Behavioral Unknowns: An Emerging Challenge for Conservation

Behavioral Unknowns: An Emerging Challenge for Conservation*

By Guillermo Paz-y-Mino C.

In 1995, Norman Myers defined “Environmental Unknowns” as those problems we had not even identified as yet but for which we were all accountable (1). Examples included climate change, mass extinctions, and ozone layer depletion. Society disregarded their existence until the early 1980s. These “surprise phenomena” have already disrupted ecological and evolutionary processes (2-7).

As data become available and environmental public awareness grows, new “unknowns” are emerging. One such “surprise” is the impact of global disruptions on the behavior of animals. Scarce scientific information has limited our capacity to anticipate and prevent negative effects caused by global environmental problems on the physiological and sensory mechanisms that control behavior, its development, function and evolution.

By participating in seed dispersal, pollination, predation, competition, and parasitism, animals shape communities and ecosystems. Behaviors, however, can be easily disturbed directly through physiology (metabolic and reproductive processes; 2,7) or indirectly through the ecosystem, by changes in the abundance of resources, predators, parasites, and competitors (2,5,6).

Large-scale patterns of climate variability, such as the ones generated by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) or the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), determine altitudinal, transcontinental and transoceanic migrations of animals (2,6,7); NAO and ENSO influence recruitment synchrony between fish-predators and zooplankton, and facilitate species food-web assemblages in the sea and in land (2,5). How are NAO and ENSO affecting animal dispersal and settlement, reproductive behavior and social organization, species interactions, foraging and feeding (8)? What will be the impact of global environmental problems on aspects of behavior that are still unknown to scientists, such as cognition, behavioral endocrinology and physiology, communication, behavioral diversity, or behavioral evolution (9)?

“Behavioral unknowns” are emerging at a time when ethological data are most needed for captive breeding of endangered species, reintroduction programs, and habitat restoration (8,10). Yet, despite Myers’ previous warnings, we have been taken by surprise. For too long, we have omitted behavior from the list of “things to be done” to keep our Planet running. Behaviorists have much to contribute to conservation.

*Find more about this article in The Conservation Behaviorist Vol. 1 (2) at http://www.animalbehavior.org/ABS/Conservation/ccConsBeh.html

References

1. Myers, N. Environmental unknowns. Science 269, 358-360 (1995).

2. Stenseth, N. Chr. et al. Ecological effects of climate fluctuations. Science 297, 1292-1296 (2002).

3. Parmesan, C. & Yohe, G. A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems. Nature 421, 37-38 (2003).

4. Paul, N. D. & Gwynn-Jones, D. Ecological roles of solar UV radiation: towards an integrated approach. Trend. Ecol. Evol.18, 48-55 (2003).

5. Gjerdrum, C. et al. Tufted puffin reproduction reveals ocean climate variability. Poc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 100, 9377-9382 (2003).

6. Lemoine, N. & Böhning-Gaese, K. Potential impact of global climate change on species richness of long-distance migrants. Cons. Biol. 17, 577-586 (2003).

7. Inouye, D. W. et al. Climate change is affecting altitudinal migrants and hibernating species. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 97, 1630-1633 (2000).

8. Paz-y-Miño C., G. Contribution of animal behavior research to conservation biology. Anim. Behav. Soc. Newslet. 48, 1-2 (2003). Four main areas of behavioral research are addressed in most environmental-related studies (N=277): dispersal and settlement (includes home range, habitat selection), reproductive behavior and social organization (mating systems, mate choice, parental care, kinship, cooperation and helping), species interactions (predation, competition, pathogen-induced behavior, brood parasitism), and foraging (pollination) and feeding.

9. Source ref. 8. Cognition (includes perception, learning, decision making, information processing), behavioral endocrinology and physiology (hormonal and physiological traits and behavior), communication (information sharing, vocalization, signaling), behavioral diversity (genetic variability and behavior, population genetics and behavior), behavioral evolution (speciation, reproductive isolation, tradition/culture, and behavioral phylogenies).

10. Knight, J. If the could talk to the animals. Nature 414, 246-247 (2001).

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