University of Leeds (UOL)

How the behaviour of animals is adapted to their natural environment. By taking a behavioural ecology approach, the module integrates thinking about behaviour, ecology and evolution to understand how an animal’s behaviour is adapted. The course will focus on animal behaviour from sex to death, covering topics that may include: sexual selection, sperm competition, social learning, sex allocation, parental care, cooperative breeding and senescence. They will also explore how an animal’s behavi...

- The Phanerozoic: what happened; - The Cambrian Explosion; - The New Phylogeny; - Extinction and punctuated equilibrium; - Animal Origins: The evolution of multicellularity; - The axis-formers: The origin and evolution of bilaterial symmetry; - Major radiations: invertebrates; - Major radiations: vertebrates; - Adaptation: Natural and Sexual Selection; - Speciation; - History of evolutionary thought.

How the behaviour of animals evolves by natural selection, towards optimal solutions, highlighting basic principles and processes. - Introduction and methodology; - Levels of selection and the Comparative Method; - Development of behaviour: role of the environment, learning, role of genes; - Orientation, Navigation, Migration; - Optimal foraging, group foraging, foraging behaviour and social structure; - Information transfer and communication; - Competition and territoriality; - Predat...

How the behaviour of animals evolves by natural selection, towards optimal solutions, highlighting basic principles and processes.

Cooperative behaviour and altruism

Cooperative behaviours

The way in which animals migrate and navigate

Diverse types of mating systems in nature

How can the study of animal behaviour be applied?

Detailed seminar notes for financial remedies on divorce and dissolution, including a plan to a problem question.