Individual variation in aggressiveness: ontogenesis and evolutionary consequences

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

My research aims to explain why some individuals are more aggressive than others. Natural and sexual selection ought to produce social behaviours which are approximately optimal in trading off the costs and benefits of aggression. Each individual ought to be trading-off ultimate, or evolutionary, costs and benefits across a number of time scales and currencies by "choosing" different life strategies. For example, a more aggressive male may be more successful in gaining a breeding territory, but pay higher physiological costs and be less attractive to females, or be less effective at parenting, than a less aggressive male. Understanding which traits are constrained by proximate mechanisms, which traits are physiologically linked, and covary is essential to understanding how evolution shapes this complex trait.