Genetic and environmental factors interact to generate the reaction norm and enable the adaptive integration of environmental information into the phenotype. For most traits - including behaviour - phenotypic plasticity decreases strongly during ontogeny. It has often been postulated that behaviour is a pace-maker of evolution but it has not been investigated in much detail how early ontogeny influences later behaviour. In an explicitly evolutionary context, our Research Unit will concentrate on studying how adult behavioural traits as a consequence of different social and foraging conditions during early ontogeny. Our approach emphasizes that plasticity is an adaptive mechanism building the adult behavioural phenotype during ontogeny. We will investigate the ontogenetic response to relevant ecological factors with an explicit focus on fitness effects of trait adjustments. We approach the problem in a comparative way concentrating on a few species from different taxa (mammals, birds, insects) for which we have massive prior experience. Addressing the issue by asking similar, conceptually closely related questions across projects on animals differing widely in life history traits should allow to extract generalities with regard to (1) the time of information uptake and phenotype change, and (2) the kind of changes that can be induced in important behavioural and life history parameters, and (3) the fit of such changes to the ontogenetic conditions experienced earlier and their adaptive value (i. e. costs and benefits).
|
Publications
|
