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Animal Behaviour
Applied Animal Behaviour - The University of Melbourne
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Ethology | The science of studying animal behaviour, focusing on its biological causes and functions |
| States | Behaviours with measurable duration (e.g. resting) |
| Events | Behaviours that are brief/instantaneous (e.g. biting) |
| Continuous Sampling | Records all behaviours fully; most accurate but time consuming |
| Instantaneous (point/scan) sampling | Records behaviour at specific time points; best for states |
| One-zero sampling | Records whether a behaviour occurred during a set interval; can misinterpret frequency/duration |
| Period Sampling | Continuous sampling within set limits |
| Instinctive Behaviour | Genetically programmed and expressed without prior learning (suckling, fleeing from predators) |
| Learned Behaviour | Develops through interaction with the environment (social learning, training) |
| Early Life | Critical period for behavioural development, with lasting impacts on stress responses, sociability, and fear |
| Positive Early Handling and Socialisation | Increases resilience and reduces fear in adulthood |
| Deprivation or adverse conditions | Can result in long-term behavioural abnormalities |
| Environmental Conditions | Significantly influence how genetic traits are expressed (e.g., housing, handling, enrichment) |
| Domestication | A genetic process where animals evolve traits favourable for living alongside humans |
| Domestication vs Tameness | Domestication involves genetic changes across generations whereas tameness is behavioural adjustment within an individual's life |
| Cognition | Refers to how animals acquire, process, store and act on information |
| Cognitive abilities | Help animals solve problems, interact socially and adapt to their environments |
| Learning | Is a relatively permanent change in behaviour due to experience, involving acquiring new information or modifying existing behaviour in response to stimuli or outcomes |
| Non-Associative Learning | Involves a change in response to a single repeated stimulus |
| Habituation | Reduced response to a harmless, repeated stimulus (sheep ignoring distant traffic noise) |
| Sensitisation | Heightened response following exposure to a strong or aversive stimulus (heightened reactivity in cattle after rough handling) |
| Associative Learning | Involves forming a link between two stimuli or between behaviour or outcome |
| Classical Conditioning | Learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a stimulus that naturally produces a behaviour. After the association is learned, the previously neutral stimulus is sufficient to produce the behaviour |
| Operant Conditioning | Learning that occurs when an association is made between a behaviour and a consequence |
| Ethology | The science of studying animal behaviour, focusing on its biological causes and functions |
| States | Behaviours with measurable duration (e.g. resting) |
| Events | Behaviours that are brief/instantaneous (e.g. biting) |
| Continuous Sampling | Records all behaviours fully; most accurate but time consuming |
| Instantaneous (point/scan) sampling | Records behaviour at specific time points; best for states |
| One-zero sampling | Records whether a behaviour occurred during a set interval; can misinterpret frequency/duration |
| Period Sampling | Continuous sampling within set limits |
| Instinctive Behaviour | Genetically programmed and expressed without prior learning (suckling, fleeing from predators) |
| Learned Behaviour | Develops through interaction with the environment (social learning, training) |
| Early Life | Critical period for behavioural development, with lasting impacts on stress responses, sociability, and fear |
| Positive Early Handling and Socialisation | Increases resilience and reduces fear in adulthood |
| Deprivation or adverse conditions | Can result in long-term behavioural abnormalities |
| Environmental Conditions | Significantly influence how genetic traits are expressed (e.g., housing, handling, enrichment) |
| Domestication | A genetic process where animals evolve traits favourable for living alongside humans |
| Domestication vs Tameness | Domestication involves genetic changes across generations whereas tameness is behavioural adjustment within an individual's life |
| Cognition | Refers to how animals acquire, process, store and act on information |
| Cognitive abilities | Help animals solve problems, interact socially and adapt to their environments |
| Learning | Is a relatively permanent change in behaviour due to experience, involving acquiring new information or modifying existing behaviour in response to stimuli or outcomes |
| Non-Associative Learning | Involves a change in response to a single repeated stimulus |
| Habituation | Reduced response to a harmless, repeated stimulus (sheep ignoring distant traffic noise) |
| Sensitisation | Heightened response following exposure to a strong or aversive stimulus (heightened reactivity in cattle after rough handling) |
| Associative Learning | Involves forming a link between two stimuli or between behaviour or outcome |
| Classical Conditioning | Learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a stimulus that naturally produces a behaviour. After the association is learned, the previously neutral stimulus is sufficient to produce the behaviour |
| Operant Conditioning | Learning that occurs when an association is made between a behaviour and a consequence |
| Ethology | The science of studying animal behaviour, focusing on its biological causes and functions |
| States | Behaviours with measurable duration (e.g. resting) |
| Events | Behaviours that are brief/instantaneous (e.g. biting) |
| Continuous Sampling | Records all behaviours fully; most accurate but time consuming |
| Instantaneous (point/scan) sampling | Records behaviour at specific time points; best for states |
| One-zero sampling | Records whether a behaviour occurred during a set interval; can misinterpret frequency/duration |
| Period Sampling | Continuous sampling within set limits |
| Instinctive Behaviour | Genetically programmed and expressed without prior learning (suckling, fleeing from predators) |
| Learned Behaviour | Develops through interaction with the environment (social learning, training) |
| Early Life | Critical period for behavioural development, with lasting impacts on stress responses, sociability, and fear |
| Positive Early Handling and Socialisation | Increases resilience and reduces fear in adulthood |
| Deprivation or adverse conditions | Can result in long-term behavioural abnormalities |
| Environmental Conditions | Significantly influence how genetic traits are expressed (e.g., housing, handling, enrichment) |
| Domestication | A genetic process where animals evolve traits favourable for living alongside humans |
| Domestication vs Tameness | Domestication involves genetic changes across generations whereas tameness is behavioural adjustment within an individual's life |
| Cognition | Refers to how animals acquire, process, store and act on information |
| Cognitive abilities | Help animals solve problems, interact socially and adapt to their environments. Acquiring information, storing information, processing information, acting on information |
| Learning | A neurological process that arises from experiences and is inferred from changes in the organism's behaviour |
| Non-Associative Learning | Involves a change in response to a single repeated stimulus |
| Habituation | Reduced response to a harmless, repeated stimulus (sheep ignoring distant traffic noise) |
| Sensitisation | Heightened response following exposure to a strong or aversive stimulus (heightened reactivity in cattle after rough handling) |
| Associative Learning | Involves forming a link between two stimuli or between behaviour or outcome |
| Classical Conditioning | Learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a stimulus that naturally produces a behaviour. After the association is learned, the previously neutral stimulus is sufficient to produce the behaviour |
| Operant Conditioning | Learning that occurs when an association is made between a behaviour and a consequence |
| Learning Theory | Informs ethical and effective training methods based on reinforcement and punishment principles |
| Future Research | Should explore cognition in more species and investigate how enrichment and environment impact learning and welfare |
| The brain coordinates behaviour through: | Input (sensory/perceptual mechanisms), Processing (CNS), Output (motor system) |
| Motivation | Is the result of a combination of internal states (e.g. hormones, physiological needs) and external stimuli (e.g., environment, social cues) |
| Aggression can be: | Offensive or defensive, shaped by genetics and past experience |
| Fear/exploration | Balances risk avoidance and environmental engagement |
| Self-Maintenance | Arises from both internal rhythms and external conditions |
| Casual Factors | Include stimuli, hormones, neural activity, experience |
| Appetitive Behaviour | Searching or preparatory action (e.g. foraging) |
| Consummatory Behaviour | Fulfilment of needs (e.g. eating or drinking) |
| Motivation can be measured by: | Behavioural effort, resource demand and threshold testing |
| Negative Feedback | Behaviour reduces motivation |
| Positive Feedback | Behaviour increases motivation |
| Feed-forward | Anticipation of a stimulus alters motivation before it occurs |
| Ease of Handling | Is influenced by fear responses, social behaviour, sensory perception and previous experiences |
| Reducing Fear | Enhances handling efficiency and safety |
| Human Animal Relationships | Develop from repeated human-animal interactions and are shaped by the nature, frequency, and context of those interactions |
| Positive Human Animal Relationships | Involve low-stress, consistent, and non-aversive interactions |
| Negative Human Animal Relationships | Involve fear-inducing and aversive handling |
| Negative Human Interactions | Increase animals' fear responses and reduce productivity and welfare |
| Positive Human Interactions | Can reduce stress, improve ease of handling, and increase reproductive performance and maternal behaviour |
| Conditioned Fear | Is a result of repeated aversive handling and negatively affects movement, handling, and physiological responses |
| Sensory Factors | Livestock are sensitive to noise, light contrast, and novel environments |
| Social Behaviour in Handling | Livestock prefer group contact and move better as a group |
| Fearful Animals | Are more difficult to move, increasing risk of stress and injury |
| Flight Zone | Distance at which an animal moves away from a human |
| Point of Balance | Usually at the shoulder; positioning around this point affects movement direction |
| Negative Interaction in Zoo Animals | Crowding and noise can cause stress and stereotypic behaviours such as pacing in zoo animals |
| Visitor Density in Zoos | High density has often been linked to stress behaviours in zoo animals |
| Social Behaviour | Includes all interaction between two or more animals, such as agonistic (aggression/submission), affiliative (grooming,bonding), reproductive, and play behaviours |
| Benefits of living in social groups | Better predator detection, resource access, social learning, and stress buffering (e.g., sheep graze more effectively in groups) |
| Costs of living in social groups | Increased competition, aggression, and disease transmission |
| Dominance | A learned relationship where one individual consistently defers to another, often established through previous interactions |
| Dominance does not: | Equate to aggression, control, or leadership |
| Challenges of Dominance | Misapplication to human-animal training, overgeneralisation across contexts and species, complexity in measuring dominance in non-linear and dynamic groups (e.g. dairy cows, sheep) |
| Agonistic Behaviour | Aggression, submission (hierarchies, dominance) |
| Affiliative Behaviour | Grooming, proximity seeking (bonding) |
| Reproductive Behaviour | Courtship, mating rituals |
| Play Behaviour | Promotes development of motor and social skills |
| Sexual Behaviour | Includes search, courtship, and consummation phases, which are critical for reproductive success |
| Female Sexual Behaviour | Involves attraction, proceptivity and receptivity |
| Male Sexual Behaviour | Is driven by libido and mating competence, involving behaviours such as the flehmen response and mounting |
| Factors that influence sexual behaviour | Poor nutrition or stress, biological factors such as age, puberty and hormonal state, and environmental conditions |
| Flehmen Response | Behavioural assessment of female reproductive states using olfactory cues |
| Maternal Behaviour | Refers to the actions of a mother toward her offspring, including feeding, protection, and bonding |
| Parental Behaviour | Includes care provided by both parents, which varies widely across species |
| Biparental care | Care from both parents, which is more common in birds and some fish species |
| Altricial Young | Helpless at birth, and require intensive care (e.g. kittens, puppies, mice) |
| Precocial Young | More independent at birth and are often able to walk or stand shortly after birth (horses, calves, sheep) |
| Pre-parturient Stage | Nest-building and isolation behaviours begin |
| Parturition | Hormonal surges (oxytocin) trigger about and initial maternal response |
| Post-parturient Stage | Bonding occurs via licking, vocalisations, and suckling; maternal care continues to be critical |
| Prolactin and Oxytocin | Play key roles in initiating and maintaining maternal behaviour |
| Sensory Systems in Animals | Olfaction, vision, auditory and tactile senses to perceive and respond to their environment |
| Components of Communication | Signal (message sent), Signaller (sender), Receiver (interpreter of the message) |
| Modes of Communication | Visual (postures), Auditory (calls, vocalisations), Tactile (social touch), Olfactory (pheromones) |
| Understanding Communication Improves: | Welfare (reducing fear/stress), Training (using signals animals can detect easily), Housing design (separating unfamiliar animals to prevent aggression) |
| Abnormal Behaviour | Is any behaviour that deviates from what is considered normal for the species, context, or environment |
| Abnormal Behaviour occurs: | In response to suboptimal conditions (e.g. confinement, social isolation) and may indicate poor welfare |
| Stereotypies | Repetitive, invariant behaviours with no obvious goal or function |
| Stereotypies are caused by: | Frustration, lack of stimulation, or inability to perform natural behaviours |
| Behaviour is considered abnormal if it is: | Atypical for the species, maladaptive, occurs in unnatural contexts |
| Environmental triggers of stereotypic behaviour | Barren cages or pens, lack of social contact or stimulation, sudden weaning or early separation from dam, repetitive and predictable routines without variation |
| Redirected Behaviour | Behaviour is directed at an inappropriate target due to frustration or blocked motivation (e.g. feather plucking in poultry) |
| Displacement Behaviour | Seemingly irrelevant actions that occur in conflict or stress situations (e.g. yawning or self grooming in dogs during stressful events such as vet visits) |
| Rebound Behaviour | Exaggerated performance of a behaviour after a period of deprivations (e.g. horses bucking and cantering when being let out of yards after being tied up) |
| Vacuum Behaviour | Performance of behaviour without its usual triggering stimuli (e.g. nest building in sows without nesting material or sham dust bathing in poultry) |
| Environmental Enrichment | Effective enrichment meets an animal's biological and psychological needs by promoting natural behaviours, reducing abnormal behaviours, improving welfare and resilience |
| Types of enrichment include: | Socialisation, occupational (problem-solving), physical, nutritional, sensory |
| Enrichment must: | Align with the species natural behaviours to be effective |
| Early and consistent exposure to enrichment is: | Key to preventing abnormal behaviours and promoting welfare |
| Rotation or refreshing enrichment items: | Maintains interest and prevents habituation |
| Stereotypic Behaviour (simplified definition) | Repetitive, invariant |
| Redirected Behaviour (simplified definition) | Directed to wrong target |
| Displacement Behaviour (simplified definition) | Unrelated behaviour under stress |
| Rebound Behaviour (simplified definition) | Exaggerated behaviour after restriction |
| Vacuum Behaviour (simplified definition) | Behaviour performed with no stimulus |
| Challenges in Enrichment | Practicality and cost, consistency, early intervention |
| Acute Pain | Limping, vocalisation, réluctance to move |
| Chronic Pain | Reduced activity, altered personality, excessive grooming |
| Sickness Behaviour | Lethargy, reduced appetite, social withdrawal |
| Lameness Signs | Uneven weight distribution, head nodding, difficulty rising |
| Methods to measure behavioural indicators of health: | Direct observation (lameness scoring), technological tools (GPS, video, automated feeders), scoring systems (facial expression scoring, total pain score) |
| Monitoring must: | Account for species differences, context, and normal behaviour baselines |
| Effective interventions are: | Evidence based, target specific behaviours, and consider psychological drivers |
| COM-B Model of Behaviour | Capability, Opportunity, Motivation - Behaviour |
| Technology can: | Reduce labour, improve accuracy, and enable early intervention |
| Human Behaviour Change (HBC) | Changing human behaviour is critical to animal welfare, common animal issues are human caused (neglect, poor housing, overbreeding) |
| COM-B Model (Capability) | Does the person know what to do and how to do it? |
| COM-B Model (Opportunity) | Are the environmental and social conditions right? |
| COM-B Model (Motivation) | Do they want to change (habits, beliefs, feelings)? |
Created by:
sakelleher29
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