The following thesis offers a philosophical critique of sociobiology, which is identified as a recent attempt to produce a general theory of animal behaviour, encompassing an account of human nature. The first chapter examines the empirical and theoretical foundations of sociobi…
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Animal mating systems are often characterized by intense competition for mates and resources. Despite how common this conflict is, mating systems exist in which some adult males of breeding age seem to not participate. These apathetic males may be exhibiting alternative reproduc…
Modern birds are the most diverse group of living tetrapods, and vital to their success is the evolution of an extremely efficient respiratory system, which supplies them with the oxygen necessary to cope with the energetic demands of other aspects of their "high performance" bi…
The common sandpiper is an Afro-Palearctic migrant that is declining across Europe. Studies have suggested that environmental conditions during winter are likely to be important determinants of their population trends, but these trends differ between breeding regions suggesting …
Forest-savanna transitions are often discussed as systems that operate next to each other withdistinct woody species and separated into pyrogenic and non-pyrogenic systems with sharptransition between the two systems. It is often hypothesized that fires cannot enter closed canop…
La presente investigación tiene como objetivo vincular con el desarrollo histórico de la etología contemporánea los debates anticartesianos que se llevaron a cabo en Francia los primeros cincuenta años del siglo XVIII. Dicha vinculación se hará por medio del estudio histórico de…
The revolution in sequencing technologies has greatly advanced our understanding of genomes. Many regulatory elements lacking protein-coding ability, such as long non-coding RNAs have been identified and characterized in different biological contexts. However, functional interro…
A surge of recent research suggests that current and future shifts in marine species' distributions are ultimately driven by physiological responses to environmental variation. These observations and predictions are important because changes in species' distributions cause ecolo…
Environmental temperatures are among the most significant factors affecting the ecology, behaviour, and evolution of organisms across all levels of biological organization. As such, understanding the impacts that natural thermal regimes have on organisms is central to the study …
Fishers (Pekania pennanti) were reintroduced in West Virginia in 1969 with no population wide genetic analysis ever having been conducted. Genetic analysis of reintroduced populations is vital to assess genetic diversity as an indicative of population viability. My objective was…
Intraspecific competition is ubiquitous in nature and can fundamentally shape the individual life history. Competition occurs, and consequently influences life-history traits, through the direct effects of interference and indirect effects of exploitation. Importantly, it is the…
La cooperación en animales ha sido uno de los temas centrales en ecología y evolución durante las últimas décadas. Para explicar su origen y mantenimiento, se han propuesto una serie de mecanismos evolutivos dentro de los que destaca la selección de parentesco. Una predicción ce…
In this body of research, reproductive and adrenal hormones and behavior were used to evaluate individual and group responses to physiological, social, and environmental changes in zoo-housed Asian elephants, considering factors of sex, age, and life stage. Animals experience ph…
Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus) are an iconic genus of anadromous fish whose decline over the last century has linked indigenous peoples, government agencies, fishers, advocates, and scientists in the common, albeit messy, cause of salmon recovery. While the history of ecology, an…
White-tailed deer ( Odocoileus virginianus ) are hyperabundant in parts of Thousand Islands National Park because of their ecological impact on its forests. To manage the high number of deer on Hill Island, an annual population reduction occurs in the park. This study is intende…
Metabolism is a fundamental process of life that fuels vital biological processes including growth. The rates of metabolism and growth often correlate with other biological and ecological traits, including body size, in distinct ways. Thus, understanding variation in the body ma…
Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) is the study of trait evolution through variation in development. As early as the modern synthesis, it was recognized that to an understanding of the function of genes during development was critical to understanding evolution as a w…
Cultural evolution, or change in the socially learned behavior of a population over time, is a fascinating phenomenon that is widespread in humans and present in some non-human animals. In this dissertation, I present an array of cultural evolutionary studies that bridge pattern…
Across their life cycles, animals must make constant adjustments in physiology and behavior to meet predictable life-history demands while also accommodating unpredictable perturbations that affect individual survivorship. However, our ability to predict the behavioral and physi…
Social hierarchy formation is strongly evolutionarily conserved. Across species, rank within social hierarchy has large effects on health and behavior, with individuals from low ranks disproportionally suffering from physical and mental health disorders. The focus of this disser…