%0 Journal Article
%T Cucos, formigas, abelhas e a evolu£¿£¿o dos instintos
%A Ades
%A C¨¦sar
%J Boletim do Museu Paraense Em¨ªlio Goeldi. Ci¨ºncias Humanas
%D 2012
%I Museu Paraense Em¨ªlio Goeldi
%R 10.1590/S1981-81222012000100012
%X in this paper, i examine chapter vii of "the origin of species" (instinct), in which charles darwin applies evolutionary theory by natural selection to the instinct domain and lays the foundations of a biological analysis of behavior. darwin intended to show the possibility of gradual evolution in the case of complex behaviors such as brood parasitism in cuckoos, slave-making habits in ants and geometrical cell building in honey bees. darwin attributed functional value to behavioral characters, used the comparision of related species' behavior as a way to infer evolutionary stages, gave cost-and-benefit and optimization processes a role as selection criteria, took into account aspects of behavioral competition and manipulation and gave a group selection approach to the question of sterile castes of eusocial insects. more than results and solutions, darwin offered, in his chapter about instinct, a paradigm for the analysis of species typical behaviors, a true starting point for modern approaches such as ethology and behavioral ecology.
%K charles darwin
%K instinct
%K behavioral ecology
%K ethology.
%U http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1981-81222012000100012&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en