BIOL 103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Proximate And Ultimate Causation, Behavioral Ecology, Instinct
25 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Ecology: study of how organisms interact with physical and biological environment. Behavioural ecology: investigates the ecological and evolutionary basis of behaviour of organisms in response to stimuli from their environments. All organisms respond to signals from environment, but behavioural research is mostly performed on vertebrates, arthropods, mollusks. Behavioural ecologists ask questions and test hypotheses at two levels proximate and ultimate. Behavioural studies begin by observing what animals do in response to problems or situations. Proximate causation: explains how actions occur in terms of neurological, hormonal and skeletal muscular mechanisms involved. Ultimate causation: explains why actions occur based on evolution and history. Efforts to explain these causations are complimentary. Innate, inflexible behaviour is rare: fixed action patterns are inflexible stereotyped behaviour patterns; these are called innate behaviour. Innate behaviour is inherited and shows little variation. This is how early work in behavioural biology began. Most animals have range of actions that they can perform in response to a situation.
