Ethogram Notes Charting Animal Behavior Ethogram behavior inventory

Ethogram Notes Charting Animal Behavior

Ethogram = • behavior inventory • used for quick recording of behaviors • takes 1000’s of hours for a complete catalog of behaviors • helps decrease subjectivity

Ethogram Procedure 1. Identify behaviors ★ What is the animal doing? 2. Categorize behaviors ★ Create categories ★ Create sub-categories

Ethogram Procedure 3. How to record behaviors? Options: A. make list of behaviors, check mark if occurs ( no matter how long it happens) B. create time budget- mark amount of time during which behavior occurred

Ethogram Procedure 4. Decide who to observe Options : A. watch one individual = “case study” • gives in depth information about one animal • ¿ what to do if individual hides, or can no longer be seen?

Ethogram Procedure B. Watch several animals in a group – “Scanning the group” – Decide on time interval, scan entire group at interval, record presence of given behavior – OR randomly pick individuals, observe for set amount of time, then move to next random animal & do same

Concerns 1. How observant / trained to recognize behaviors is the observer? ★Do you know what to look for? ★ Experience really helps(I know when the horse is going to try to buck me off…)

Concerns 2. Effect of the observer • Wild animals do not behave “normally” in presence of humans • Habituation? • Hide observer? … (behind a blind? )

Concerns 3. Inter-observer • • • reliability Do I see / interpret same behaviors as you? Are two observers seeing / recording same behaviors? Are they recording the same behaviors, but naming them differently?

Concerns Other Concerns? • What if you can’t see your animal? • What if your animal sleeps the whole time? • What if the animal doesn’t seem to be doing anything? (Become a closer observer!) • Others?

Practice http: //www. members. home. nl/akodde/behave. htm