Zahoor-Salmi
Black-headed Gull
The fields of behavioral ecology and animal behavior were revolutionalized by the development of theories of optimization beginning in the late 1960s and 1970s, and the field of behavioral ecology is particularly reliant on an economic approach. Niko Tinbergen was the first animal behaviorist to illustrate the value of analyzing behavioral decisions based on tradeoffs between benefits and costs. He applied this concept to the removal of broken eggshells from the nest by black-headed gulls (Larus ridibundus; Tinbergen, 1953). He suggested that this behavior benefits the parents by reducing the risk of predation of the chick due to the conspicuous egg shell.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the application of this approach to foraging, in particular ‘optimal foraging theory’ (OFT), exploded. Somewhat as a reaction to this work, there were heated debates about the value of this approach. Critics of optimality theory argued vehemently that it was not reasonable to think that animals should behave in an optimal fashion. Supporters of optimization theory countered that the point was not that all animals make optimal decisions all of the time, but that consideration of the tradeoffs between costs and benefits may help us to understand the ultimate causation of behavior.
The debate, while heated, was likely beneficial in pushing behavioral ecologists and animal behaviorists toward our current use of dynamic optimization models and in addressing other limitations of simple optimization models. I discuss these issues in more depth under Limitations.
Black-headed Gull
The fields of behavioral ecology and animal behavior were revolutionalized by the development of theories of optimization beginning in the late 1960s and 1970s, and the field of behavioral ecology is particularly reliant on an economic approach. Niko Tinbergen was the first animal behaviorist to illustrate the value of analyzing behavioral decisions based on tradeoffs between benefits and costs. He applied this concept to the removal of broken eggshells from the nest by black-headed gulls (Larus ridibundus; Tinbergen, 1953). He suggested that this behavior benefits the parents by reducing the risk of predation of the chick due to the conspicuous egg shell.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the application of this approach to foraging, in particular ‘optimal foraging theory’ (OFT), exploded. Somewhat as a reaction to this work, there were heated debates about the value of this approach. Critics of optimality theory argued vehemently that it was not reasonable to think that animals should behave in an optimal fashion. Supporters of optimization theory countered that the point was not that all animals make optimal decisions all of the time, but that consideration of the tradeoffs between costs and benefits may help us to understand the ultimate causation of behavior.
The debate, while heated, was likely beneficial in pushing behavioral ecologists and animal behaviorists toward our current use of dynamic optimization models and in addressing other limitations of simple optimization models. I discuss these issues in more depth under Limitations.