Abstract
Replications are widely considered an essential tool to evaluate scientific claims. However, many fields have recently reported that replication rates are low and - when they are conducted - many findings do not successfully replicate. These circumstances have led to widespread debates about the value of replications for research quality, credibility of research findings, and factors contributing to current problems with replicability. This special issue brings together researchers from various areas within the field of animal behavior to offer their perspective on the status and value of replications in animal behavior science.
Highlights
Debates have moved from an initial focus on statistical and methodological procedures (e.g., Button et al, 2013; Cumming et al, 2004; Scheel et al, 2020) to issues with theory and epistemology in the affected disciplines (e.g., Devezer et al, 2019; Fidler et al, 2018; Fried, 2020)
The estimated replication rate for ecology was 10%, and 91% of researchers stated that not enough replications are conducted in ecology (Fraser et al, 2020)
In addition to the factors mentioned above, which affect different research disciplines to a similar extent, commentators in this special issue discuss the barriers to replication that are more common, not always exclusive, to animal behavior research, namely small sample sizes, especially for endangered species or species where access is limited due to temporal and physical factors, such as great apes (Khan & Wascher, 2021) or certain bird species (Shaw et al, 2021), and ethical considerations, such as the 3Rs, reduction, refinement, and replacement (Nawroth & Gygax, 2021)
Summary
The last decade has seen discussions about the role of replications in evaluating the reliability and credibility of claims in psychological sciences and related fields such as neuroscience (Button et al, 2013; Klapwijk et al, 2021; Mulugeta et al, 2018), economics (Berry et al, 2017; Camerer et al, 2016; Mueller-Langer et al, 2019; Schultze et al, 2019), and ecology (Fidler et al, 2017; Fraser et al, 2020; Kelly, 2019; Nakagawa & Parker, 2015) These discussions were largely inspired by studies reporting that, when put to a test, many findings and well-known effects replicate poorly (Button et al, 2013; Open Science Collaboration, 2015; Munafò, 2009). Research questions relevant to animal behavior may differ from those in other fields and working with animals and measuring their behaviors comes with several unique challenges, such that these discussions may yield specific perspectives, arguments, and recommendations
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