Behavioural Ecology

Abstract

Based in part on the previous version of this eLS article 'Behavioural Ecology' (2005) by Reinmar Hager.Behavioural ecology investigates how animal behaviour is adapted to the physical and social environment of individuals. Over the past 40 years behavioural ecology has been established as a field of research in which both empirical and theoretical studies analyse how evolution has shaped animal behaviour through the process of natural selection. The underlying premise is that individuals adopt strategies (behaviours) that maximise their fitness, that is, the contribution of their genes to future populations. Behavioural ecology seeks to understand why a specific behaviour confers a fitness advantage to an individual given a set of ecological and social conditions. The adoption of methods from genetics, physiology, bioinformatics and developmental biology has greatly expanded the tool kit with which questions in behavioural ecology are addressed. What is Behavioural Ecology?Behavioural ecology is a branch of the biological sciences that deals with questions about the adaptive value of behaviour. Behavioural patterns are viewed as a result of natural selection, which have evolved in relation to the physical and social environment in which animals live. Thus, behaviour, like any other trait, evolves to maximise individual fitness. Research in behavioural ecology emerged over 40 years ago based on concepts from the fields of ethology (the study of behaviour), population genetics and ecology by rigorously applying the concept of natural selection in particular and evolutionary biology in general to the study of behaviour. See also: Fitness Tinbergen's four questions about behaviourTo understand the kind of questions about animal behaviour that behavioural ecologists focus on we need to consider the overall range of questions that could possibly be asked. In 1963 Nikolaas Tinbergen published his seminal paper on the aims and methods of ethology in which he defined four major questions in biology (Tinbergen, 1963). These are known as the four ways of asking why an animal behaves in a specific manner: (1) What underlying mechanism causes this behaviour? (proximate questions); (2) What is the survival value to the individual? (ultimate questions); (3) How did this behaviour evolve over time (evolution)? and (4) How does such behaviour develop during an individual's lifetime (ontogeny)? Proximate and ultimate questions represent different ways of addressing the issue of why an animal behaves in a certain way and are not mutually exclusive. Most studies in behavioural ecology, and in particular early works, have focused on answering ultimate questions. The migration of birds exemplifies this point. If we ask why birds migrate, the proximate answer might be that the change in daylight triggers migratory behaviour through activation of hormone production. An ultimate answer to that question would focus on the fitness benefits gained from increased food availability and avoidance of adverse weather conditions in northern cl...

Recombinant inbred systems can advance research in behavioral ecology

“…The field of behavioral ecology seeks to understand causes and consequences of variation in complex behavioral phenotypes with a focus on ecological and social conditions to which behavior may be adapted (Krebs and Davies, 1978 ; Davies et al, 2012 ; Hager and Gini, 2012 ). To this end, studies have long relied on what Grafen ( 1984 ) termed the “phenotypic gambit;” the assumption that the phenotypic traits in question, be they life history strategies or behavioral patterns, are reflective of their underlying genetics, the details of which, however, are largely irrelevant to the models and predictions in question (Owens, 2006 ; Smiseth et al, 2008 ).…”