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In behavioral ecology, adaptive behavior is any behavior that contributes directly or indirectly to an individual's reproductive success, and is thus subject to the forces of natural selection. [1] Examples include favoring kin in altruistic behaviors , sexual selection of the most fit mate, and defending a territory or harem from rivals.
Behavioral ecology, also spelled behavioural 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: What are the proximate causes, ontogeny, survival value, and phylogeny of a behavior?
All organisms, from bacteria to humans, display maladaptive and adaptive traits. In animals (including humans), adaptive behaviors contrast with maladaptive ones. Like adaptation, maladaptation may be viewed as occurring over geological time, or within the lifetime of one individual or a group.
Aristotle recorded observations (around 350 BC) of the antipredator behaviour of cephalopods in his History of Animals, including the use of ink as a distraction, camouflage, and signalling. [78] In 1940, Hugh Cott wrote a compendious study of camouflage, mimicry, and aposematism, Adaptive Coloration in Animals. [6]
The adaptive traits may be structural, behavioural or physiological. Structural adaptations are physical features of an organism, such as shape, body covering, armament, and internal organization. Behavioural adaptations are inherited systems of behaviour, whether inherited in detail as instincts, or as a neuropsychological capacity for learning.
Adaptive behavior includes the age-appropriate behaviors necessary for people to live independently and to function safely and appropriately in daily life. Adaptive behaviors include life skills such as grooming, dressing, safety, food handling, working, money management, cleaning, making friends, social skills, and the personal responsibility ...
Sexual jealousy is another behavior observed in human and non-human animals that appears to be instinctual. Heuristic problem solving and consistent preference for behavioral patterns are considered by some evolutionary psychologists to be psychological adaptations. [9]
But animal psychopathologies can, from an evolutionary point of view, be more properly regarded as non-adaptive behaviors due to some sort of a cognitive disability, emotional impairment or distress. This article provides a non-exhaustive list of animal psychopathologies.