L. Michael Romero and John C. Wingfield
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- December 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780195366693
- eISBN:
- 9780190456993
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195366693.003.0009
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience
This chapter shows how free-living animals respond to attack, either by predators or parasites. It is clear that infection, injury, population density, and competition trigger facultative and ...
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This chapter shows how free-living animals respond to attack, either by predators or parasites. It is clear that infection, injury, population density, and competition trigger facultative and presumably adaptive behavioral and physiological responses such as sickness behavior, dispersal, and irruptive migration. These responses, however, are modified by the individual’s social status and coping style (reactive or proactive). Most of these kinds of investigations have been conducted at least partially in the field, and therefore represent facultative responses under naturalistic conditions. Nonetheless, the sheer diversity and complexity of these responses and their relationships to age, gender, social status etc. present an almost daunting prospect for the future to tease apart common mechanisms and underlying themes that explain how life on Earth copes with a frequently capricious environment.Less
This chapter shows how free-living animals respond to attack, either by predators or parasites. It is clear that infection, injury, population density, and competition trigger facultative and presumably adaptive behavioral and physiological responses such as sickness behavior, dispersal, and irruptive migration. These responses, however, are modified by the individual’s social status and coping style (reactive or proactive). Most of these kinds of investigations have been conducted at least partially in the field, and therefore represent facultative responses under naturalistic conditions. Nonetheless, the sheer diversity and complexity of these responses and their relationships to age, gender, social status etc. present an almost daunting prospect for the future to tease apart common mechanisms and underlying themes that explain how life on Earth copes with a frequently capricious environment.
