As soon as ethology's status diminished in the early 1970s, it was confronted with two successor disciplines, sociobiology and behavioral ecology. They were able to challenge ethology because it no longer provided markers of strong disciplinarity such as theoretical coherence, leading figures and a clear identity. While behavioral ecology developed organically out of the UK ethological research community into its own disciplinary standing, sociobiology presented itself as a US competitor to the ethological tradition. I will show how behavioral ecology took (...) the role of legitimate heir to ethology by rebuilding a theoretical core and an intellectual sense of community, while sociobiology failed to use its public appeal to reach disciplinary status. Meanwhile, ethology changed its disciplinary identity to encompass all biological studies of animal behavior. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volume 45, Issue 1-2, Page 10-29, June 2022.

This study sheds a light on economic roots of optimal foraging/mating theory. Two examples show graphical optimisation models of behavioural ecology that are identical to much older ones of economics. The knowledge transfer has been conscious and explicit in some cases, but also less visible in others. This does no imply plagiarism or misconduct but merely shows how knowledge can diffuse along obscure, sometimes unconscious, routes of non-public and private communication.