Animal Behaviour Glossary A-C

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Adaptation

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A characteristic that confers higher inclusive fitness to individuals than any other existing alternative exhibited by other individuals within the population. A trait that has spread or is spreading or is being maintained in a population as a result of natural selection or indirect (kin) selection.

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Adaptationist

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A behavioral biologist who develops and tests hypotheses on the possible adaptive value of a particular trait. persons using an adaptationist approach to test whether a given trait enables individuals to propagate their special genes more effectively than if they had an alternative trait.

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Adaptive altruism

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Altruism that increases the helpers inclusive fitness, in contrast to maladaptive altruism, which decreases the helpers inclusive fitness.

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Adaptive value

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The contribution that a trait or gene makes to inclusive fitness.

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Altruism

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Helpful behaviour that raises the recipients direct fitness whilst lowering the donors direct fitness.

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Arms race

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The result of selection acting on two parties that are in opposition to one another, as in the increasing sophistication of defensive mechanisms in a species that is preyed upon by an increasingly sophisticated predator.

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Artificial selection

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A process that is identical to natural selection except that humans control the reproductive success of alternative types within the selected population.

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Associated reproductive pattern

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A seasonal change in reproductive behaviour that is tightly correlated with changes in the gonads and hormones, in contrast to a dissociated reproductive pattern, in which the onset of reproductive behaviour is apparently not triggered by a sharp change in circulating hormones.

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Behavioural strategy

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a genetically distinctive set of behavioural decision making rules exhibited by individuals.

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Brood parasite

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An animal that exploits the parental care of individuals other than its parents.

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By-product hypothesis

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An explanation for a maladaptive or nonadaptive attribute that is said to occur as a by-product of a proximate mechanism that has some other adaptive consequence for individuals.

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Central pattern generator

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A group of cells in the central nervous system that produces a particular pattern of signals necessary for a functional behavioural response.

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Chase-away selection

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The reciprocal, spiraling effects of males attempting to exploit female mate choice mechanisms while females are evolving resistance to these attempts.

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Coefficient of relatedness

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The probability that an allele present in one individual will be present in a close relative; the proportion of the total genotype of one individual present in the other as a result of shared ancestry.

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Comparative method

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A procedure for testing evolutionary hypotheses based on disciplined comparisons among species of known evolutionary relationships.

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Conditional stategy

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A set of rules that enables individuals to use different tactics under different environmental conditions; the inherited behavioural capacity to be flexible in response to certain cues or situations.

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Cost-benefit approach

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a method for studying the adaptive value of alternative traits based on the recognition that phenotypes come with fitness costs and fitness benefits. an adaptation has a better cost-benefit ration than alternative versions of that trait.

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Cryptic female choice

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The ability of a female in receipt of sperm from more than one male to choose whose sperm gets to fertilize her eggs.