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The concept of "reciprocal altruism", as introduced by Trivers, suggests that altruism, defined as an act of helping another individual while incurring some cost for this act, could have evolved since it might be beneficial to incur this cost if there is a chance of being in a reverse situation where the individual who was helped before may perform an altruistic act towards the individual who ...
In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system (or a non-linear system) is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. [1] [2] Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, [3] [4] [5] physicists, [6] [7] mathematicians, and many other scientists since most systems are inherently nonlinear in nature. [8]
Classical conditioning occurs when a conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US). Usually, the conditioned stimulus is a neutral stimulus (e.g., the sound of a tuning fork), the unconditioned stimulus is biologically potent (e.g., the taste of food) and the unconditioned response (UR) to the unconditioned stimulus is an unlearned reflex response (e.g., salivation).
For example, in paper wasp species, Agelaia pallipes, social facilitation is used to recruitment to food resources. By using chemical communication, A. pallipes pool the independent search efforts to locate and defend food sources from other organisms. [19] Social facilitation is sometimes used to develop successful social scavenging strategies.
Collective animal behaviour is a form of social behavior involving the coordinated behavior of large groups of similar animals as well as emergent properties of these groups. This can include the costs and benefits of group membership, the transfer of information, decision-making process, locomotion and synchronization of the group.
Synchronous behavior is also threatened when animals in a mixed-sex herd have differing nutritional or physical necessities. This causes group instability which often splits the herd up into two separate groups; generally all male and all female, to recreate the mimetic behavior in a smaller, same-sex group that has more similar needs to the individual. [5]
The Lotka–Volterra system of equations is an example of a Kolmogorov population model (not to be confused with the better known Kolmogorov equations), [2] [3] [4] which is a more general framework that can model the dynamics of ecological systems with predator–prey interactions, competition, disease, and mutualism.
The solution of the equations, by either analytical or numerical means, describes how the biological system behaves either over time or at equilibrium. There are many different types of equations and the type of behavior that can occur is dependent on both the model and the equations used. The model often makes assumptions about the system.