Behavioural Ecology Flashcards
What is behaviour
an organism’s response to a stimulus
Tinbergen’s Four Questions
- causation (mechanism)
- development (ontogeny)
- phylogeny (evolution)
- adaptive value (function)
Adaptive Behavior
a behaviour that increases the fitness of organisms and that will be selected for over the course of multiple generations
Innate Behavior
- instinct or fixed action behaviour
- genetically coded
- all individuals in the population can perform the same behaviour, although variation in performance may still occur)
Learned Behaviour
-modifications through experience
-results from repeated presentation of eliciting stimuli
examples of learned behaviour
habituation, trial-and-error, social learning
Inclusive Fitness
- overall fitness, is determined by an individual’s survival/reproduction plus the survival and reproduction of their genetic relatives
Hamilton’s 4 Classes of Social Interaction
cooperation, altruism, selfishness, spite
cooperation
both donor and recipient benefit in fitness
- generally within species and often between related animals
-can involve exchange of resources and protection
altruism
recipient benefits, donor does not
- group selection
-manipulation
-reciprocal altruism
- kin selection
selfishness
donor benefits, recipient does not
spite
both donor and recipient do not benefit
-most unusual and rare
Coefficient of Relationship
the probability that the alleles at a given locus will be identical by descent among two individuals in the population
Sociality in Animals
usually consists of a group of individuals living together involving some degree of cooperation between individuals
What are some traits that form with the evolution of sociality
cooperative feeding
defence of the social group
restricted reproductive opportunities
