An animal’s behaviour is the most flexible part of its phenotype. Researchers in this theme investigate how animal behaviour provides a first line of defence for coping with a new and adverse world, enabling individuals to be highly responsive to a changeable social, ecological and physical environment. We analyse why some animals are more sociable than others, and how their social interactions drive the further evolution of adaptive behaviour and morphology. We determine how individual neurones cause a behaviour to happen, by analysing how sensory perception connects through to action. Our work investigates how behaviour and bodies develop under changeable environmental conditions.
Groups and group leaders in this theme:
Image: Ants Photo: François Brassard