How do natural selection and adaptation explain behavior?

Question

Josephine Allen · Accepted Answer

Natural selection and adaptation shapes behaviour as the other phenotypic traits. The most successful behaviours are more likely to reproduce and survive. An individual can also change its behaviour in certain limits depending the situation it faces.

On a scale ranging from shy to bold, scientists quantify an individual's behavior based on its response to a novel object, its tendency to remain relatively close to a predator, its behavior in an unfamiliar setting, etc. Like most other individual traits, the behavior has a genetic basis and can be passed down through the parents. It is also influenced by environmental factors. Bolder individuals will tend to take more risk than shy individuals, and thus, to forage more. If we consider the behavior of foraging, for instance, an individual faces a compromise: foraging more to acquire more energy, but being more likely predated, or foraging less, acquiring less energy, but being less likely predated. Therefore, timid individuals will be selected in a population that faces predators because they have a survival advantage. In contrast, in a population that does not face predators, bold individuals have a higher chance of surviving and procreating because they have more energy to devote to growth and reproduction (acquired by foraging more). Here, general behavior within a population is influenced by natural selection through predation, as is the case with other behaviors like aggression, mating,...

Roman Acosta · Answer

undefined Natural selection and adaptation explain behavior by suggesting that certain behaviors increase an organism's chances of survival and reproduction, leading to their prevalence in a population over time. Behaviors that enhance survival and reproduction are favored by natural selection because they increase the likelihood of passing on beneficial traits to future generations. Over successive generations, individuals with these adaptive behaviors become more common within the population, while behaviors that are less advantageous tend to decrease in frequency. As a result, behaviors that aid in survival and reproduction become characteristic of a species, shaping its behavioral repertoire in response to environmental pressures.