《动物行为原理与物种保护方法》评介

20世纪末，人们开始注意到动物行为研究在物种保护中的作用。然而，关于动物行为与物种保护的研究才刚刚开始，人们还不甚了解就地(in situ)或者迁地(ex situ)保护动物时需要考虑的行为学因素。中国野生动物保护事业起步较晚，尤其缺少行为学理论与动物保护方面的研究和实践。     

执着于动物行为学研究的黑人领袖——查尔斯·亨利·特纳

刚出生的小鹅会把它们看到的第一个会移动的物体当成它们的妈妈,从而跟着它们的妈妈蹒跚行走,不论它们看到的妈妈是鹅、是人、是狗,还是童车;蜜蜂虽然不会说话,但它们会在阳光下舞动着它们的身躯,跳一支独特的"舞蹈",从而让同伴明白哪个方向、多远的距离有诱人的花蜜;蚂蚁去很远的地方觅食,然后依照太阳的     

DNA指纹图谱技术在动物行为学研究上的应用

ＤＮＡ指纹图谱技术于８０年代末在国外已被广泛应用于行为学尤其是动物繁殖行为学研究中,国内在此方面的应用尚少。综述了ＤＮＡ指纹图谱技术在动物行为学研究中的作用,介绍了ＤＮＡ指纹图谱的产生、实验操作方法、应用实例及其优缺点。     

"动物行为学高级培训班暨首次动物行为学研讨会"在北京举行

“动物行为学高级培训班暨首次动物行为学研讨会”于2007年12月11-14日在北京中国科学院动物研究所举办,参会人员150余人。来自国内外从事动物行为学研究不同领域的知名学者就精子竞争和近交回避（康乐）、行为的遗传和基因调节（孙中生）、行为的神经机制（罗敏敏、徐富强）、紫外光在蜘蛛通讯的作用（李代芹）、     

A textbook history of animal behaviour

The history of animal behaviour research over the last 50 years has been marked by a decline in traditional ethology and an increase in the prominence of behavioural ecology. Here I examine these changes in the discipline of animal behaviour during the past 50 years as reflected in specialized behaviour textbooks and introductory textbooks for general biology courses. Prior to 1975, all the behaviour texts devoted far more coverage to ethological research on the proximate causes of behaviour than to research on the adaptive value of behavioural traits. After 1975, ultimate questions about adaptation received much more attention than they had previously. The change took place because of events in the mid-1960s, including W. D. Hamilton's solution to the evolutionary puzzle of altruism and the group selection debate involving V. C. Wynne-Edwards, G. C. Williams and D. Lack. The effect of these events was to encourage researchers to use sound adaptationist theory untainted by species-benefit thinking. The theory helped identify many new questions about the adaptive value of behavioural traits, stimulating workers to give as much weight to these issues as had previously been devoted to research into the physiology and development of behaviour. Although pure ethological research appeared to decline after 1975, in fact the major proximate concerns of ethology were simply taken on by cell biologists and neurophysiologists who used tools not available to the classic ethologist. The result was the development of neuroethology, which has flourished over the years. However, classic (pre-1975) ethological research still receives considerable coverage in many introductory biology textbooks, possibly because of the weight given these studies by W. T. Keeton in his influential textbook. None the less, ever since the 1980s, most biology textbooks have also discussed some of the fruits of adaptationist theory, especially Hamilton's explanation for altruism, thereby providing a more balanced treatment of proximate and ultimate issues than was once the case. Copyright 2003 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.     

The principles of collective animal behaviour

In recent years, the concept of self-organization has been used to understand collective behaviour of animals. The central tenet of self-organization is that simple repeated interactions between individuals can produce complex adaptive patterns at the level of the group. Inspiration comes from patterns seen in physical systems, such as spiralling chemical waves, which arise without complexity at the level of the individual units of which the system is composed. The suggestion is that biological structures such as termite mounds, ant trail networks and even human crowds can be explained in terms of repeated interactions between the animals and their environment, without invoking individual complexity. Here, I review cases in which the self-organization approach has been successful in explaining collective behaviour of animal groups and societies. Ant pheromone trail networks, aggregation of cockroaches, the applause of opera audiences and the migration of fish schools have all been accurately described in terms of individuals following simple sets of rules. Unlike the simple units composing physical systems, however, animals are themselves complex entities, and other examples of collective behaviour, such as honey bee foraging with its myriad of dance signals and behavioural cues, cannot be fully understood in terms of simple individuals alone. I argue that the key to understanding collective behaviour lies in identifying the principles of the behavioural algorithms followed by individual animals and of how information flows between the animals. These principles, such as positive feedback, response thresholds and individual integrity, are repeatedly observed in very different animal societies. The future of collective behaviour research lies in classifying these principles, establishing the properties they produce at a group level and asking why they have evolved in so many different and distinct natural systems. Ultimately, this research could inform not only our understanding of animal societies, but also the principles by which we organize our own society.