Ethograms of Mice

Worksheet

1. Define "ethogram."

An inventory of behaviors of a species with the behaviors organized into categories.

2. How are ethograms beneficial to scientists?

Ethograms help scientists determine how studied behaviors may help organisms to survive and reproduce.

3. Why is it necessary to observe an organisms behavior before formulating questions?

By observing behaviors, scientists develop a frame of reference for subsequent studies. Observing may help them determine whether the behavior exhibited is rare or common and typical or due to the observer's presence, and to identify the contexts in which it occurs.

4. What are three different ways to describe behavior in an ethogram.

1) The basis of structure.

2) The basis of consequences.

3) Relational.

5. What is meant by "consequences"?

The effects of a subject's behavior on itself, its environment or other organisms.

6. Why do we use mice for this experiment rather than cats or dogs which most people are more used to handling?

Several possible answers are: more economical, take up less space, easy to handle, easier to observe in a confined space.

8. Why do you do more than one hour of observations and compare your observations to those of another group?

Their answers should center around reliability.

9. Which groupings do you think will be more aggressive: male-male or female-female? Why? Explain your answer.

Reading a Bar Graph

1. In the sample time budget, what is the label of the X axis?

Walking, Sleeping, Eating.

2. What is the label of the Y axis?

Percent of Total Time.

3. What was the percentage of time spent by subjects sleeping?

50%

4. What can we infer about the abundance of food since the organisms spent their least amount of time walking and their most amount of time sleeping? What else can be inferred about the environment of the organisms?

Students should begin to infer that food is in abundance because the organisms did not have to spend a great deal of time walking around looking for food. Students may also mention that since the organisms spent so much time sleeping they could be hibernating or they could be in a safe area.