Essays in Animal Behaviour

Recently, the 50th anniversary of the publication of Animal Behaviour has passed. To mark the occasion, a group of prominent behaviourists have written essays relevant to their fields. These essays provide a glimpse of the study of behaviour looking in all directions. History and future aside, it is imperative to broadcast this information from the perspective of the behaviourists who have helped shape both the past and the future. It is important for any field to be both retrospective and prospective: where have we been, where are we going, where are we now? These essays provide a unique personal reflection on the history of animal behaviour from John Alcock, Stuart and Jeanne Altmann, Steve Arnold, Geoff Parker, and Felicity Huntingford. Six topics are reflected on and include: The History of Animal Behavioural Research, Proximate Mechanisms, Development, Adaptation, and Animal Welfare.

1) Introduction1. 50 years of Animal Behaviour.2) The history of behavioural research2. A textbook history of animal behaviour.3. Behavioural Ecology: natural history as science4. The transformation of behaviour field studies.5. Too much natural history, or too little?6. A history of Animal Behaviour by a partial, ignorant and prejudiced ethologist..3) Proximate mechanisms7. Genes and social behaviour.8. Control of behavioural strategies for capricious environments.9. Costing reproduction. 4) Development10. The promise of behavioural biology.11. Making a decision by integrating socially and individually acquired information.12. Behavioural processes affecting development: Tinbergen's fourth question comes of age.13. The case for developmental ecology.5) Adaptation14. Beyond extra-pair paternity: individual constraints, fitness components, and social mating systems15. Interplay between theory and empiricism in sexual selection.16. Indirect selection and individual selection in sociobiology: my personal views on theories of social behaviour.17. Honesty and deception in animal signals.18. Fifty years of bird song research: a case study in animal behaviour.19. Avian navigation: from historical to modern concepts.6) Animal Welfare20. Behaviour and animal welfare.