Behaviour across time and space–how large scale ‘trait-based’ approaches can shape behavioural ecology
Data files
Jul 21, 2025 version files 233.40 KB
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randombehaviour.csv
55.60 KB
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randomecology.csv
59.16 KB
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README.md
2.12 KB
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topbehaviour.csv
55.68 KB
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topecology.csv
60.84 KB
Abstract
Understanding the responses of organisms to environmental change is critical to tackling the grand challenges of 21st century biology. Fields such as environmental physiology and ecology have embraced these challenges by shifting the scale of scientific enquiry and utilising large-scale comparative approaches. Behavioural research has not yet realised this potential to the same extent. We argue that adopting a trait-based approach at spatial, temporal and taxonomic scales for behavioural ecology can advance the field and address emerging questions in biology.
We surveyed the literature in the well-known and long running behaviour journals (Animal Behaviour, Behavioural Ecology and Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology), and ecology journals (Ecology, Journal of Ecology and Oecologia) between 1981 and 2020 (1990-2020 for Behavioral Ecology, which has only been in publication since 1990). We extracted metadata on citation numbers, and whether the artcle have multispecies and multi populations approach, and whether the artcle were animal or plant focused from the 10 top-cited papers (Scopus citations) and 10 randomly selected papers in 5-year blocks.
We found that ecological journals have changed markedly over time, specifically in their focus on understanding interspecific trait variation. This pattern is not apparent for animal behaviour; intra-specific and often intra-population scale of scientific enquiry has mostly been the focus over the last four decades. We propose that the future of behavioural ecology should emphasise a comparative approach- spatially, temporally or taxonomically- that systematically captures variation in key traits with broad implications for conservation and community ecology.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.f4qrfj773
Description of the data and file structure
The data file contains data of selected articles from well-known and long running behaviour journals (Animal Behaviour, Behavioural Ecology and Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology), and ecology journals (Ecology, Journal of Ecology and Oecologia). The 10 top-cited papers (Scopus citations) and 10 randomly selected papers in 5-year blocks between the years 1981-2020 (1990-2020 for Behavioral Ecology, which has only been in publication since 1990).
Dataset contains four .csv files, "randomecology.csv" and "topecology.csv" files contain data of the ecology journals and "randombehaviour.csv" and "topbehaviour.csv" files contain data of the behaviour journals. Each data file contains article title, authors, journal name, publication years, number of citations, number of species and populations, and whether the article was plant or animal focused.
Other variable definitions:
- Subject indicates whether the article belongs to behaviour or ecology journals.
- Time column divided time period from 1981-2020 into five year period; i.e., 1 indicate time period between 1981-1985.
- No. species and
- No. population column indicate number of species and number of populations studied in the article; NA in the column indicate cases when we could not extract the number of species and populations from the article.
- Level of comparison classified individuals-population-species broadness approach by the following order: (1) within individuals, (2) within populations or between individuals, (3) between populations or (4) between species.
- PVA indicates whether study species of the paper is animal or plant.
- multiple_sites column indicates whether the study had multiple sites and
- multiple_seasons indicates whether study were conducted over multiple seasons; NA in the column indicates cases when we could not extract the relevant data from he article.