Behavioral Ecology

Behavioral Ecology is the ways that organisms respond to each other and to particular cues in the environment.

Behavioral Ecology?
"how individual animals interact with other animals, plants and their physical environment to maximize fitness."
-how animals interact with their food resources.
-how they interact with their mates.
-how they interact with other members of their social groups.

Innate behavior (Instinctual behavior)
-referred as a fixed action pattern(stereotypical fashion)

Learned behavior (environmental determined)
-behaviors involve a complex interaction between innate and learned 
  elements.


Mating System refer to the nature of the relationships among males and females during breeding.

There are 3 components:
 a) the number of mates an individual takes
 b) whether the male and female form a pair bond that is remain together for at least one mating.
 c) the duration of the pair bond ( driven by sexual selection and the demography of the species)

Polygyny
"Males mate with more than one female"
- resources are clumped
- temporal distribution of potential mates
- sex ratio

Polyandry
"Females mate with more than one female"
- males provide most of the parental care.
- females defend the resources.
- sex ratio.

Monogamy
"One male mates with one female"
-uniform distribution of resources
-share parental care for the young
males defend resources rather than female
sex ratio.