Developmental constraints on behavioural flexibility.

ABSTRACT: We suggest that variation in mammalian behavioural flexibility not accounted for by current socioecological models may be explained in part by developmental constraints. From our own work, we provide examples of constraints affecting variation in behavioural flexibility, not only among individuals, but also among species and higher taxonomic units. We first implicate organizational maternal effects of androgens in shaping individual differences in aggressive behaviour emitted by female spotted hyaenas throughout the lifespan. We then compare carnivores and primates with respect to their locomotor and craniofacial adaptations. We inquire whether antagonistic selection pressures on the skull might impose differential functional constraints on evolvability of skulls and brains in these two or

SUBMITTER: Holekamp KE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3638453 | biostudies-literature | 2013 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature