Behavioural Ecology Scientific Journals
Behavioral ecology, also spelled behavioral ecology, is the study of the evolutionary basis for animal behavior due to ecological pressures. Behavioral
ecology emerged from ethology after Niko Tinbergen outlined four questions to address when studying animal behaviors that are the proximate causes, ontogeny, survival value, and phylogeny of behavior.
If an organism has a trait that provides a selective advantage (i.e., has adaptive significance) in its environment, then natural selection favors it. Adaptive significance refers to the expression of a trait that affects fitness, measured by an individual's reproductive success. Adaptive traits are those that produce more copies of the individual's genes in future generations. Maladaptive traits are those that leave fewer. For example, if a bird that can call more loudly attracts more mates, then a loud call is an adaptive trait for that
species because a louder bird mates more frequently than less loud birds—thus sending more loud-calling genes into future generations.
Individuals are always in competition with others for limited resources, including food, territories, and mates. Conflict occurs between predators and prey, between rivals for mates, between siblings, mates, and even between parents and offspring.
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