Animal Behaviour (V1)

Why should we bother studying animal behavior? Well, first and foremost, because we are interested in understanding why animals do what they do. There are lots of other reasons for studying animal behavior. Conservation biologists need to know what animals do if they're going to save them. Are those animals social or solitary? How much space do they need and how many mates do they have? Sometimes you can't predict the outcome of the research. Fernando Nottebohm started out being interested in how birds know what to sing. Yet his research eventually led to a complete overhaul of the entire field of neurobiology, a totally unanticipated yet utterly monumental effect. And this is the course textbook by John Alcock. The fact that this is in its ninth edition tells you how fast a field animal behavior is. There are lots of new developments.