Behavioural ecology often
makes the assumption that animals can respond flexibly by adopting the optimal
behaviour for each circumstance. However, as ethologists
have long known, behaviour is determined by mechanisms that are not optimal in
every circumstance. It is necessary to integrate these separate traditions by
considering the evolution of mechanisms, an approach referred to as ‘Evo-mecho’. This integration is timely because there
is a growing awareness of the importance of environmental complexity in shaping
behaviour; there are established and effective computational procedures for
simulating evolution and there is rapidly increasing knowledge of the neuronal
basis of decision-making. Although behavioural ecologists have built complex
models of optimal behaviour in simple environments, they need to focus on
simple mechanisms that perform well in complex environments.
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References |
McNamara, J.M. and Houston, A.I. (2009) Integrating function and mechanism. Trends. Ecol. Evol. 24, 670-675.