Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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?
For example, adaptive behavior is a mechanism of population stabilization. [23] In natural communities, organisms are able to interact with each other creating complex food webs and predator-prey dynamics. Adaptive behavior helps modulate the dynamics of feeding relationships by having a direct effect on their feeding traits and strategies. [23]
In evolutionary biology, adaptive radiation is a process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms, particularly when a change in the environment makes new resources available, alters biotic interactions or opens new environmental niches.
[18] [19] An example widely used today to study the interplay of adaptation and speciation is the evolution of cichlid fish in African lakes, where the question of reproductive isolation is complex. [20] [21] Adaptation is not always a simple matter where the ideal phenotype evolves for a given environment.
The brain: For example, Broca's area, a small section of the human brain, has a critical role in linguistic capability. Hormones: Chemicals used to communicate among cells of an individual organism. Testosterone, for instance, stimulates aggressive behaviour in a number of species.
Evolutionary progress as a tree of life. Ernst Haeckel, 1866 Lamarck's two-factor theory involves 1) a complexifying force that drives animal body plans towards higher levels (orthogenesis) creating a ladder of phyla, and 2) an adaptive force that causes animals with a given body plan to adapt to circumstances (use and disuse, inheritance of acquired characteristics), creating a diversity of ...
Examples of PARs include greater helmet development in Daphnia cucullata in response to maternal exposure to predator pheromones, [5] rats exposed to glucocorticoid during late gestation led to an intolerance to glucose as adults, [6] and coat thickness determination in vole pups by the photoperiod length experienced by the mother. [7]
An example of this is the evolution of avian flight, which was identified as a key innovation in 1963 by Ernst Mayr. [6] However, separate evolutionary changes had to occur throughout the physiology of the avian ancestor, including the enlargement of the cerebellum and the enlargement and ossification of the sternum .