BIOL 2101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Behavioral Ecology, Estrous Cycle, Ontogeny
3 Mar 2016
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Document Summary
Behaviour is what an organism does and the way it does it. Classically, behaviour was defined as the response of an organism to a stimulus. We study behaviour in different contexts: ultimate. Ethology study basic behaviour in response to a stimulus: old field. Behavioural ecology: what are the behaviours we see in the wild and why are they adaptive under these circumstances, fuse ecology and evolution. Huge cost to pay if your behaviour is maladaptive: won"t survive or reproduce. With humans, we go to the hospital, so we don"t count. Most of the time behaviours are selected upon and ultimately they are adaptive in the environment you see them. Ontogeny (development) and causation (sensory-motor: proximate (physiological) or mechanistic. Phylogeny (ancestry) and adaptation (function: ultimate or evolutionary. Causation: sex-linked genes (heredity, learning (environment, post-maturation (age, chemical cues (stimuli, testosterone (hormones, jaws vs. paws (muscular-skeletal) Phylogeny: mammalia (class, felidue (family, pantheroleo (genus/species) Adaptation: female"s oestrus, pup competition, hunting skills.
