Macroecologia do comportamento: padrões espaciais e temporais da agressividade letal intraespecífica dos mamíferos

Abstract

Macroecology focuses on the statistical description of patterns at large spatial, temporal, and taxonomic scales. This relatively recent area of Ecology also aims on revealing underlying ecological processes through correlative models. Many of these patterns, which are related to body size, life-history traits, and space occupation, are well documented and shown to be consistent across different taxa, environments, and regions. On the other hand, macroecology makes little progress in identifying and understanding the patterns and mechanisms related to animal behavior. The current availability of behavioral data and the knowledge gap in this area make behavioral macroecology an interesting and promising field for the development of future macroecological research. Intraspecific aggressiveness is a feature that has been widely investigated in field and laboratory research, especially in the mammal group. It is also an adaptive behavior, which may result from the action of ecological (eg environmental and social factors) and evolutionary (e.g. phylogenetic relationships) processesthat act over time and space. The advance of knowledge about this behavior was more restricted to studies at small scales, while the issues at macro-scales remain unresolved. In this dissertation, we describe the global geographic pattern and the evolutionary dynamics of intraspecific lethal aggressiveness, as well as its possible underlying mechanisms, using terrestrial mammals as a study model. In chapter 1, we used spatial analyzes to assess the effect (isolated and in combination) of food availability, photoperiod, social organization, and phylogenetic history on intraspecific lethal aggressiveness. In general, we observe that regionsthat are at higher latitudes are associated with a greater degree of intraspecific lethal aggressiveness. Furthermore, we identified that the joint effect of environmental and phylogenetic factors exerts a great influence on determining aggressive lethal behavior across the globe. In chapter 2, we used evolutionary model selection to characterize the dynamics ofintraspecific lethal aggressiveness diversification over time and analyze whether there is an evolutionary association with biparental care. We observe that high rates of intraspecific lethal aggressiveness diversification are recent in the mammalian lineage. In addition, we found an association between higher levels of lethal aggressiveness and strains with the presence of biparental care. Thus, we highlight possible roles that environmental, social, and historicalcomponents can play in determining the broad spatial and temporal patterns of intraspecific lethal aggressiveness in mammals. Finally, we highlight the importance of strengthening and developing "behavioral macroecology" in describing possible other existing behavioral patterns and in identifying their processes, physical, and biological laws that act on a large scale.