2025-09-09 2

Essential Reading: Intro to Behavioural Ecology 4th Ed, Chapters 1&2, Recommended Ch 7&8

The study of how behavior evolves in relation to ecological, physical and social conditions

• More recently, these principles have been applied to more than just birds, insects and mammals - plants and microbes for example

Why does an organism do what it does? What function does it serve?

• Eat, reproduce and die

Reproductive decisions

• Examples: Burying beetle - easy to experiment on since they can live entirely in a terrarium and test hypotheses across all organisms
• Investment in young - Kiwi only lays one, very large egg with long gestational period
• Survival decisions - signal coloration, butterfly larva to mimic a snake, octopus carrying shells

Four-Question Framework for behavioural ecology

Fitness Proxy

Evolutionary Conflict

• Conflict over reproduction shapes behaviour

Conservation and Behaviour

• Using an understanding of animal behaviour to implement conservation decisions

Example: Barnacle geese

• Ideas on using behaviour to avoid conflict:
  • Provide alternative landing areas
  • simulate predators (scarecrow)

From the assigned reading:

Chapter 1: Natural selection, ecology and behaviour

Four-Question Framework
Behaviour and Genetics
Group Selection
Phenotypic Plasticity

Chapter 2: Testing hypotheses

Comparative Studies in Behavioural Ecology
Experimental Studies in Behvaioural Ecology