A textbook history of animal behaviour

Abstract 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.