6. Winning strategies

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.

5. Signals for survival

Animals communicate in numerous ways. Usually, when animals communicate, the receiver of the communication responds by changing its behaviour. Communication can use any one or more of the senses including vision, hearing, smell and taste, touch, and electric senses. ‘Signals for survival’ explains that across the animal kingdom, signals within a species are generally honest. Cheating is pointless when the benefits from a signal are mutual, but broadcast signals can be eavesdropped by other species. Communication is risky when a signal appears to be from a potential mate, but is instead being made by a deceptive predator. Interspecies communication is also discussed, along with details of honeybee dances and vervet monkey alarm calls.

1. How animals behave (and why)

Behaviour is a key way in which animals interact with their world: how animals find and choose mates, look after their young, find food, avoid becoming food for predators, and build nests and burrows. ‘How animals behave (and why)’ describes how the study of animals has changed through time and highlights some key figures in the development of the science, including Margaret Washburn, Charles H. Turner, Ivan Pavlov, and Richard Dawkins. It also considers Niko Tinbergen’s four questions for examining animal behaviour: What is it for? How did it develop during the lifetime of the individual? What mechanisms control the behaviour? How did it evolve over evolutionary time?