Behavioral ecology is fast becoming a threatened discipline says scientists

Endangered species and a threatened discipline: behavioural ecology

Tim Caro and Paul W. Sherman

Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Volume 26, Issue 3, 111-118, 24 January 2011

In this paper the researchers Tim Caro and Paul W. Sherman give vent to their apprehensions that behavioral ecology is fast becoming a threatened discipline in human-dominated landscapes. They say behavioural ecologists often see little connection between the current conservation crisis and the future of their discipline.  They go on to add that this view is myopic because our abilities to investigate and interpret the adaptive significance and evolutionary histories of behaviours are increasingly being compromised in human-dominated landscapes because of species extinctions, habitat destruction, invasive species, pollution, and climate change.

The researchers apprehend that many central issues in behavioural ecology will soon become prohibitively difficult to investigate and interpret, thus impeding the rapid progress that characterizes the field. They advocate that to address these challenges, behavioural ecologists should design studies not only to answer basic scientific questions but also to provide ancillary information for protection and management of their study organisms and habitats, and then share their biological insights with the applied conservation community.

On the whole this paper is very thought provoking.