Animal Behavior Paper
For class you will do a written presentation of research done using one of the following prompts:
A) You will do an original study of the behavior of an animal of your choosing (within limits).
At the end of the semester, you will hand in a seven to nine page written report on that research.
The written report must include sections labeled:
Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and References Cited
Paper should have at least one figure and one table and use at least one primary source reference
that is referred to in the introduction and compared to the research of this paper in the discussion
section. Writing will be evaluated and should be concise, clear and grammatically correct. Do
not use any quotes. All sources should be cited according to the style presented in class (Animal
Behavior Journal). It is recommended but not required that at least one part of the project
involve an experiment that can be analyzed using some of the statistical methods covered in class
or learned in another class. This is a semester project, so expect to work with your animals
(observations and experiments) at least 20 hours.
Or B) You will do a library research paper on some aspect of animal behavior covered in class or
in the course textbook and researched in greater detail. The paper should have a clear thesis
statement and result in a synthesis of ideas that is original. You should provide a cited references
page at the end of your paper with complete journal information following the Animal Behaviour
journal style. In addition, the paper should be at least 10 full pages long (of text) and based on a
minimum of 7 primary source literature articles on behavior or relevant topics. The title page,
abstract (if included), references cited and any figures or tables will not be counted in the 10
pages. The articles must be handed in with the paper. Writing will be evaluated and should be
concise, clear and grammatically correct. Do not use any quotes. All sources used should be
cited according to the style presented in class (Animal Behaviour journal). Paper should be
double spaced, 12 font, and have 1 inch margins.
Plagiarism – What is it and how should you avoid it?
Plagiarism is taking someone else’s words and portraying them as your own work, which is theft
of someone else’s time and effort. Doing this can result in an 0 for the paper, which will lead to
flunking the course. So you need to be careful about using information from different sources
and distinguishing it from your own ideas and words. There are three levels of using
information:
1. You have read several articles or other sources and you have determined a pattern that is
uniquely your idea. Or perhaps there is a general understanding that is a basic premise of
your topic. In both of these cases you do not need to cite your source.
2. You have read a paper and are describing the study and its results or you have some
specific information that came from a source that you would like to reference. In this case,
even though the writing is in your own words, you need to cite the article by adding the
author’s last name and the date of the article in parentheses at the end of the sentence.
Example: In a study of bubble-net feeding by humpback whales, two classes of behavior
were observed (Wiley et al., 2011). If this paper had only one author, the citation would be
(Wiley, 2011); if it had two authors, it would be Wiley and Ware, 2011). If this article had
more than 2 authors, the first author should be listed and French for “and others,
abbreviated” is added as shown in the first example – (Wiley et al., 2011).
3. Avoid doing this in your animal behavior paper: You don’t understand what you are
reading, so being lazy you quote the author’s words. Or perhaps you feel the author has
expressed something so well, you want to preserve those exact words. This works at times
in non-science writing in the case of poetry, etc., but is generally not done in science
writing. In this case, you must list the author(s)’ name(s), the date of the publication, and
the page number for the quote. If more than a sentence is quoted, the text must be set off
by indentations from the rest of the text. Again, I don’t want to see you quoting anything in
your paper. Write the information in your own words and cite the papers
appropriately (#2).
What is a primary source article?
Original publication of research in a scientific journal is a primary source article. Sometimes
there are review articles in scientific journals and these are not primary sources, because they are
reporting on the work done by others, not their own work. Any website, book, review article, or
magazine article that describes work that was done by others and does not have a methods and
results section of its own is a secondary source article. Examples of journals that publish
original research are Animal Behaviour, Behaviour, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology,
Science, and Nature. Sometimes there are reviews or highlighted articles at the front of the
journals and they will be labeled as such. These sections or articles of the journals are not
primary sources, although they may give a nice summary of your topic and could be used as
additional references beyond the minimum number of primary source articles required for the
paper. Sometimes you can find complete articles published on the web, but be sure it is original
research and you should be able to see the journal name, volume and pages of the article.
How do I do the references cited list at the end of the paper?
List only those articles that you actually used and cited in your paper. They should be listed in
alphabetical order by the first author’s last name. Refer to the Animal Behaviour journal, which
can be accessed through our library, for variations in format. Journal references should list the
author, date of journal article, title of paper, the name of the Journal in italics, volume (bold) and
page numbers of article. Here are three examples:
Baeumer, E. 1955. Lebensart des Haushuhns. Zeitschrift fur Tierpsychologie, 12, 381-401.
McBride, G., Parer, I.P. &Foenander, F. 1969. The social organization and behavior of the
feral domestic fowl. Animal Behaviour Monograph, 2, 125-181.
Zahavi, A. & Zahavi, A. 1997. The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin’s
Puzzle. New York: Oxford University Press.
In the last example, you have a book and the title of the book is in italics.
Tables and Figures
We will be doing these repeatedly as part of the lab write-up’s you’ll be doing for class. Don’t
lose points for not following these guidelines. Both tables and figures must have a caption. The
caption goes above the table and below the figure. Don’t ask me why, but this is the format
you will find in most, if not all, science journals. A table is a set of boxes with headings, while a
figure can be a map, a drawing or photograph, or a graph. The caption should contain enough
information that someone can completely understand the information in your table or figure
without having to read any of your text. Some examples:
Figure for a map Figure 1. Map of bamboo stands containing focal populations of M. laevigata on the island of
Nosy Mangabe, Madagascar.
Note that the figure is numbered. Figures and tables should have independent numbering, but
both should be numbered according to their sequence in the paper. Figure 1 should be the first
figure you discuss in your paper; Table 1 should be the first table discussed.
Note that the caption has the species being studied and a full description of the location for the
map.
Also note that the caption’s first statement is not a complete sentence. If there were more
information to include, it is written in full sentences, either up with the caption or, in the case of
a table, the rest can be put below the table. For our class, just do the entire caption together and
place the table caption above the table.
Another example for a graph.
Figure 3. Mean+/-SE time that female hamsters spent investigating flank gland secretion of male
A ( ) during four habituation trials and ear scent of male A( ) and male B (
) on the test
trial. Each female in the experienced group (a) had previously interacted with the scent donors
(males A and B), whereas the females in the inexperienced group (b) had not (experiment2,
condition 2).
Note that the units are given. The different bars – white, black and gray are explained. The
difference between experienced and inexperienced individuals is explained.
How are species identified?
When identifying an organism, usually the scientific name is given. This includes the genus
name and then the species name. The genus name is capitalized, while the species name is not.
Both should be highlighted in bold, underlining or italics. Example: Polistes fuscatus. Once the
full name has been used in the text, subsequent reference to the same organism can abbreviate
the genus name: P. fuscatus.
Possible ideas for papers:
A. All should include a general ethogram for your animals as the behavior is new for you. But
then you might want to focus on a particular behavior. Remember that a reasonable expectation
is that you would spend a minimum of 20 hours observing the animals for both the ethogram and
any specialized aspect of the behavior you might choose to pursue. Note that the topics are those
that can be readily observed.
Foraging behavior of squirrels
Dominance interactions in cockroaches
Mating behavior in mice
Species interactions among birds at a bird feeder
Territorial behavior in cichlid fish
Play behavior in dogs/ gerbils/other pet (caution: avoid being anthropomorphic)
B. You should think carefully about your topic and start researching it early enough that you can
get good solid primary source articles that support a coherent topic. Avoid just describing the
behavior of an animal group. Choose a more interesting topic.
Evolution of chemical communication in rodents/other group
Parental behavior and why some species have male, some have female and some have both male
and female involvement
Honest signaling
Mating systems and the relationship to major groups or ecology
Evolution of eusocial behavior
Regulation of rhythmic behavior in birds
Imprinting and its importance in different animal groups
Learning in invertebrate animal groups