МОСКОВСКИЙ ЭТОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ СЕМИНАР

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ИГРОВОЕ ПОВЕДЕНИЕ

ROBERT M. FAGEN
(University of Illinois, USA)

PLAY BEHAVIOR IN ANIMALS: ETHOLOGY, ECOLOGY, EVOLUTION

Recent observational studies have shown increased fitness in individual animals as a result of increased rates of play behavior. These findings have been obtained independently from four different studies – four different groups of researchers and four different species worldwide. The mechanism for such enhanced fitness remains completely unknown. One consequence of these findings is as interesting as it is perhaps inconvenient – previous studies relating fitness to early experience in species that play may be confounded by a failure to control for the amount of play experienced by the studied animals. Fitness benefits of play due to enhanced behavioral flexibility and adaptability, as argued on independent grounds by Patrick Bateson and Paul Martin, are a strongly preferred but not yet verified mechanistic hypothesis.

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