Universität Wien

300136 UE Animal Personality (2024S)

10.00 ECTS (6.00 SWS), SPL 30 - Biologie
Prüfungsimmanente Lehrveranstaltung

An/Abmeldung

Hinweis: Ihr Anmeldezeitpunkt innerhalb der Frist hat keine Auswirkungen auf die Platzvergabe (kein "first come, first served").

Details

max. 12 Teilnehmer*innen
Sprache: Englisch

Lehrende

Termine

On-site full-time at the Konrad Lorenz Research Center in Gruenau im Almtal
1 July to 19 July 2024

No pets allowed as pets are not allowed in the gamepark.


Information

Ziele, Inhalte und Methode der Lehrveranstaltung

During the three-week field course, students will work in teams (max 4) on an independently-designed and executed project in the field of animal behavior, cognitive biology and/or behavioral ecology with a special focus on animal personality. In principle students can work on any species in the Game Park or any of our model systems (graylag geese, northern bald ibis, ravens that have been monitored for decades at the research center) if this is approved by the supervisory team. Approval depends on prevailing conditions (also in coordination with the Cumberland Gamepark), safety considerations, and access to see and observe animals (some animals are not available certain times of the year). Students begin with an ethogram (2 days) of their chosen study species, and develop a research question in consultation with the on-site supervisory team. Then, a 10-day data collection begins, followed by data analysis, report writing and oral presentation. Suitable topics vary by season.

Students can expect to be engaged in daily discussions with other team members and meetings with their supervisory team several times a week, mainly to clarify experimental design and theory.

Art der Leistungskontrolle und erlaubte Hilfsmittel

Students will prepare and provide for assessment (1) observational definitions of their main variables of study, (2) quantitative behavioral observations (i.e. their data), (3) a ppt presentation highlighting their main findings, and (4) either a written report that includes protocol methods, literature cited, and a discussion of their findings or a poster suitable for a conference presentation. The students will be offered guidance during various data management and analysis steps (excel, SPSS, R etc.) and practical writing training. We do not emphasize the statistical analyses in grading, but focus on whether the research question is testable, experiential design, and data collection approaches. We expect students to have watched the video files we created on how to prepare data for statistical analysis including running some basic tests in R. This comprehensive tutorial will be shared before the course, and should be worked through before the analysis phase of the practicum starts.

Mindestanforderungen und Beurteilungsmaßstab

The aim of the three-week intensive field course is to design and carry out an independently conceived research question that involves identifying a suitable (testable) research question, designing data collection, carrying out rudimentary data analysis, and preparing a scientific report. The overarching aim is to gain practical experience in procedures and methods for behavioral ecological research and to engage firsthand in the process of scientific research in behavioral and cognitive biology, in this case with a focus on animal personality.

Students design a research project (10%), collect data for 10 days (20%), analyze the data (15%), prepare a final written report (40%), and give an oral presentation highlighting the main findings (15%).

A passing grade of 50% is required for the course. Students may not miss any class sessions and must be on site for all 19 days; attendance is not graded but is mandatory.

Prüfungsstoff

Ethogram, quantitative behaviour coding, diverse methods of data collection; relevant literature citation; use of different software (excel, SPSS, etc.); evidence of scientific writing

Literatur

Text books in behavioural ecology (e.g. Krebs & Davis, Alcock); relevant peer-reviewed publications will be made available to you from archives and/or reference material at the Konrad Lorenz Research Center during the three-week practicum.

Zuordnung im Vorlesungsverzeichnis

CoBeNe W2

Letzte Änderung: So 07.04.2024 09:26