BSC 385 Lecture 9: Chapter 6
6 Feb 2017
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Alarm calls: warn other colony members of a predator"s presence, increase the probability that the caller will fall prey. Behaviors that are genetically controlled are subject to natural selection. Like other traits, each behavior has both a fitness cost and benefit. Selection favors behaviors for which the benefits outweigh the costs. Behaviors are result of genetic make-up as well as environment and experience of an individual: few behaviors are purely genetically fixed or purely the result of the environment, behavioral plasticity is itself an adaptation. The relative contributions of the environment and genetics in behavior can be measured as heritability. Broad sense heritability (h^2): the proportion of the total variation that is due to genetic differences among individuals. Phenotypic variation vp = vg + ve. H^2 = vg/vp: vg genetic variation among individuals, ve environmental variation, vp total phenotypic variation. Narrow sense heritability (h^2): the proportion of the total phenotypic variance that is due to additive genetic variance.
