Journal of Phylogenetics & Evolutionary Biology

Behavioral Ecology Emerged from Ethology after Niko Tinbergen

Abstract

Roumi Ghosh*

Behavioral ecology, also spelled behavioural ecology, is that the study of the evolutionary basis for animal behavior thanks to ecological pressures. Behavioral ecology emerged from ethology after Niko Tinbergen outlined four inquiries to address when studying animal behaviors: What are the proximate causes, ontogeny, survival value, and phylogeny of a behavior?

If an organism features a trait that gives a selective advantage (i.e., has adaptive significance) in its environment, then survival favors it. Adaptive significance refers to the expression of a trait that affects fitness, measured by a person's reproductive success. Adaptive traits are people who produce more copies of the individual's genes in future generations. Maladaptive traits are people who leave fewer. for instance , if a bird which will call more loudly attracts more mates, then a loud call is an adaptive trait for that species because a louder bird mates more frequently than less loud birds—thus sending more loud-calling genes into future generations.