1. Independent Research Projects in Animal Behavior

2. Why do an independent research project?
Chance to take your learning to a whole new level and develop skills that can only come from hands-on experimentation
Excellent preparation for anyone considering graduate school or a career in biological research
Chance to observe and analyze an aspect of behavior that interests you
Helps you to develop your statistical/writing skills (group paper) and communication skills (group presentation)

3. Why do an independent research project?
However, a research project is challenging—requires creative thinking, attention to detail, and determination
Careful planning, familiarity with the primary literature, and explicit hypotheses is a great starting point
The basic principles of the scientific method and hypothesis testing will be helpful as well
The first step in choosing a project topic is Observation—go into the field, read literature, or ask professors

4. Turning observations into questions
Two ways to approach this:
You may have a concept that you are interested in (competition, predation, etc.), but you don’t know what animal to use.
You may have accessibility to a certain group of animals, but you don’t know how to go about studying their behavior
In the end, you need both a question and a system, such as “How does the presence of toadfish affect feeding behavior in mud crabs?”

5. Background research—what do you know about this topic?
Find out enough about what is known concerning your study animal and topic to do the project, but not so much that you are overwhelmed by what is already known
Put your research into the larger context of what we already know about this topic, so you can test an existing theory or try to replicate the results of published studies
It is probably beyond the scope of this class to contribute new knowledge to the field—too short of a time frame and not enough resources

6. What is a hypothesis and how do you make one?
A hypothesis is basically a prediction about the outcome of an experiment—it is the framework for your study
A typical animal behavior hypothesis would be of the following general form: “Under such-and-such conditions, the organism will exhibit such-and-such behavior”
You then develop a series of more specific hypotheses that relates directly to your experiment: “When exposed to a light source, snails will move away from the light

7. What is a hypothesis and how do you make one?
More formally, a hypothesis is a statement of an experimental result that supports an answer to the question
It is paired with a null hypothesis, which does not support the answer
The null hypothesis (Ho) = the expectation that there is no effect of whatever we are testing
The alternative hypothesis (Ha) or (H1) = the “positive” result—a difference between a control and an experimental group of animals

8. What is a hypothesis and how do you make one?
A good hypothesis:
The hypothesis is directly testable by making observations and designing an experiment
The result of testing the hypothesis will give you insight into the original question
A true hypothesis is generally a test of causation, in which a single variable is changed while everything else is held constant

9. Developing your experimental design:
Testing your hypothesis can involve observation, experimental manipulation, or both
The key is to develop a way to test that it is feasible without too much expense or time
You should measure something that will provide quantitative information to analyze
A good experimental design isolates one variable and tests that variable while holding all other variables constant

10. What are the Groups in an Experiment?
Control
used as a baseline measure.
identical to all other items or subjects that you are examining with the exception that it does not receive the treatment or the experimental manipulation that the treatment group receives.
Example: when examining test tubes for catalytic reactions of enzymes when added to a specific substrate, the control test tube would be identical to all other test tubes with the exception of lacking the enzyme.

11. What are the Groups in an Experiment?
Control
Treatment Groups
The treatment group is the item or subject that is manipulated. In our example, all other test tubes containing enzyme would be part of the treatment group.

12. What is a treatment
Treatment is something that researchers administer to experimental units.
Example:
a corn field is divided into four, each part is 'treated' with a different fertilizer to see which produces the most corn

13. What are ways to eliminate sources of variability?
Randomization
objects or individuals are randomly assigned (by chance) to an experimental group. Using randomization is the most reliable method of creating homogeneous treatment groups, without involving any potential biases or judgments.
Replication
the repetition of an experiment on a large group of subjects, is required. If a treatment is truly effective, the long-term averaging effect of replication will reflect its experimental worth.

14. What types of Variables are there?
Three Categories of Variables:
Independent
is what is varied during the experiment; it is what the investigator thinks will affect the dependent variable.
For example, the investigator may want to study coffee bean growth. possible independent variables include: amount of fertilizer, type of fertilizer, temperature, amount of H2O, day length, all of these may affect the number of beans, weight of the plant, leaf area, etc.

15. What types of Variables are there?
Three Categories of Variables:
Independent
Dependent
is what will be measured; it's what the investigator thinks will be affected during the experiment.
For example, the investigator may want to study coffee bean growth. Possible dependent variables include: number of beans, weight of the plant, leaf surface area, time to maturation, height of stem.

16. What types of Variables are there?
Three Categories of Variables:
Independent
Dependent
Control
the variables held constant. Since the investigator wants to study the effect of one particular independent variable, the possibility that other factors are affecting the outcome must be eliminated.
For example, the above scientist must ascertain that no differences in the type of fertilizer used exists, or amount of H2O, variations of temperature, or day length exist.

17. Replication/Randomization
It is important to replicate your experiment to obtain accurate results
Ideally, 4-5 reps but due to the time and resource availability of this course 2-3 replication
You can replicate in time or in space (blocks)
Also need to randomize treatments
i.e. If you replicate in time, make sure each time you have one of each treatment level in each block of time

18. Oyster Drill Experimental Set-up
Oyster drill feeding on oyster spat
29 ppt, 25C
12-hour light cycle
Replacement every 24 hours for 12 days
Two experiments were conducted to examine the first objective concerning predator prey size selectivity. The first involved oyster drill feeding on oyster spat. 4 liter tanks
For this experiment, there were 3 sizes of spat (5mm, 25mm, 50mm) and 3 sizes of drills (10mm, 30mm, 65mm). These size levels were fully crossed and randomized for a total of 9 treatments.
29 ppt, 25C
12-hour light cycle
Replacement every 24 hours for 10 days
Treatments randomized within exper. layout

19. Treatments randomized within experimental layout
Experimental Set-up
Mud crab predator/prey size experiment
29 ppt, 25C, 12-hour light cycle
4 replicate blocks
Replacement every 12 hours for 5 days
Mud crab predator/prey size experiment
29 ppt, 25C, 12-hour light cycle
4 replicate blocks
Replacement every 12 hours for 5 days
Treatments randomized within experimental layout

20. Predator/Substrate Combination Experiment
Predator/substrate combination experiments
Treatments randomized within experimental layout
5 replicate blocks
Treatments randomized within experimental layout
5 replicate blocks with each substrate type

21. Treatments randomized within experimental layout
Experimental Set-up
Stone crab TMII experiment
29 ppt, 25C
12-hour light cycle
4 replicate blocks
24 hours
Treatments randomized within experimental layout
The predator combination experiments I just covered included both density and trait mediated effects, but we wanted to isolate the trait-mediated effects so the following 2 experiments were performed
29 ppt, 25C
12-hour light cycle
4 replicate blocks
24 hours

22. Treatments randomized within experimental layout
Experimental Set-up
Toadfish TMII experiment
29 ppt, 25C
12-hour light cycle
4 replicate blocks
24 hours
Treatments randomized within experimental layout
Toadfish TMII experiment
29 ppt, 25C
12-hour light cycle
4 replicate blocks
24 hours

23. Examples of Previous Experiments
Predation behavior of crabs under various light schedules
Mating/aggression behaviors of fiddler crabs when sex ratio is manipulated
Sea urchin larvae reaction to various salinity and temperature regimes
Predation behavior of blue crabs in polluted vs. clean water
Predation behavior of blue crabs in the presence/absence of various trophic levels

24. Today
Choose groups (2-4 people per group); graduate students will complete this project solo
Each group must determine an animal behavior experiment they would like to do with specimens that can be caught
You must determine the following and have the idea approved by me before the end of lab today
Animal(s) you will be studying
Hypothesis
Treatments
Independent, dependent, and control variables
Experiment duration
Replication scheme