. "Behavioral ecology is the study of the evolutionary basis for animal behavior due to ecological pressures. Behavioral ecology emerged from ethology after Niko Tinbergen outlined four questions to address when studying animal behavior which are the proximate causes, ontogeny, survival value, and phylogeny of behavior.If an organism has a trait which provides them with a selective advantage (i.e. has an adaptive significance) in a new environment natural selection will likely favor it."@en . .