Animal and human behavior to maximize energy income and to minimize its expenditure

The viability and competitiveness of any living organism depend on its ability (1) to get the maximum of energy/resources and (2) to save maximum of obtained energy and to reduce its expenditure. Behavioral traits to achieve these goals listed above include different forms of territorial and social behavior, overconsumption of resources, temporal suppression of energy-demanding activity, as well as some kinds of individual protective behavior towards minimization of energy expenditure for manual and intellectual labor. In addition to these measures, in modern humans the increase in energy consumption: energy expenditure rate can be achieved not only by cooperation in increase of the efficiency of biological processes, but also in the application of instruments. The technical progress aims to unleash the people from energy-demanding labor, to get as much energy for covering their biological needs by investment of minimum of their own bioenergy. The present interdisciplinary approach enables a better understanding of the behavioral strategies to maximize efficiency of energy metabolism and their good and bad consequences for individuals and the society as a whole.