Modelling in Behavioural Ecology: An Introductory Text

✍ Scribed by Dennis Lendrem (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 225
• Series: Studies in Behavioural Adaptation
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In the early years of this century a Scottish doctor speculated on the evolutionary origin of human tears. It seemed to him that with the increase in brain size and cognitive powers of our early ancestors many events in the struggle for existence would be just too distressing to observe. How comforting then, for the mother, distraught by the sight of her child being devoured by a lion, to cloud her vision with a flood of tears! Just so, though if the good doctor had pondered further, the following picture might have occurred to him, comfortable in his speculative armchair, and given him some pause for thought. ~ ~. e , ~ ~ ~' I " . . ~. . - . . . . . ~ VII viii SERIES EDITOR'S FOREWORD These stories do not, of course, get us very far in explaining the evolution of tears or anything else, but they do remind us how far the study of beha­ vioural adaptation has come this century. This is, in fact, an exciting time for students of behaviour. The last twenty years have seen a great advance in the theoretical armoury for tackling problems of behavioural evolution and adaptation, and a parallel expansion in empirical studies, particularly in the field. The concepts of inclusive fitness and evolutionary stability, for example, have helped to explain major features of social behaviour and have generated entirely new questions and predictions for the field worker to examine.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages N2-x
Introduction....Pages 1-6
Mathematical Methods....Pages 7-34
Optimising a Single Behaviour 1: Optimal Foraging Theory....Pages 35-57
Optimising a Single Behaviour 2: Stochastic Models of Foraging Behaviour....Pages 58-82
Temporal Patterns: Vigilance in Birds....Pages 83-102
Behaviour Sequences: Feeding and Vigilance....Pages 103-122
Short-term and Long-term Optimality Models: Territoriality....Pages 123-161
Games Theory Models: Social Behaviour....Pages 162-195
Conclusions....Pages 196-206
Back Matter....Pages 207-214

✦ Subjects

Science, general