Bueno-Guerra Nereida
Department of Psychology, Pontifical Comillas University, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Aug 27;11(9):2520. doi: 10.3390/ani11092520.
Many factors can impact the advancement of scientific disciplines. In the study of animal behavior and cognition (i.e., Ethology), a lack of consensus about definitions or the emergence of some current events and inventions, among other aspects, may challenge the discipline's grounds within the next decades. A collective metadisciplinary discussion may help in envisioning the future to come. For that purpose, I elaborated an online questionnaire about the level of consensus and the researchers' ways of doing in seven areas: Discipline name and concepts, species, Umwelt, technology, data, networking, and the impact of sociocultural and ecological factors. I recruited the opinion of almost a hundred of colleagues worldwide ( = 98), both junior and seniors, working both in the wild and in the lab. While the results were pitted against the literature, general conclusions should be taken with caution and considered as a first attempt in exploring the state of the discipline from the researchers' perspective: There is no unanimity for the discipline's name; 71.4% of the researchers reported there is limited consensus in the definition of relevant concepts (i.e., culture, cognition); primate species still predominate in publications whereas the species selection criteria is sometimes based on fascination, chance, or funding opportunities rather than on biocentric questions; 56.1% of the apparatuses employed do not resemble species' ecological problems, and current tech needs would be solved by fostering collaboration with engineers. Finally, embracing the Open Science paradigm, supporting networking efforts, and promoting diversity in research teams may help in gathering further knowledge in the area. Some suggestions are proposed to overcome the aforementioned problems in this contemporary analysis of our discipline.
许多因素会影响科学学科的发展。在动物行为与认知研究(即动物行为学)中,在定义方面缺乏共识,以及一些当前事件和发明的出现等,在未来几十年可能会挑战该学科的基础。一场集体的跨学科讨论可能有助于展望未来。为此,我精心设计了一份在线问卷,涉及七个领域的共识程度和研究人员的研究方式:学科名称与概念、物种、环境、技术、数据、网络以及社会文化和生态因素的影响。我征集了全球近百位同事(共98位)的意见,他们有初级和资深研究人员,既有野外工作的,也有实验室工作的。虽然将结果与文献进行了对比,但得出的一般性结论应谨慎对待,可将其视为从研究人员角度探索该学科现状的首次尝试:对于该学科的名称没有一致意见;71.4%的研究人员报告称,在相关概念(即文化、认知)的定义上共识有限;灵长类物种在出版物中仍占主导地位,而物种选择标准有时基于个人喜好、偶然因素或资金机会,而非以生物为中心的问题;56.1%的所使用仪器与物种的生态问题不相符,当前的技术需求可通过加强与工程师的合作来解决。最后,采用开放科学范式、支持网络建设努力以及促进研究团队的多样性,可能有助于在该领域获取更多知识。在对我们学科的当代分析中,提出了一些建议以克服上述问题。