Costs

Behavioral costs can be broken down into three basic categories:

Energy costs Opportunity costs Risk costs

Energy costs

• Every animal behavior, such as running away from a

predator, uses up ATP. When an animal uses metabolic

energy for one behavior, such as searching for a mate,

that energy is not available for other needs, such as

searching for food.

Opportunity Costs

• Every animal behavior takes time. When an animal

spends time doing one behavior, it loses the opportunity

to do a different behavior

Risk Cost

• Many behaviors expose an individual to possible injury

or death. All animals have to look for food, but foraging

also increases the chance that an animal will meet a

predator. In many species, males risk injury by fighting

for access to females during the breeding season.

Social Behavior

Benefits of Social Behavior

Living in a social group provides significant benefits to individuals within the group.

 Living in a group may lead to improved foraging, as an individual can follow other members of the group to good feeding sites.

Immature or nonreproductive members of the group can provide assistance to those who do reproduce by helping to gather food for or protecting newborn members.