editorial
TRANSCRIPT
EDITORIAL
ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR, 2007, 74, 1doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.04.004
We open this new volume with the introduction of twonew sections in Animal Behaviour: In Focus and Essays.
In Focus gives the editors an opportunity to highlightwork that we feel should attract a wider audience beyondthe animal behaviour community and the readership ofour journal. In each issue, we will select papers that seemlikely to capture the imagination of scientists in otherdisciplines and the public at large. Our hope is that, bypresenting studies in a more accessible way, the findingspublished in Animal Behaviour will attract more positiveattention to our field, and the fascination that we, asscientists, feel for the animals we study can be conveyedmore effectively to a wider audience. In this issue we havechosen a paper by Ensminger and Crowley on whybrotherebrother interactions differ from encounters be-tween unrelated males, and one by Van Dyk and Evans onvisual discrimination of familiar and unfamiliar conspe-cifics in Jacky dragons, an Australian lizard. Both of thesestudies are excellent exemplars of the intriguing issuesthat animal behaviourists choose to study, and of thenovel and imaginative methods used to gain access tothese creatures’ worlds.
The idea for an Essay section came from Matthew Cobbat Manchester University, whose own Essay on Margaret
10003e3472/07/$30.00/0 � 2007 The Association for the S
Bastock will appear in a future issue. Matthew’s idea wasthat essays could provide animal behaviour researcherswith an outlet to present and discuss ideas, opinions andhistorical perspectives that didn’t quite fit into thestandard format of research articles or review papers, butthat were nevertheless pertinent to present day issues. Inthe first contributions to our essay section, the outgoingpresident of ASAB, Chris Barnard, and the incomingpresident, Innes Cuthill, present companion essays onthe issue of animal welfare and the 3Rs (replacement,reduction and refinement). Both discuss the possibleimplications of current legislative moves for experimentalstudies of animal behaviour and, while they share thesame overarching concerns, Barnard and Cuthill approachthe issue from different perspectives, and with a differentemphasis. Both make persuasive and convincing argu-ments and we hope you find these pieces as importantand thought provoking as we do. We also hope that theywill inspire other authors to present their own views in anessay format.
LOUISE BARRETT & MICHAEL D. BREEDExecutive Editors
tudy of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.