Affiliation:
1. Evolutionary and Behavioural Ecology Research Group, Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Abstract
Abstract
Behavioural ecology is an evolutionary-based discipline that attempts to predict how animals will behave in a given set of environmental circumstances and how those behavioural decisions will impact population growth and community structure. Given the rapidly changing state of the ocean environment it seems that this approach should be a beneficial tool for marine conservation, but its promise has not been fully realized. Since many conservation issues involve alterations to an animal’s habitat, I focus on how habitat selection models developed by behavioural ecologists may be useful in thinking about these sorts of problems, and mitigating them. I then briefly consider some other potential applications of behavioural ecology to marine conservation. Finally, I emphasize that the strength of a functional approach like behavioural ecology is that it allows predictions, from first principles, of responses to environmental changes outside the range of conditions already experienced and studied, and its models may be broadly generalizable across species and ecosystems.
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Ecology,Aquatic Science,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics,Oceanography
Cited by
9 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献