BIOL 3062 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Phasmatodea, Zebra Finch, Human Behavioral Ecology
Document Summary
How has the behaviour evolved: beware of, superficial understanding of deceptively easy concepts, ex. Comes up with very counterintuitive result: biased or value-laden wording, ex. Rape in ducks now called forced copulation: facilely leaping to conclusions about human behaviour, humans might behave quite differently than others, ex. Birds/mammals not suggesting humans follow same rules. To avoid being eaten by predators: but the beetle isn"t actually doing anything but survival ends up being the function of the beetle"s coloration, evolution by natural selection, variation in traits (ex. In songs, if you found relationship between parent/offspring value of trait then selection can work. To defend territories/attract mates: the function isn"t any of the above reasons. Lectures 3 & 4 methods: animals are not doing stuff for the good of the species, but rather for themselves, altruism, increasing another individual"s fitness (b) at a cost (c) to one"s own direct fitness, ex.
