New Insights into the Behavioural Ecology of Mammals

Dear Colleagues,

Human overpopulation and the overexploitation of natural resources are causing climate change, habitat degradation, and a major decline in biodiversity, according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). One of humanity's most critical challenges is to reverse this trend, which leads to challenges in terms of refining conservation and management tools to counteract human-made pressure on the integrity and ecology of wildlife populations and ecosystems. It is more crucial than ever to recognize that preserving biodiversity is the only way to keep ecosystems functioning and capable of providing all the services that we rely on. To achieve this, we must preserve all the components of biodiversity, including animal behaviour, as the inability to behaviourally adjust to a changing world may contribute to or be the cause of species extinction.

Even though the need to incorporate behavioural ecology into conservation and management has been recognised for the last two decades, the realisation of this task is still lacking. Behavioural ecology helps us understand how man-made pressures affect mammal species and what steps can be taken to mitigate them. In fact, sexual selection, sexual segregation, and grouping behaviour are key aspects of behavioural ecology, but their practical applicability in wildlife management is mostly ignored.

Only recently have we become aware of the importance of acknowledging sexual differences in behaviour for population ecology and conservation. Understanding animal behaviour and reproductive patterns is crucial to comprehending the dynamics and viability of wildlife populations. As such, we are pleased to invite you to submit works tackling how populations react to environmental change, habitat fragmentation, and human pressure, but also how males and females differ in their responses towards these impacts and other environmental characteristics. In many species, males and females have different ecological strategies that should be evaluated to better understand sex-specific requirements, informing conservationists and managers of factors such as sexual differences in behaviour, mate choice, mating strategies, sex-specific habitat requirements, and feeding behaviour that are connected to sexual segregation and, in turn, affect population growth, viability, and persistence.

In this Special Issue, we welcome all contributions (original research articles and reviews) focusing on new insights into the behavioural ecology of mammals, including (but not limited to) social organization, grouping behaviour, reproductive behaviour, habitat use and selection, foraging and vigilance, and anti-predator strategies, among others, as well as their implications for mammals’ conservation and management.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Joana Alves
Dr. Muyang Wang
Prof. Dr. Kathreen E. Ruckstuhl
Guest Editors

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• behavioural ecology
• mammal ecology
• conservation behaviour
• wildlife management
• sexual differences in behaviour
• grouping behaviour
• reproductive strategies
• foraging behaviour
• habitat selection