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In biology,a colony is composed of two or more conspecific individuals living in close association with,or connected to,one another. This association is usually for mutual benefit such as stronger defense or the ability to attack bigger prey.
Behavioral ecology,also spelled behavioural ecology,is the study of the evolutionary basis for animal behavior due to ecological pressures. Behavioral ecology emerged from ethology after Niko Tinbergen outlined four questions to address when studying animal behaviors:What are the proximate causes,ontogeny,survival value,and phylogeny of a behavior?
Group selection is a proposed mechanism of evolution in which natural selection acts at the level of the group,instead of at the level of the individual or gene.
Richard D. Alexander was an American zoologist who was a professor at the University of Michigan and curator at the university's museum of zoology of in Ann Arbor,Michigan. His scientific pursuits integrated the fields of systematics,ecology,evolution,natural history and behavior. The salient organisms in his research are wide-ranging,from the orthopterans and Cicadidae (cicadas) to vertebrates:dogs,horses,and primates,including humans.
In biology,altruism refers to behaviour by an individual that increases the fitness of another individual while decreasing the fitness of themselves. Altruism in this sense is different from the philosophical concept of altruism,in which an action would only be called "altruistic" if it was done with the conscious intention of helping another. In the behavioural sense,there is no such requirement. As such,it is not evaluated in moral terms—it is the consequences of an action for reproductive fitness that determine whether the action is considered altruistic,not the intentions,if any,with which the action is performed.
The name army ant(or legionary ant or marabunta) is applied to over 200 ant species in different lineages. Because of their aggressive predatory foraging groups,known as "raids",a huge number of ants forage simultaneously over a limited area.
Helena Cronin is a British Darwinian philosopher and rationalist. She is the co-director of the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science and the Darwin Centre at the London School of Economics. Her 1991 book,The Ant and the Peacock:Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today brought her public attention;she has published and broadcast widely since.
Haplodiploidy is a sex-determination system in which males develop from unfertilized eggs and are haploid,and females develop from fertilized eggs and are diploid. Haplodiploidy is sometimes called arrhenotoky.
Monogamous pairing in animals refers to the natural history of mating systems in which species pair bond to raise offspring. This is associated,usually implicitly,with sexual monogamy.
Sociality is the degree to which individuals in an animal population tend to associate in social groups (gregariousness) and form cooperative societies.
Parental care is a behavioural and evolutionary strategy adopted by some animals,involving a parental investment being made to the evolutionary fitness of offspring. Patterns of parental care are widespread and highly diverse across the animal kingdom. There is great variation in different animal groups in terms of how parents care for offspring,and the amount of resources invested by parents. For example,there may be considerable variation in the amount of care invested by each sex,where females may invest more in some species,males invest more in others,or investment may be shared equally. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed to describe this variation and patterns in parental care that exist between the sexes,as well as among species.
Laurent Keller is a Swiss evolutionary biologist,myrmecologist and author. He was a professor at the University of Lausanne from 1996 to 2023. In March 2023,the journal Science reported that sexual harassment allegations were leveled against Keller. According to the Science article,the University of Lausanne sent an email to staff in February of 2023 to inform them that Laurent Keller no longer works there.
Eusociality,the highest level of organization of sociality,is defined by the following characteristics:cooperative brood care,overlapping generations within a colony of adults,and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups. The division of labor creates specialized behavioral groups within an animal society which are sometimes referred to as 'castes'. Eusociality is distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform at least one behavior characteristic of individuals in another caste. Eusocial colonies can be viewed as superorganisms.
Mary Jane West-Eberhard is an American theoretical biologist noted for arguing that phenotypic and developmental plasticity played a key role in shaping animal evolution and speciation. She is also an entomologist notable for her work on the behavior and evolution of social wasps.
Monogyny is a specialised mating system in which a male can only mate with one female throughout his lifetime but the female may mate with more than one male. In this system the males generally provide no paternal care. In many spider species that are monogynous,the males have two copulatory organs,which allows them to mate a maximum of twice throughout their lifetime. As is commonly seen in honeybees,ants and certain spider species,a male may put all his energy into a single copulation,knowing that this will lower his overall fitness. During copulation monogynous males have adapted to cause self genital damage or even death to increase their chances of paternity.
Jon Allen Seger is an American evolutionary ecologist,and Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of Utah. He helped develop the theory of bet-hedging in biology. His work has appeared in leading scientific journals such as Nature,Science,Nature Genetics,Molecular Biology and Evolution,Journal of Evolutionary Biology,as well as popular magazines such as Scientific American.
Eusociality evolved repeatedly in different orders of animals,notably termites and the Hymenoptera. This 'true sociality' in animals,in which sterile individuals work to further the reproductive success of others,is found in termites,ambrosia beetles,gall-dwelling aphids,thrips,marine sponge-dwelling shrimp,naked mole-rats,and many genera in the insect order Hymenoptera. The fact that eusociality has evolved so often in the Hymenoptera,but remains rare throughout the rest of the animal kingdom,has made its evolution a topic of debate among evolutionary biologists. Eusocial organisms at first appear to behave in stark contrast with simple interpretations of Darwinian evolution:passing on one's genes to the next generation,or fitness,is a central idea in evolutionary biology.
In behavioral ecology,polyandry is a class of mating system where one female mates with several males in a breeding season. Polyandry is often compared to the polygyny system based on the cost and benefits incurred by members of each sex. Polygyny is where one male mates with several females in a breeding season . A common example of polyandrous mating can be found in the field cricket of the invertebrate order Orthoptera. Polyandrous behavior is also prominent in many other insect species,including the red flour beetle and the species of spider Stegodyphus lineatus. Polyandry also occurs in some primates such as marmosets,mammal groups,the marsupial genus' Antechinus and bandicoots,around 1% of all bird species,such as jacanas and dunnocks,insects such as honeybees,and fish such as pipefish.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to evolution:
Liselotte Sundström is a Finnish zoologist. She is professor emerita of evolutionary biology at the University of Helsinki.
References
- ↑ Biology, Department of (2008-06-25). "Staff". www1.bio.ku.dk. Retrieved 2022-07-05.
- ↑ Boomsma, J. (2007) Kin selection versus sexual selection: why the ends do not meet. Current Biology 17:R673-R683.
- ↑ Boomsma, J. (2009) Lifetime monogamy and the evolution of eusociality. Phil. Trans. of the Royal Society, B Series 364:3191-3208.
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