Behavior sequences

Sluckin s (1981) study of 5- to 9-year-olds falls more into the ethnographic category, since he tried to record the main features of behavior sequences in context, rather than the occurrence of specific categories, and also interviewed the children extensively. Besides the honest mistakes in R T that he observed, described above, it is clear from his account that some children used, or tried to use, R T play conventions in deceitful, intimidating or manipulative ways. For example ... 

Chiszar, D., Nelson, P., and Smith, H. M. (1988a). Analysis of the behavioral sequence emitted by rattlesnakes during feeding episodes III strike-induced chemosensory searching and location of rodent carcasses. Bulletin ofthe Maryland Herpetological Society 24,99-108. 

Females of the desert spider Agenelopsis aperta emit a volatile pheromone that attracts conspecihc males (Riechert and Singer, 1995). This pheromone was identified as 8-methyl-2-nonanone (1 Fig. 4.1), a previously unknown arthropod semio-chemical. It was found by headspace analysis and abdominal washings of females 2 weeks after their hnal molt, when they become sexually receptive it was absent in females of other age classes. The pheromone attracted males in a three-choice arena system at doses as low as 500 ng (Papke et al., 2001). Another female-specific ketone, 6-methyl-3-heptanone (2), was not attractive. Very low doses of 1 (10-9 mg/ml applied to a hlter paper placed in empty juvenile female webs) also induced courtship behavior in males (Papke et al., 2001). The normal behavioral sequence was followed, except for phases which required input from the female. The ED50 value (mean effective dose) of 1 was 5.5x 10-4 mg/ml hexane. In contrast, ketone 2 only induced a response in some males at unnaturally high concentrations... 

Figure 10. Male H. virescens behavioral sequences evoked by calling females, volatiles collected from two females calling for 3 h, and one female equivalent extracts of each pheromone gland and of the whole ovipositor. Numbers in circles indicate probability of a transition occurring.

Kennedy, J. S. (1974) Changes of responsiveness in the patterning of behavioral sequences. In Experimental Analysis of Insect Behavior (Barton Brown, L., ed.) pp. 1-6. Springer-Verlag, New York. 

Skill-based competencies refer to the things that team members do during teamwork performance and are the necessary behavioral sequences and procedures required during task performance (Salas and Cannon-Bowers, 2001). Examples of skill-based competencies include adaptability, situational awareness, communication, coordination, and decision making (Salas, 2005 Salas and Caimon-Bowers, 2001). 

Instead of requiring the full behavioral sequence from flight to egg production to be the bioassay criterion, it maybe expedient to bypass, or short circuit, some of the steps in the process and focus upon critical steps, or indicator behaviors. This may result in little loss in resolution and great reductions in time and effort. Whenever such indicator behaviors are used, it is important to establish that the behavior is consistently displayed in the overall behavioral investigated, and not displayed in alternative behaviors. Additionally, results using indicator behaviors should be confirmed with bioassays using the complete behavioral sequence. 

Figure 5.7. The behavioral sequence exhibited by Aphytis melinus during oviposition. Reprinted from Luck et al. (1982) with permission.

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