6. Winning strategies
2017 ◽
pp. 76-96
Keyword(s):
The field of behavioural ecology, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, offered new ideas and provided powerful ways of exploring how behaviour evolves. Behavioural ecology examines how the evolution of behaviour is related to an individual’s chance of survival or reproductive success. ‘Winning strategies’ considers the many successes of behavioural ecology in explaining different animal behaviours: the economic decisions made by certain species when feeding or during reproduction; the role of the sexes in parental care; mating systems; sperm competition and cryptic female choice; sexual conflict; altruistic behaviour; kin selection theory; cooperative breeding; and the evolution of eusociality.