Abstracts » Zoology and wildlife conservation

Adoption, memes and the Oedipus complex: a reply to Hansen

Article Abstract:

Adoption as a means of transferring behavioral traits is a valid theoretical concept in animal behavior research. Memes transmitted through parallel channels are not committed to any single method of social learning and transmission. Associating a meme with an extra transmission channel may increase its representation in the population. Positive assortative mating increases the frequency of a meme within the maternal lineage. The different means of phenotypical transmission explain their distribution in a population.

Criticism and interpretation, Hansen, Thomas F.

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Does adoption make evolutionary sense?

Article Abstract:

The theory that adoption makes evolutionary sense when the representation of a mother's phenotype in the next generation is raised by behavioral transmission is questionable . Controversy surrounds the ability of certain traits to aid in cultural transmission. A trait aiding transmission may also correlate genetically or phenotypiclly with the traits it helps transmit. The evolutionary sense of behavioral transmission is unclear, and a mechanism for the behavioral evolution of adoption is yet to be formulated.

Behaviorism (Psychology), Behaviorism

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Play fighting does not affect subsequent fighting success in wild meerkats

Article Abstract:

Data from a wild population of meerkats, 'Suricata suricatta', a cooperatively breeding mongoose that shows marked reproductive skew, was used to examine whether play experience improved an individual's subsequent fighting ability. One of the results showed no sex difference in frequency of play fighting.

South Africa, Behavior, Animal fighting, Meerkats, Meerkat

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