Endangered species and a threatened discipline: behavioural ecology

Abstract

Behavioural ecologists often see little connection between the current conservation crisis and the future of their discipline. 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. In this review, we argue 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. 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.