This course deals with why vertebrates behave as they do (with particular emphasis on mammals and birds), covering the causation of behaviour (including learning, motivation, affective states, hormones, sensory processing, and neurobiological mechanisms); function (both immediate/proximate and adaptive/ultimate); ontogeny (including socialization and sensitive periods); and phylogeny (especially the influences of taxonomic group and domestication). This framework is then applied to the following aspects of animal behaviour: foraging, anti-predator responses, sleep, sociality, mating, parental behaviour, play, dispersal and territoriality, animal intelligence, and behavioural pathologies.
This course deals with why vertebrates behave as they do (with particular emphasis on mammals and birds), covering the causation of behaviour (including learning, motivation, affective states, hormones, sensory processing, and neurobiological mechanisms); function (both immediate/proximate and adaptive/ultimate); ontogeny (including socialization and sensitive periods); and phylogeny (especially the influences of taxonomic group and domestication). This framework is then applied to the following aspects of animal behaviour: foraging, anti-predator responses, sleep, sociality, mating, parental behaviour, play, dispersal and territoriality, animal intelligence, and behavioural pathologies.
