Certificate in Animal Behaviour

Offered by:  Biology, Psychology and Neuroscience

Coordinator: Dr. Simon Gadbois (Psychology and Neuroscience) simon.gadbois@dal.ca

The Certificate in Animal Behaviour provides students with an opportunity to specialize in Animal Behaviour through a set of courses and a research project.

Admission to Certificate

Students should enrol in the Certificate in Animal Behaviour in their third year of studies, when they are seeking approval from the Certificate Coordinator for the independent research component. To enrol, students must declare the certificate through Dal Online (https://dalonline.da >Web for Students>Admissions>Declare Major/Minor/Certificate), and notify the Certificate Coordinator by e-mail. To qualify for this certificate, students must complete all course requirements, and must receive approval for the research component of the certificate prior to the start of the research course.

To graduate with the certificate, students must apply to Graduate with a Certificate at the time they apply to graduate from their degree program

Certificate requirements:

1. A minimum grade of B- is required in each of four mandatory courses:

• PSYO 2160.03/NESC 2160.03: Animal Behaviour
• PSYO 2501.03: Statistical Methods or STAT 2080.03: Statistical Methods for Data Analysis Inference
• BIOL 3062.03: Behavioural Ecology or PSYO 3162.03/NESC 3162.03: Advanced Animal Behaviour
• BIOL 3630.03: Field Methods in Animal Behaviour or NESC 3161.03/PSYO 3161.03: Measuring Behaviour or NESC 3165.03/PSYO 3165.03: Neuroethology

2. A grade of at least B- in all of 12 additional credit hours of courses chosen from the following list. Courses taken as one of the four mandatory classes cannot also be used to fulfill this requirement. Six credit hours must be at the 3000/4000 level.

2000 level

• ANSC 2003.03: Companion Animal Behaviour
• PSYO 2140.03/NESC 2140.03: Learning
• PSYO 2470.03/NESC 2470.03: Systems Neuroscience

3000 level

• ANSC 3002.03: Domestic Animal Behaviour
• BIOL 3062.03: Behavioural Ecology (if not used to fulfill Requrement 1 above)
• BIOL 3080.03/MARI 3080.03: Ecology and Evolution of Fishes
• BIOL 3327.03: Entomology
• BIOL 3622.03: Ornithology
• BIOL 3626.03: Field Studies of Marine Mammals
• BIOL 3628.03/MARI 3628.03: Marine Ornithology
• BIOL 3630.03: Field Methods in Animal Behaviour (if not used to fulfill Requirement 1 above)
• BIOL 3640.06: Tropical Ecology and Biodiversity (with Animal Behaviour project: counts for three credit hours only)
• BIOL 3632.03: Applied Field Methods in Fish Ecology
• BIOL 3639.03: Herpetology
• MARI 3090.03: Marine Mammalogy
• PSYO 3001.03/NESC 3001.03: Directed Research Project in Psychology or Neuroscience (Animal Behaviour topic)
• PSYO 3161.03/NESC 3161.03: Measuring Behaviour 
• PSYO 3162.03/NESC 3162.03: Advanced Animal Behaviour (if not used to fulfill Requirement 1 above)
• PSYO 3165.03/NESC 3165.03: Neuroethology (if not used to fulfill Requirement 1 above)
• PSYO 3170.03/NESC 3170.03: Hormones and Behaviour
• PSYO 3180.03/NESC 3180.03: Psychoneuroimmunology/Ecological Immunology
• PSYO 3670.03/NESC 3670.03: Genes, Brain and Behaviour

4000 level

• BIOL 4323.03/MARI 4323.03: Biologging in Ecology
• BIOL 4800.06: Special Topics (Animal Behaviour topic)
• BIOL 4806.03/MARI 4806.03, BIOL 4807.03/MARI 4807.03, BIOL 4808.03/MARI 4808.03, BIOL 4810.03: Special Topics (Animal Behaviour topic)
• BIOL 4510.03 Cultural Evolution
• BIOL/MARI 4900.06: Honours Research and Thesis or BIOL 4901.03/MARI 4901.03 BIOL 4902.03/MARI 4902.03: Honours Research and Thesis I and II (with approved Animal Behaviour topic)
• MARI 4090.03: Evolutionary Ecology of Marine Mammals
• PSYO 4140.03 or NESC 4140.03: Animal Learning Topics
• PSYO 4160.03/NESC 4160.03: Topics in Behavioural Biology
• PSYO 4901.03/4902.03 (NESC 4901.03/4902.03): Honours Research (with approved Animal Behaviour topic)

3. A grade of B- in 3 credit hours or more of independent research in Animal Behaviour.

The course used to fulfil this requirement can also be counted toward the courses that fulfil Requirement 2 above.

Students must obtain approval of their research topic from a Certificate Coordinator prior to the start of the research course. Animal behaviour research projects may be completed through one or more of PSYO 3100.03/NESC 3100.03 or PSYO 3101.03/NESC 3101.03, PSYO 3001.03/NESC 3001.03, NESC/PSYO 4901.03 & 4902.03, BIOL 4800.06, BIOL 4806.03/MARI 4806.03, BIOL 4807.03/MARI 4807.03, BIOL 4808.03/MARI 4808.03 or BIOL 4900.06.

Honours students may fulfill this requirement by conducting their honours thesis research on a topic in Animal Behaviour. Students are encouraged to further develop their study design and analysis skills by taking additional courses such as BIOL 4061.03 (Design of Biological Experiments) or BIOL 4062.03 (Analysis of Biological Data).