The geography of behaviour: an evolutionary perspective

Traditional approaches to the study of behaviour have typically assumed that behavioural patterns, especially elements of reproductive behaviour, are invariant within species. Recent research on a diversity of behavioural traits in a wide array of taxa provides evidence that genetically based geographic variation in behaviour is common. Comparisons of populations that display geographic variation in behaviour can offer substantial insight into mechanisms of adaptive divergence and constraining or generative roles of gene flow, initial stages of speciation, and the roles of phenotypic plasticity and ontogeny in determining patterns of behavioural evolution.