title: Neuroecology and the need for broader synthesis.
abstract: Neuroecology combines physiological and ecological principles toward understanding behavioral mechanisms and their roles in establishing patterns of organismal abundances and species distributions. This amalgamation of research approaches incorporates the strengths of neuroethology to determine the cellular basis of behavior. It, however, treads where neuroethology does not by establishing critical linkages between neural processes and the population- and community-level consequences of individual behavior. Neuroecology also promotes understanding of nervous systems within a strong environmental context by encouraging use of keystone and foundation species as critical "ecological models" for studies of electrically excitable cells. Previous investigations of environmental stress, metabolism, and energy relations have proven the value of a combined cellular biochemical and biophysical approach toward predicting natural patterns of organismal abundances and species distributions. Borrowing from this approach, neuroecology would coalesce neuroscience with population and community ecology to establish how individual behavior functions, and how such behavior acts to determine higher-order biological processes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Neurosciences Program, and Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1606, USA. z@biology.ucla.edu
authors.forename: Richard K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Zimmer
authors.forename: Charles D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Derby
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D055592:Biophysical Phenomena; D058448:Biota; D004463:Ecology; D009420:Nervous System / Q000737:chemistry*; D009424:Nervous System Physiological Phenomena; D009488:Neurosciences; D011157:Population Dynamics; D014118:Toxins, Biological / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D014118:Toxins, Biological