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Related Concept Videos

What is Behavior?

What is Behavior?

Behaviors are actions that an organism engages in—they can be related to finding food, reproducing, defending against threats, and many other possible actions. Behaviors include activities related to the environment around the animal—such as migration—as well as social interactions within a species or population. Many behaviors involve motor output—that is, muscle movements—while others involve less visible actions, such as learning.

Archival Research

Archival Research

Some researchers gain access to large amounts of data without interacting with a single research participant. Instead, they use existing records to answer various research questions. This type of research approach is known as archival research. Archival research relies on looking at past records or data sets to look for interesting patterns or relationships. For example, a researcher might access the academic records of all individuals who enrolled in college within the past ten years and...

Habitat Fragmentation

Habitat Fragmentation

Habitat fragmentation describes the division of a more extensive, continuous habitat into smaller, discontinuous areas. Human activities such as land conversion, as well as slower geological processes leading to changes in the physical environment, are the two leading causes of habitat fragmentation. The fragmentation process typically follows the same steps: perforation, dissection, fragmentation, shrinkage, and attrition.

Naturalistic Observations

Naturalistic Observations

If you want to understand how behavior occurs, one of the best ways to gain information is to simply observe the behavior in its natural context. However, people might change their behavior in unexpected ways if they know they are being observed. How do researchers obtain accurate information when people tend to hide their natural behavior? As an example, imagine that your professor asks everyone in your class to raise their hand if they always wash their hands after using the restroom. Chances...

What is Evolutionary History?

What is Evolutionary History?

Scientists record evolutionary history by analyzing fossil, morphological, and genetic data. The fossil record documents the history of life on Earth and provides evidence for evolution. However, both fossil and living organisms offer evidence that outlines Earth’s evolutionary history.

The Fossil Record

The Fossil Record

The fossil record documents only a small fraction of all organisms that have ever inhabited Earth. Fossilization is a rare process, and most organisms never become fossils. Moreover, the fossil record only exhibits fossils that have been discovered. Nevertheless, sedimentary rock fossils of long-lived, abundant, hard-bodied organisms dominate the fossil record. These fossils offer valuable information, such as an organism's physical form, behavior, and age. Studying the fossil record helps...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 23, 2025

A Noninvasive Hair Sampling Technique to Obtain High Quality DNA from Elusive Small Mammals

A Noninvasive Hair Sampling Technique to Obtain High Quality DNA from Elusive Small Mammals

Published on: March 13, 2011

Animal behavior missing from data archives.

Sara E Miller¹, Christopher M Jernigan¹, Andrew W Legan¹

¹Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA.

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

|August 19, 2021

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Animal behavior data archiving is low, with frequent data issues and little multimedia use. Better archiving practices are crucial for research integrity and future discoveries.

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Area of Science:

Ethology
Data Science
Scientific Archiving

Background:

Archiving scientific data is essential for reproducibility and data reuse.
Current practices for archiving animal behavior data are not well understood.
Lack of standardized archiving may hinder scientific progress.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate current animal behavior data archiving practices.
To identify challenges and limitations in existing data archives.
To highlight the importance of improving data archiving for the field.

Main Methods:

Literature review of data archiving policies.
Analysis of data availability in prominent animal behavior repositories.
Surveys or interviews with researchers regarding their archiving habits.

Main Results:

Low rates of animal behavior data archiving were observed.
Frequent issues were identified with the quality and accessibility of archived data.
Multimedia data (e.g., videos, audio) are significantly underrepresented in current archives.

Conclusions:

Current animal behavior data archiving practices are insufficient.
Improving data archiving will enhance the reliability of research findings.
Increased archiving, especially of multimedia data, will unlock new research opportunities.