Editorial: new chief editors

Abstract

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology (BES) is now in its 35th year of publication. During this time, it attained status as one of the leading journals for general, novel, and significant publications on behavioral biology (Fig. 1). BES was founded in 1976 by Hubert Markl (Konstanz, Germany) at a time when behavioral ecology and sociobiology were nascent disciplines. Edward O. Wilson's voluminous landmark “Sociobiology: the new synthesis” (Wilson 1975) was published only a year before, and Richard Dawkin's “The selfish gene” (Dawkins 1976) appeared the same year as the journal's foundation. In his foreword to the first issue of BES in 1976, the 90-year-old Karl von Frisch, who together with Niko Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz was honored with the Nobel Prize in 1973, justified the development of the new journal: “Onemay regret the increasing specialization in research, but one cannot prevent it. It is a necessary consequence of the extension of our knowledge” (von Frisch 1976). von Frisch (1976) further explained that papers featuring organismal research in behavior had become lost in the Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Physiologie, the prior venue for many articles of this genre. He added: “Most of the behavioral-physiological papers in the Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Physiologie had a special character: although they centered on functional analysis, they usually also kept ecological adaptation, or, as we simply used to call it, biological significance, in mind. Results obtained from work on individual experimental animals were related to the animal's environment and thereby to more general questions in biology. Since this is the major scope of Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, the new journal will provide a new home for this kind of behavioral research and thereby should satisfy a real need” (von Frisch 1976). BES undeniably filled a significant gap through its focus on publishing studies on the ultimate functions and evolution of ecological adaptations of behavior in addition to studies on its proximate mechanisms. Montgomerie (1995) stressed the importance of BES this way: “As the first journal devoted exclusively to the emerging disciplines of Sociobiology and Behavioural Ecology, BES had an important part to play in bringing the field to its current prominence and vigour.” Hubert Markl was succeeded by K. Eduard Linsenmair (Wurzburg, Germany) who became chief editor in 1988. He was followed in 1994 by Tatiana Czeschlik (Heidelberg, Germany) who has managed BES to this very issue, a marathon 17 years! We, Theo Bakker (Bonn, Germany) and James Traniello (Boston, USA), as the new chief editors, sincerely acknowledge Tatiana's dedication to BES and her skillful and motivated engagement. She maintained BES as one of the most prestigious journals in behavioral biology. To fully appreciate Tatiana's masterful accomplishment, we must recognize that her tenure as Editor-in-Chief for nearly two decades spanned a remarkably long period for this dynamic field of research, which has changed dramatically and had its primary themes extended continuously in multiple directions. This is illustrated, for example, by the shift from ethoecological analyses of foraging to research on sexual selection and behavioral syndromes. Also, studies on the function and evolution of behavior—an emphasis that distinguished behavioral ecology and sociobiology T. C. M. Bakker (*) Institute for Evolutionary Biology and Ecology, University of Bonn, An der Immenburg 1, 53121 Bonn, Germany e-mail: t.bakker@uni-bonn.de