Syllabus (pdf)

Assignments (pdf)

Powerpoint lectures:

Jan 25 -- Natural selection
Jan 28 -- Proximate causes
Feb 4 -- Learning
Feb 11 -- Social learning
Feb 18 - Foraging
Feb 29 -- Antipredator behavior
March 5 -- Habitat selection
March 10 -- Territoriality
March 12 -- Migration
April 2 -- Sexual selection
April 11 -- Mating systems
April 14 -- EPCs and sperm competition
April 16 -- Kinship
April 21 -- Conflict and recognition
April 23 -- Cooperation

Readings for class:

Jan 23 -- Excerpt from Darwin's On the origin of species. 

Jan 25 --   Drent et al - Realized Heritability of Personalities in the Great Tit (Parus major)
                   Discussion questions for Drent et al.

Jan 30 --  Ryan -- Sexual selection, receiver biases, etc. 
             -  Discussion questions on Ryan

Feb 8 -- Odling-Smeef and Braithwaite. 2003. The influence of habitat stability on landmark use during spatial learning in the three-spined stickleback. Animal Behaviour 65: 701-707.
Discussion questions on O-S and Braithwaite

Feb 13 -- Rendell, LE andWhitehead, H.  2003. Vocal clans in sperm whales.  Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B, 270:225-231.
                 Discussion questions on Rendell and Whitehead

Feb 25 -- Julie W. Smith, Craig W. Benkman, and Kimberly Coffey. 1999. The use and misuse of public information by foraging red crossbills. Behav. Ecol. 10: 54 - 62.
    Discussion questions

March 7 -- Werner, EE and DJ Hall.  Ontogenetic habitat shifts in bluegill: the foraging rate-predation risk tradeoff.  Ecology 69:1352-13-66.
    Discussion questions

April 2 -- Excerpt from Descent of Man (Darwin).
                Roughgarden, J. --  Evolution and the embodiment of gender

April 6 -- MOCZEK, A. P. and EMLEN D. J.  2000. Male horn dimorphism in the scarab beetle, Onthophagus taurus : do alternative reproductive tactics favour alternative phenotypes? Animal Behaviour 59: 459-466. 

April 8 -- Sirot and Brockman. 2001. Costs of sexual interactions to females in Rambur’s forktail damselfly, Ischnura ramburi (Zygoptera: Coenagrionidae) Animal Behaviour. 61:415-424.  AND  Cooper, I.A. Submitted. Ecological causation of intersexual mimicry in a damselfly.

April 25 -- Wilson, EO. and B. Holldobler.  Eusociality: Origin and consequences. PNAS 102:13367-13371.

April 28 -- Discussion questions on Heinrich Chapt. 1-5

Resources


Arkive.org -- A digital database of movies and pictures of animals

Macauley Library of Digital sound and video -- lots of good bird stuff from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology