Adaptive behavior (ecology)
[1] Examples include favoring kin in altruistic behaviors, sexual selection of the most fit mate, and defending a territory or harem from rivals.
Examples might include altruistic behaviors which do not favor kin, adoption of unrelated young, and being a subordinate in a dominance hierarchy.
Kin selection (commonly referred to as altruism) is an example of an adaptive behavior that directly influences the genetic composition of a population.
[4] This will result in population gene frequency variation over successive generations, based on the interactions between related individuals.
[5] Kin selection has played a large role in the evolution of social and adaptive behaviors in chimpanzees.
Closely related chimpanzees will form a kin group that cooperates to protect a territory, thereby increasing their access to females and resources.
[6] By working together with close relatives, they can ensure that their genes will persist in the next generation, even if circumstances make them unable to reproduce themselves.
[6] This behavioral adaptation coincides with the chimpanzee's ability to distinguish kin from non-kin (referred to as visual kin selection) allowing chimps to formulate large, complex societies, where they use altruistic methods to ensure their genes persist in future generations.
[7] A wide variety of species, including lions, honeybees, and other insects have displayed kin selection as an adaptive behavior.
[13] Higher quality songs have been proven to act as the best defense mechanism in a variety of bird species, such as the red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus).
They are very protective of their territory because they spend a great deal of time and energy familiarizing themselves with the location and building a habitat.
[21] The male's increased size is advantageous because the larger individuals are able to compete for females, and subsequently defend their offspring, which grow inside empty snail shells until birth.
In contrast to the males, the female fish must remain small in order to lay eggs inside the snail shells.
Currently, we live in a world experiencing great changes at a fast rate, mostly due to anthropogenic impacts on organisms and the environment.
An organism's behavioral strategies and ability to adapt will determine how they respond under different environmental conditions.
Fitness is a common measure of adaptive success, and can be defined as the number of descendants left over after a group exhibits a particular behavioral strategy.
[24] Successful strategies will result in increased survival and reproduction, which in turn can be characterized as a profitable behavioral adaptation.
