Introduction: Ethology is the study of animal behavior. This involves observing an organism’s behaviors, interpreting what is observed, and research different organisms. Ethologists study and observe an organism’s reaction to the environment around them.
Biotic and abiotic factors are limiting factors that control the maximum size of a given population. Favorable conditions are desired by an organism of its home environment. Because of this, an animal must search for the environment to fit its structure and lifestyle. This is called habitat selection.

Pill bug natural history

An animal can display many different types of behaviors, two being taxis and kinesis. Taxis behaviors are deliberate movements toward or away from a stimulus. Kinesis is a random movement that is not oriented toward or away from a stimulus. Taxis behaviors are exemplary of the physiological needs of an organism. Other behaviors are agonistic (aggressive or submissive actions toward another organism) and mating behaviors.

In today's lab we will examine the movement behavior of "Pill Bugs"

The first virtual experiment you see the pill bug’s preference for a wet or dry environment. There are two pieces of filter paper in the choice chambers you have (see below animation). One filter paper is wet, but not saturated and the other dry.We start with 5 pill bugs on one paper and five on the other.

Click the red button to "walk thru" a demo of this week's virtual experiment.

Here is the virtual Pill Bug Ethology experiment : Every 30 seconds count and record the number of pill bugs in each chamber. Do this for "10 minutes" even if the bugs aren't moving. Graph the number of pill bugs in the wet and dry chambers. Experiment