Animal Behavior (WILD(BIOL) 4740/67040, formerly WILD(BIOL 3700W) is offered as a standard 15 week course every Fall semester or every Maymester as study abroad course in New Zealand and Australia taught in conjunction with a course on sustaining human societies and the natural environment (People, Places, Profit; FANR 4271). The course includes an Honors option and beginning in Fall 2025 is now open to graduate students.

​Learn more about the Maymester offering

Course Description

Behavior is one the most important and interesting aspects of animal biology. Behaviors permit flexibility, which allows animals to respond rapidly to environmental change. This course exposes students to the broad field of animal behavior. Students will understand the historical foundations of the field, scientific approaches to the study of animal behavior, current theories, and evidence for a broad range of behavioral topics, and applications of behavioral sciences to other fields such as animal training, wildlife conservation and management, child development and education, psychology and medicine. Behavioral ecology [the economics of behavioral strategies] and the evolution of behaviors as adaptive traits are re-occurring themes interwoven through all topics discussed.

Student Learning Outcomes and Competencies

Upon completion of this course, students will: • Access and curate primary literature and other materials as a basis for managing information in this course and throughout their professional career. • Read and critically synthesize primary literature to develop, describe, and defend their opinions on the theories and supporting evidence explaining animal behaviors as traits that evolve. • Collect, analyze, interpret, represent, and report data on animal behavior through independent and group projects research projects. • Communicate their opinions and synthesize and apply information and defend their ideas and findings through short essays and written reports with frequent opportunities for reflection and revision. • Collaborate on critical reading inquiries, collaborate on group research projects, and coauthor multiple short essay and professional reports. Collaborative activities include assessments of personal and group strengths and constraints and using those to set common goals and coordinate project completion.  • Critically consider how the core theories and principles and research on animal behavior apply to the conservation and management of wild animals, ethical and humane treatment of wild, captive, and domestic animals, and the general welfare of humans and non-human animals.​

Additional Information

This is a professional course with substantial active learning. We place a large emphasis on critically reading primary literature, forming your own opinions about topics, understanding the nature of scientific evidence and its application to arguments, and developing effective writing skills to communicate your opinions.  Most writing assignments are collaborative with the option to work independently and are relatively brief withe exception of research reports. Reports are well-scaffolded to make the writing manageable. In 2022, we removed the use of numeric feedback and assessment in the course to focus student attention on interacting with materials and responding to feedback. Students who turn in initial complete drafts on time are eligible to revise all assignments repeatedly throughout the semester. Grades are determined through narrative reflection at the end of the semester relative to written criteria established at the beginning of the semester. Students consistently report that the removal of "points" from the course reduced their stress, increased their attention to feedback and revision, and created a more holistic assessment of their experiences and performance in the course.

Topical Outline

• Foundations of animal behavior
  • The emergence of the science
• Evolution and approaches to the study of the evolution of behaviors

• Proximate drivers of behavior
  • Behavioral genetics
  • Neurobiology, endocrinology, and endogenous rhythms
  • Sensory ecology
  • Learning and animal culture
• Animal sensory biology and communication systems
• Habitat selection, migration, and dispersal
• Despotic behaviors
• Foraging and antipredator behaviors and behaviorally mediated indirect effects
• The evolution of sex, sexual selection, and reproductive behaviors
• Sociobiology
  • Mating systems
  • Parental care
  • Kin selection
  • Group living and cooperation
• Adaptive individual differences, animal personalities and phenotypic syndromes
• Domestication
• Animal cognition