Behavioural Data as Evidence for Good Husbandry and Management Practices Involving Ex Situ Animal Populations

Behavioural data are central to understanding how animals respond to the care they receive in zoos, aquariums, and other ex situ environments. As global challenges to biodiversity intensify, ex situ facilities play an essential role in conservation breeding, public engagement and scientific research. Ensuring that animals under human care thrive requires the most complete understanding possible of their behavioural ecology, needs and preferences. Behavioural monitoring is a key tool to improve animal welfare output and the inputs from management practices across all taxa. By capturing how animals use space, interact socially, and respond to environmental changes, we gain insights that directly improve individual and group care, ultimately strengthening welfare outcomes in ex situ collections.

This Research Topic of Frontiers in Ethology aims to bring together case studies and longitudinal research projects that span a wide range of species, held in zoos, aquariums and other ex situ facilities to show the relevance of behavioural data to the operations of such establishments. Papers focusing on invertebrates, fishes, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals are welcomed. We wish to explore how systematic behavioural data collection can evidence the outcomes of husbandry decisions, inform enclosure design, guide population management and evaluate enrichment and training programs (amongst other things).

Robust, repeatable methods are critical in ensuring that behavioural data collected in zoos and aquariums serve as reliable evidence for management decisions. We hope that this topic will address how to design studies that maximise reliability and validity while remaining practical and applicable. Considerations such as observer training, the use of clear ethograms, and consistent sampling protocols that are relevant to the species being studied are essential to quality behavioural science.

In addition, the topic hopes to highlight how to use observational behavioural collection methods in tandem with health, reproductive, and physiological indicators to generate a holistic view of animal responses to an ex situ environment across taxa.

We hope to explore how emerging technologies are augmenting and transforming behavioural research in zoos and aquariums. Automated video tracking, machine learning approaches for behaviour recognition, wearable sensors, and acoustic monitoring now offer new avenues for continuous, minimally invasive behavioural data collection, allowing us to detect subtle changes in behaviour and expand monitoring to species that have been historically underrepresented in behavioural studies.

This topic underscores the value of behavioural data as a foundation of the evidence-based approach for improving care of animals in ex situ facilities. We invite potential authors to consider the diverse approaches to animal behaviour research to collectively advance the role and application of such research outputs in ensuring that ex situ animal populations thrive under human care, and can meaningfully contribute to conservation, education and engagement goals.

If you are interested in submitting or have any questions please contact the journal email: ethology@frontiersin.org

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Ex situ facilities, Behavioural data, animal welfare, conservation, animal behaviour, behavioural monitoring, management practices, enclosure design, population management, emerging technologies, Zoos, Aquariums

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.