LIFESCI 3C03 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Estrous Cycle, Sexual Selection, Group Selection
20 Sep 2016
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Proximate explanations: explain how a given individual comes to behave in a particular way during its lifetime (ex. Ultimate explanations: explain why and how an individual has evolved the behavior (ex. Genes and behavior for behavior to evolve: there must be alternative alleles in the population, the differences must be heritable, and some behavioral alternatives must have a greater reproductive success. Selfishness vs group advantage sometimes behavior can evolve that is beneficial to the individual but not to the group (ex. Wynne edwards proposed that individuals control food consumption to prevent extinctions, restrict birth rate to prevent overpopulation, etc. Behavior for the good of the group (ex. Voluntary birth control in birds) will not evolve b/c it is unstable (there is nothing to prevent selfish behavior from one individual) Different individuals have different optimal clutch sizes depending on the environment, and the number of eggs laid dictates the brood size they can efficiently feed.
