A Workshop in Ecology and Behaviour seminar hosted by the School of Biological Sciences
The study of animal behaviour is defined by Tinbergen’s Four Questions. But before Tinbergen, the palaeontologist G. G. Simpson posed a question of his own: How does behaviour evolve and how does it then determine subsequent evolution? Yet Simpson’s question has largely been forgotten. Far more work has considered how behaviour is adaptive than how it contributes to subsequent evolution. In this talk, I will explain why the answers to Simpson’s Question matter now, and describe some experiments that show us how behaviour can affect the course of evolution.
Our research focuses on the burying beetle (or sexton beetle), an insect that is abundant in European woodlands The natural history of these animals, and their capacity to undergo experimental evolution in the lab, and lets us test directly how behaviour influences evolution.
Read more about Rebecca's research here