Course program
Introduction to the study of animal behaviour: history of ethology; Tinbergen's four "questions"; designing and conducting research on animal behaviour. (2 hours)
Fundamental concepts of ethology: reflex behaviours; motivated behaviours; stimuli; temporal organization of behaviour. (2 hours)
Proximate control of behaviour: homeostasis; neuroendocrine system and behavioural variability; neural bases of behaviour. (2 hours)
Development and plasticity of behaviour: reciprocal influence between genes and environment during development; reaction norms and phenotypic plasticity; epigenetic modifications; functional significance of phenotypic plasticity. (2 hours)
Learning: non-associative learning; associative learning; latent learning; learning by insight; social learning; imprinting; culture in animals. (4 hours)
Animal communication: general principles; cost of communication and honesty of signals; role and characteristics of signals; origin and evolution of signals; precursors of signals; communicating with odours / sounds and vibrations / visual signals / tactile signals. (6 hours)
Adaptive value and ecology of behaviour: assessment of adaptation; examples of adaptation; optimum foraging; competition and defence of a resource; territorial behaviour; coevolution, coadaptation, and arms race. (4 hours)
Ecology of reproductive behaviour: reproductive systems and parental care; extended families in vertebrates; reproduction, sex, and sexual selection; other reproductive strategies. (4 hours)
Social behaviour and group life: evolution of sociality; living in groups; recognition; benefits and costs of group life. (4 hours)
Cooperation and conflict in social groups: game theory and social relationships; cooperation and altruism; conflicts in social groups; complex forms of sociality. (6 hours)
Animal orientation: unidirectional and bidirectional orientation; biological compasses; classification of animal movements. (6 hours)
Applied ethology: examples of applied ethology. (6 hours)
Prerequisites
Students attending the course should have basic knowledge of genetics, developmental biology, zoology, comparative anatomy and ecology.
Books
“An introduction to animal behaviour”, Aubrey Manning e Marian Stamp Dawkins, Cambridge University Press 2012
Frequency
Attendance is not mandatory, but strongly recommended.
Exam mode
The final evaluation is carried out through a written test, preceded by an optional oral exam (minimum score 18/30, maximum score 30/30 with honours).
The written test consists of 8 open-ended questions, each assigned a maximum score ranging from 2 to 6 points (2 questions with a maximum of 2 points, 4 questions with a maximum of 4 points, 2 questions with a maximum of 6 points). The time allocated for the written test is 120 minutes.
The oral exam can be requested by the student to improve the score obtained in the written test and may lead to an increase (or decrease) of up to 4 points compared to the written score. The minimum score to be admitted to the oral exam is 18/30.
Lesson mode
The course is based on classroom lectures and includes in-depth seminars on specific topics of applied ethology, aimed at stimulating discussion on the subject. The classroom lectures, conducted with the aid of slides, involve explaining the general concepts of the discipline and describing examples/experiments, accompanied by the analysis of images and graphs. A field exercise is also planned, for example, in an urban park.
