Lecture 1 – Behavioural Ecology

Lecture 1 – Behavioural Ecology

06.01.25

·        Behavioural Ecology

·        A. What is it?

o   Behavioural ecology is the scientific study of behavioural phenomena in the light of ecological and evolutionary theory  

o   Not just behaviour, but eg sex systems, sex ratios; things that affect behvaiour or are affected by behaviour

§  Endocrine systems

§  Developmental processes

§  Choice, preferences à result in behaivour but are internal

o   It is not:

§  Behavioural genetics

§  Biologically deterministic

·        E.g. there is not actually a single geen affefting something like parental care, but sometimes “genetics” used heuristically

·        There are genes involved, but many, very complicated

§  Not about homo sapiens primarily

·        It is

o   Adaptationist

§  Focus on adaptive tratis = properties of organimss that enhance the probability of surviving and reproducing

§  Adaptation: the evolutionary process by which organisms fit better into their environments or habitats

§  Eg. adaptation = birds flight è wingsà large chest muscles, hollow light bones, aerodynamic body structure, feathers, powerful ehart and respiratory system

o   Selectionist

§  Natural selection is the force that “designs” or drives adaptations (behavioural, physiological, structural)

o   Comparative

§  Comparing across taxa, sexes, etc. can illuminate adaptation

·        Why study behavioural ecology?

o   Improve the use of animals and plants (hunting, domestication, testing, pest control)

o   Animal welfare and ecological conservation depend on it

o   Better understand our own species

o   Inherently interesting!

·        Who studies behavioural ecology?

o   Evolutionary biologists

o   Population and community ecologists

o   Zoologists

o   Psychologists

o   Physiologists

o   Geneticists

o   Neuroscientists

o   Endocrinologists

o   Anthropologists

o   Eco-toxicologists

o   Conservation biologists

o   Wildlife resource managers

o   Animal breeders

·        B. How did it develop as a discipline?

o   Behavioural ecology unites two traditions

o   1. Ethology --- the study of behaviour under natural conditions

§  Pioneered by Nikolas Tinbergen, Konrad Lorenz & Karl von Frisch)

o   2. Evolutionary Biology --- the study of how organisms have come to be, particularly how their features have been designed by natural selection

§  Darwin, lack, George Williams, trivers, W>D. Hamilton

·        Tradition 1: Ethology

o   Tinbergen, Lorenz, von Frisch è Nobel Prize in 1973 for starting the field of behavioural ecology (in Medicine, because there was no field)

o   Niko Tinbergen

§  Can only understand animals by studying them out in nature

§  Came up with scientific method: observations, alternative hypothesis, creating expected results if hypothesis is correct

o   Konrad Lorenz

§  Imprinting – importance of very early experience – got grey geese to imprint on him – they followed him and treated him like their mom

§  Later in life, the adults courted humans, not geese

o   Karl von Frisch

§  Realized there was communication in movement, in bees

§  Realized they gave eachother information on location/direction of sugar by their dance

o   Together the three got the nobel prize

·        The great insights of the classical ethologicsts was that they realized that just as each animal species had its characteristic anatomy, phy