Trends in behavioural ecology: Putting South African research in a global perspective

Aliza Le Roux

doi:10.17159/sajs.2018/20170321

Abstract

South Africa remains at the leading edge of scientific publishing on the African continent, yet few analyses of publication patterns exist outside the biomedical field. Considering the large number of protected areas and mammalian guilds within the country, I examined trends in South African ecological research as it pertains to the behaviour of mammals. I assessed the topics and taxonomic focus of mammalogists at South African institutes over the span of 15 years (2001–2015), and contrasted local research with the shifting focus of international behavioural research. This review of more than 1000 publications indicates that South African based researchers exhibit a strong tendency towards field-based research, as opposed to laboratory-centred experiments. In terms of topical focus, local ecologists place significant weight on the behavioural categories of mating, social and foraging behaviour – reflecting a global priority for these topics. This finding contrasts with an increased emphasis on animal cognition and communication research in the international research arena, including field-based studies on these themes. I make suggestions on how behavioural ecologists in South Africa can align themselves with global trends while also continuing to distinguish those facets that make South African behavioural ecology unique. Significance:   This review is the first of behavioural ecology in South Africa. Suggestions are made for where South African researchers can profitably shift research focus. International trends in behavioural ecology are highlighted.

Highlights

South Africa remains at the forefront of scientific publishing on the African continent, with Life Sciences contributing strongly to these research outputs.[1]
No broad meta-analysis of local publishing patterns currently exists, and by some accounts few South African researchers are investigating mammalian behaviour: within the Zoological Society of Southern Africa, the Ethology research group was short-lived[4], and in the past 15 years only one paper on mammalian behaviour has been published in South Africa’s top multidisciplinary journal, the South African Journal of Science[5]. This is surprising, as evolutionary biology is thriving in South Africa[6] and behavioural ecology is by definition the integration of evolutionary biology with the observation of animal behaviour
South African researchers contributed to >3% of the global literature on mammalian behavioural ecology, which is higher than the 1% contribution that sub-Saharan African countries make to global scientific research in general.[11]

Summary

Introduction

South Africa remains at the forefront of scientific publishing on the African continent, with Life Sciences contributing strongly to these research outputs.[1]. Once the articles were extracted from the SCOPUS database, I analysed all abstracts to exclude papers that did not focus on, or explicitly include mammalian behavioural ecology.

Results

Conclusion