requirements have been satisfied before registering.