Understanding behavioural responses and their consequences

Abstract

This chapter presents the conceptual framework necessary to understand how changes in behaviour occur at the population level and mentions the tools used in measuring the said changes. It outlines the Price equation which decomposes the mean change exhibited by a population into four components: viability selection, within-individual changes over their lifetime, fecundity selection, and parent-offspring differences. It looks into mechanisms such as phenotypic plasticity, learning, genetic adaptation, maternal effects, and cultural evolution and examines them through their influences on the four components. It considers behaviour as a phenotypic trait that can have genetic basis while also depending on the environment, and also emphasizes fitness-related behaviours and their consequences on birth and death rates. Show more