BioConcepts

behavioural plasticityVerhaltensplastizität (ger.)

• definition needed!
  category learning

  1898

  the growth of individual plasticity of behaviour, in race-development, would seem to be accompanied by a disintegration of the definiteness of instinctive response, natural selection favouring rather the plastic animal capable of indefinitely varied accommodation than the more rigid type whose adaptations are congenitally defined

  Lloyd Morgan, C.L. (1898). Instinct and intelligence in animals. Nature 57, 326-330: 330.

  1934

  These areas comprise a neural mechanism which allows the animal to react to environment stimuli with greater precision and a wider variety of possible adjustments, and makes possible an enhanced behavioural plasticity and increasing adaptability to changes in the environment.

  Clark, W.E. Le Gros (1934). Early Forerunners of Man. A Morphological Study of the Evolutionary Origin of the Primates: 169.

  1952

  Such ecological and behavioral plasticity would seem to be of definite survival value in thefar northern winter environment.

  Cade, T.J. (1952). Sub-nival feeding of the Redpoll in interior Alaska: a possible adaptation to the nothern winter. The Condor 55, 43-44: 44.