Physiology, behavior, and conservation.
Many animal populations are in decline as a result of human activity. Conservation practitioners are attempting to prevent further declines and loss of biodiversity as well as to facilitate recovery of endangered species, and they often rely on interdisciplinary approaches to generate conservation solutions. Two recent interfaces in conservation science involve animal behavior (i.e., conservation behavior) and physiology (i.e., conservation physiology). To date, these interfaces have been considered separate entities, but from both pragmatic and biological perspectives, there is merit in better integrating behavior and physiology to address applied conservation problems and to inform resource management. Although there are some institutional, conceptual, methodological, and communication-oriented challenges to integrating behavior and physiology to inform conservation actions, most of these barriers can be overcome. Through outlining several successful examples that integrate these disciplines, we conclude that physiology and behavior can together generate meaningful data to support animal conservation and management actions. Tangentially, applied conservation and management problems can, in turn, also help advance and reinvigorate the fundamental disciplines of animal physiology and behavior by providing advanced natural experiments that challenge traditional frameworks.
Fish Ecology and Conservation Physiology Laboratory, Department of Biology and Institute of Environmental Science, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6, Canada; 2Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, 621 Charles E. Young Drive South, Los Angeles, California 90095; 3Department of Biology, University of Mississippi, University, Mississippi 38677; 4Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology, University of California, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, California 95616; 5Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, 915 West State Street, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907; 6School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia; 7Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft Laboratory, Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk NR33 0HT, United Kingdom; 8Aquatic Behavioural Ecology Lab, Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada; 9Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9, Canada; 10Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, United Kingdom; 11Max Planck Institute of Ornithology, D-78315 Radolfzell, Germany, and University of Konstanz, D-78467 Konstanz, Germany.
Steven J
SJ
Cooke
Daniel T
DT
Blumstein
Richard
R
Buchholz
Tim
T
Caro
Esteban
E
Fernández-Juricic
Craig E
CE
Franklin
Julian
J
Metcalfe
Constance M
CM
O'Connor
Colleen Cassady
CC
St Clair
William J
WJ
Sutherland
Martin
M
Wikelski
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D010829:Physiological Phenomena