BIOL 321 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Proximate And Ultimate Causation, Adrenal Gland, House Finch
1 Aug 2017
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Proximate and ultimate causation can complement each other but sometimes proximate causes are defined as those that are not evolutionary in nature: there are fundamental links between the 2, ie. Looking at mal agressivness if we know something about the natural selection pressure that acted on the trait that can then help us develop a proximate cause for it. Ie. if we think males direct aggression towards other males to get food (ultimate causation) we would then focus on different proximate causes vs. if males showed aggression to other males during breeding season. Both proximate and ultimate causation are equally important. In proximate analysis we are working with factors that operate within the lifetime of an organism, in the here and now; not looking at the adaptionist or phylogentic argument. In ultimate causation we are looking at what evolutionary forces have operated in the past, how they operate now and how the forces might operate in the future.
