Advances in the Study of Behavior

Advances in the Study of Behavior was initiated over 40 years ago to serve the increasing number of scientists engaged in the study of animal behavior. That number is still expanding. This volume makes another important "contribution to the development of the field" by presenting theoretical ideas and research to those studying animal behavior and to their colleagues in neighboring fields.

Marc Naguib is professor in Behavioural Ecology at the Animal Sciences Department of Wageningen University, The Netherlands. He studied biology at the Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany and received his PhD (1995) at UNC Chapel Hill, NC in the US. After his PhD held positions at the Freie Universitaet Berlin (1995-1999) and Bielefeld University (2000-2007) in Germany, and at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (2008-2011), until he was appointed in 2011 as Chair of the Behavioural Ecology Group at Wageningen University, The Netherlands. He is specialized in vocal communication, social behaviour, animal personality and the effects of conditions experienced during early development on behaviour and life history traits, mainly using song birds as model. His research group is also involved in animal welfare research using farm animals. He has served for many years on the council of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB) and of the Ethologische Gesellschaft. He published > 80 scientific publications and has been Editor for Advances in the Study of Behaviour since 2003. Since 2014 he is Executive Editor.

John Mitani is professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, U.S.A. He earned his AB from the University of California, Berkeley and PhD (1984) at the University of California, Davis. He conducted postdoctoral research and held faculty positions at the Rockefeller University Field Research Center for Ecology and Ethology (1984-1989) and the University of California, Davis (1989-1990) before joining the faculty at the University of Michigan, where he is now the James N. Spuhler Collegiate Professor of Anthropology. Mitani conducts fieldwork on the social behavior and communication of apes and has published papers on all five kinds of living apes in Africa and Asia. His current research, initiated in 1995, involves a field study of an unusually large community of chimpanzees at Ngogo in the Kibale National Park, Uganda. In the past he has served as an Editor of Animal Behaviour and is currently an Associate Editor and on the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Primatology, Journal of Human Evolution, and Primates. He has been an Editor for Advances in the Study of Behavior since 2006.

Leigh Simmons is an ARC Professorial Fellow and Winthrop Professor at the University of Western Australia. He studied at the University of Nottingham where he recieved his PhD in 1987. He has held a research fellowship at the University of Liverpool UK before moving to Australia. His research uses both vertebrates and invertebrates to test the predictions and assumptions of theoretical models of sexual selection and life history evolution. Collectively, these research programs seek to determine the direction and strength of selection acting on male and female reproductive strategies, and on the morphological and life history traits that contribute to fitness, from the whole organism to its gametes. He has published more than 280 papers and articles, authored a book on insect sperm competition, and co-edited a volumes on dung beetle ecology and evolution, and insect mating systems. He has had extensive editorial experience with many journals including Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology, and is a former Executive Editor of Animal Behaviour. He is currently Editor-in Chief of Behavioral Ecology, and has been an Editor of Advances in the Study of Behavior since 2009. He was elected to the Australian Academy in 2009.

Jane Brockmann is a professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Her research interests are in the evolution of alternative strategies and tactics, sexual selection and the economics and mechanisms of decision making in animals; since 1990 her research has focused on the behavior of horseshoe crabs. She has authored more than 70 journal articles and book chapters; co-edited two books; and supervised 30 graduate students. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin - Madison (1976) and was an NSF Post-doctoral Fellow with the Animal Behavior Research Group at Oxford, UK (1977-78) studying the behavior of a solitary, sphecid wasp. She has held the position of Professor since 1989 (emeritus since 2011) and was chair of her department from 1997-2001. She has been Program Director for Animal Behavior at the National Science Foundation (2003-4); president of the Animal Behavior Society (1991-1992); Secretary General of the International Ethological Conference (1995-2006); and journal editor for Evolution (1987-1990), Ethology (1991-2001) and Advances in the Study of Behavior (2002-present; Executive Editor, 2005-2013).

Tim Roper is Emeritus Professor of Animal Behaviour at the University of Sussex, UK. After completing a PhD in Experimental Psychology (Cambridge 1973) he undertook postdoctoral research at the Universities of Oregon and Cambridge. He was appointed Lecturer in Biology at the University of Sussex in 1979, Reader in 1993 and Professor in 1998. He was Honorary Secretary of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (1982-87) and has served on the editorial boards of various journals, including Advances in the Study of Behaviour (1996-2014) and Animal Behaviour (as European Editor, 1991-96). He has also been appointed to a number of UK government advisory committees, including periods as Special Scientific Advisor to the House of Commons Agriculture Select Committee (1999-2000) and as advisor to the UK Government Chief Scientific Officer (2008). He has published 120 scientific papers on various aspects of animal behaviour and ecology, including animal learning, the evolution of insect warning coloration, the social and territorial behaviour of mammals, the transmission of bovine tuberculosis between badgers and cattle, the use of remotely collected DNA in estimating population size, urban wildlife management, and communal decision making in animals. He has co-authored a number of government reports and has authored one book (Badger, Harper Collins, 2010). He retired from the University of Sussex in 2010 and now works as a full-time house husband.