Alejandro "Alex" Kacelnik, FRS (born 14 December 1946) [1] is an Argentine-British zoologist, professor of behavioural ecology at Oxford University and E.P. Abraham Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. [2] Kacelnik heads the Behavioural Ecology Research Group at Oxford. [3] The author of more than 200 peer reviewed publications, his research focuses on the evolution of behaviour and mathematical modelling. His work uses an interdisciplinary approach, combining data and methods from zoology, psychology and economic theory. [2] In 2011 Kacelnik was honoured by the Comparative Cognition Society for his contributions to the field of animal cognition. [4] He has also received the Cogito Prize for interdisciplinary research linking the natural and social sciences, shared with Professor Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich, [5] the de Robertis Medal of the Argentinian Society of Neurosciences, and the Raíces ("Roots") Prize for contributions to international collaborations between Argentinian and other scientists. [6]
Kacelnik is best known for his research on tool-making and tool-use in New Caledonian crows. However, his research has involved many other species of animals, especially starlings and cowbirds, and he has made many contributions to optimal foraging theory, mechanisms of animal decision making, and brood parasitism.
Ethology is a branch of zoology that studies the behaviour of non-human animals. It has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th century, including Charles O. Whitman, Oskar Heinroth, and Wallace Craig. The modern discipline of ethology is generally considered to have begun during the 1930s with the work of the Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen and the Austrian biologists Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch, the three winners of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Ethology combines laboratory and field science, with a strong relation to neuroanatomy, ecology, and evolutionary biology.
The New Caledonian crow is a medium-sized member of the family Corvidae, native to New Caledonia. The bird is often referred to as the 'qua-qua' due to its distinctive call. It eats a wide range of food, including many types of invertebrates, eggs, nestlings, small mammals, snails, nuts and seeds. The New Caledonian crow sometimes captures grubs in nooks or crevices by poking a twig at the grub to agitate it into biting the twig, which the crow then withdraws with the grub still attached. This method of feeding indicates the New Caledonian crow is capable of tool use. They are also able to make hooks. This species is also capable of solving a number of sophisticated cognitive tests which suggest that it is particularly intelligent. As a result of these findings, the New Caledonian crow has become a model species for scientists trying to understand the impact of tool use and manufacture on the evolution of intelligence.
Animal cognition encompasses the mental capacities of non-human animals, including insect cognition. The study of animal conditioning and learning used in this field was developed from comparative psychology. It has also been strongly influenced by research in ethology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology; the alternative name cognitive ethology is sometimes used. Many behaviors associated with the term animal intelligence are also subsumed within animal cognition.
Professor Geoffrey Alan Parker FRS is an emeritus professor of biology at the University of Liverpool and the 2008 recipient of the Darwin Medal. Parker has been called “the professional’s professional”.
Marian Stamp Dawkins is a British biologist and professor of ethology at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include vision in birds, animal signalling, behavioural synchrony, animal consciousness and animal welfare.
John Richard Krebs, Baron Krebs, FRS is an English zoologist researching in the field of behavioural ecology of birds. He was the principal of Jesus College, Oxford, from 2005 until 2015. Lord Krebs was President of the British Science Association from 2012 to 2013.
Robert Aubrey Hinde was a British zoologist, ethologist and psychologist. He served as the emeritus Royal Society research professor of zoology at the University of Cambridge. Hinde is best known for his ethological contributions to the fields of animal behaviour and developmental psychology.
Anecdotal cognitivism is a method of research using anecdotal, and anthropomorphic evidence through the observation of animal behaviour.
Charles Otis Whitman was an American zoologist, who was influential to the founding of classical ethology. In 1888, he was the founding director of the Marine Biological Laboratory. A dedicated educator who preferred to teach a few research students at a time, he made major contributions in the areas of evolution and embryology of worms, comparative anatomy, heredity, and animal behaviour. He was known as the "Father of Zoology" in Japan.
Raghavendra Gadagkar is an honorary professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, who studies evolution of social behaviour using eusocial insects using Ropalidia marginata, a locally common wasp as a model. He was, from 2014 to 2016, the president of the Indian National Science Academy.
Sara J. Shettleworth is an American-born, Canadian experimental psychologist and zoologist. She is professor emerita of psychology and ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on animal cognition. The Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior said in 2017, "The emergence, over the past 25 years or so, of fields such as neuroethology, cognitive ethology, and cognitive ecology is due in no small part to her influence."
Erich Klinghammer was a wolf biologist best known for his contributions to the fields of ethology and behavioural ecology, particularly that of canids. He was the founder of Wolf Park in Indiana and a professor of animal behaviour at Purdue University.
Josep Call is a Spanish comparative psychologist specializing in primate cognition.
Dario Maestripieri is an Italian behavioral biologist who is known for his research and writings about biological aspects of behavior in nonhuman primates and humans. He is currently a professor of Comparative Human Development, Evolutionary Biology, and Neurobiology at The University of Chicago.
Timothy Robert Birkhead is a British ornithologist. He has been Professor of Behaviour and Evolution at the University of Sheffield since 1976.
Nicholas Barry Davies is a British field naturalist and zoologist, and Emeritus Professor of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Cambridge, where he is also a Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College.
The Comparative Cognition Society (CCS) is one of the primary scientific societies for the study of animal cognition and comparative psychology. The CCS is a non-profit, international society dedicated to gaining a greater understanding of the nature and evolution of cognition in human and non-human animals.
Nicola Susan Clayton is a British psychologist. She is Professor of Comparative Cognition at the University of Cambridge, Scientist in Residence at Rambert Dance Company, co-founder of 'The Captured Thought', a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where she is Director of Studies in Psychology, and a Fellow of the Royal Society since 2010. Clayton was made Honorary Director of Studies and advisor to the 'China UK Development Centre'(CUDC) in 2018. She has been awarded professorships by Nanjing University, Institute of Technology, China (2018), Beijing University of Language and Culture, China (2019), and Hangzhou Diangi University, China (2019). Clayton was made Director of the Cambridge Centre for the Integration of Science, Technology and Culture (CCISTC) in 2020.
Anthony Ronald Entrican Sinclair is a professor emeritus of zoology at the University of British Columbia.
Innes C. Cuthill is a professor of behavioural ecology at the University of Bristol. His main research interest is in camouflage, in particular how it evolves in response to the colour vision of other animals such as predators.