Week 4 Post 1

Applications of Animal Behavior

• Animals are a fundamental part of the world
• Behavior explains why and how animals act in response to their environment
• Humans are animals so research on behavior has broad application to our lives
• Reasons to study behavior:
• Integrated into biology as a whole
• Relevant to fields on vastly different scales, from ecology and evolutionary biology, to immunology, physiology, and neuroscience
• We are animals, we can often use animal behavior to understand ourselves
• Fields such as psychology, sociology, economics, and anthropology
• Some obvious applications for animal behavior relate to production animals
• Understanding how these species behave allows us to get the most out of them while keeping their welfare as good as possible
• Caught fish account for around 17% of global animal protein intake
• Understanding how fish behave is crucial to ensuring these important food sources remain stable
• Understanding the behavior of animals that carry diseases 
• We can predict how the disease will spread and develop strategies to contain it
• Understanding companion animal behavior
• Help them interact safely