Latest Behavioral ecology Stories

ETH Zurich In their environment, wild animals are exposed to countless threats, be they predators, diseases or natural obstacles to get over, such as gorges or rivers. In the course of evolution, they have developed specific behavioral responses to allow them to deal with these risks. In recent times, numerous man-made threats have been added to the naturally-existing ones, such as dangerous roads to cross. On the evolutionary time scale, it is excluded that the animals have evolved a...

Using simple robots to simulate genetic evolution over hundreds of generations, Swiss scientists provide quantitative proof of kin selection and shed light on one of the most enduring puzzles in biology: Why do most social animals, including humans, go out of their way to help each other? In next week's issue of the online, open access journal PLoS Biology, EPFL robotics professor Dario Floreano teams up with University of Lausanne biologist Laurent Keller to weigh in on the oft-debated...

In 1964 biologist William Hamilton introduced Inclusive Fitness Theory to predict and explain phenomena ranging from animal behavior to patterns of gene expression. With its many successes, the theory became a cornerstone for modern biology. In August, 2010, Harvard researchers challenged the theory in the prestigious journal, Nature. Now Nature has published sharp rebuttals from scores of scientists, including Edward Allen Herre and William Wcislo, staff scientists at the Smithsonian...

Work addresses limitations of kin selection, a dominant theory since the 1960sScientists at Harvard University have sketched a new map of the "evolutionary labyrinth" species must traverse to reach eusociality, the rare but spectacularly successful social structure where individuals cooperate to raise offspring.Mathematical biologists Martin A. Nowak and Corina E. Tarnita and evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson present their work this week in the journal Nature. Their modeling...

To understand how climate change may affect species survival, we need to understand how climate influences their time-keeping.New research published in the journal Biological Reviews points to time as a major factor in determining whether a species is capable of surviving in a particular habitat.In their paper "˜Time as an ecological constraint' (Biological Reviews, August 2009), Professor Robin Dunbar of the University of Oxford, Dr Amanda Korstjens of Bournemouth University, and Dr Julia...

In the animal kingdom, everything is not as it seems. Individuals of the same species can look very different from each other - what biologists term 'polymorphism.' Sometimes the number of distinct visible forms - 'exuberant polymorphisms' -- in a single animal population can reach double figures. But why?Scientists at the University of York have developed computer models that may help to explain how this level of variation arises and persists. Their research is reported in the latest issue...

Scottish and English scientists say a study supports the depiction of insects in the films Antz and Bee Movie, in which insects live in conformist societies. The scientists from the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford said they created a mathematical model to study the evolution of cooperative groups of animals, known as superorganisms. The study identifies scenarios in which groups act as a unit. We often see animals appearing to move in unison, such as bison or fish. However, what looks...