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Open research questions in Animal Behavior and Reproduction

616 gap statements mined from Animal Behavior and Reproduction papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 3,381 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • The effects of human-induced changes on antipredator and foraging behavior in mixed-species groups are not well understood. There is a need to investigate how various predator stimulus modalities affect antipredator behaviors of mixed-species flock members.

    Mixed-Species Flock Diversity and Habitat Density Are Associated with Antipredator Behavior in Songbirds · 2025 · DOI

  • The study notes that determining the individual age of Atlantic Puffins is a challenge. The research highlights the difficulty in understanding the mate choice behaviours in Atlantic Puffins. The paper identifies the need for further research to resolve many unanswered questions about assortative mating in seabirds.

    No evidence for assortative mating in the Atlantic Puffin · 2025 · DOI

  • The various ways in which NCEs can manifest has gained considerable research attention, but the NCEs of parasite exposure on host mating behaviour remain unknown.

    Nearly bitten, twice shy: effects of prior and current parasite exposure on host mating behaviour · 2026 · DOI

  • In social species, some individuals consistently lead collective movements while others follow, but whether these roles persist when movement is externally induced remains unknown.

    Individual leadership in cattle persists when collective movement is induced by robotic herding · 2026 · DOI

  • Same-sex sexual behaviour (SSB) is widely observed across taxa, yet its evolutionary maintenance remains debated and its fitness consequences remain surprisingly understudied.

    Same-sex sexual behaviour reduces reproductive success but mitigates aggression in a subsocial insect · 2026 · DOI

  • Major shifts in physiology, reflecting these differences, are expected to be mediated by endocrine regulation, yet comparative data on the sources of interspecific variation in hormone concentrations remain sparse, especially outside the Nearctic–Neotropic system.

    Comparative analysis of plasma steroid hormone levels reveals lower concentrations in Afrotropical than European temperate zone passerines · 2026 · DOI

  • Sexual selection in simultaneous hermaphrodites can act through male–male competition and female choice, often favouring male-biased traits, yet remains understudied relative to gonochorists.

    Sex-limited experimental evolution, mating, and sexual conflict in a hermaphrodite · 2026 · DOI

  • While sex and age are well-known determinants of dominance, the role of early-life rearing history remains poorly understood, particularly in long-lived birds.

    Structured aggression and dominance dynamics in long-lived colonial African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) · 2026 · DOI

  • It has been shown that behavioural repeatability decreases with longer inter-test intervals, and while many species are well investigated in this context, the guinea pig, representing an important laboratory model, remains understudied.

    Analysis of short-term and long-term repeatability of behaviour in guinea pigs · 2026 · DOI

  • Some recent studies on humans broadly support that prediction, but no data are available for free-ranging ectothermic vertebrates that, unlike mammals, can facultatively adjust telomere length during an individual's lifetime.

    Is Telomere Length Optimized in Hatchling Sand Lizards? · 2025 · DOI

  • Despite the great diversity of parental care types found in amphibians, studies linking them to post-copulatory sexually selected traits are scarce, presumably due to a lack of data.

    Testes size seen through the glass of amphibian care · 2024 · DOI

  • However, whether fish predation risk alters the gut microbiota composition of Daphnia while also of inducing Daphnia's life‐history defence traits remains unclear.

    Fish predation risk alters the microbiota of Daphnia in the process of inducing its life‐history defence traits · 2024 · DOI

  • Heterospecific interactions are an important phenomenon of animal epigamic behaviour; however, they remain understudied within important groups, such as insects.

    What determines mate choices? Heterospecific mating in Sympetrum dragonflies · 2024 · DOI

  • Future research should apply the paper's framework to a variety of contexts. Future research should evaluate the fitness consequences of TGP in populations under environmental change. Future research should investigate the mechanisms underlying transgenerational phenotypic plasticity.

    A selection-based framework for evaluating transgenerational phenotypic plasticity under environmental change · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper argues that prior work has often over-interpreted intergenerational phenotypic responses as evidence of resilience. The paper notes that a more agnostic null hypothesis is required when evaluating the fitness consequences of TGP.

    A selection-based framework for evaluating transgenerational phenotypic plasticity under environmental change · 2026 · DOI

  • Although the LHRH challenge was inconclusive for androgens, our results provide useful technical details for measuring glucocorticoid metabolites in common waxbill excreta.

    Measurement of excreted steroid metabolites in common waxbills Estrilda astrild · 2026 · DOI

  • While previous work has demonstrated that novel environments can expose cryptic genetic variation, whether and how multiple environments interact to shape such variation in natural populations is poorly understood.

    Competition's Role in Shaping Cryptic Genetic Variation · 2026 · DOI

  • We discuss these results in the context of poorly understood mate choice behaviours in Atlantic Puffins and argue that determining the individual age of these long-lived animals would help resolve many unanswered questions.

    No evidence for assortative mating in the Atlantic Puffin · 2025 · DOI

  • The evolution of traits influencing ontogeny is a complex problem that involves understanding the fitness effects of these traits across an individual's lifetime. Prior work has focused on the evolution of traits in unstructured populations or has assumed that the fitness effects of traits are constant across an individual's lifetime.

    Directional and disruptive selection in populations structured by class and continuous ontogeny under incomplete plasticity · 2026 · DOI

  • The model incorporates size-matching sexual selection (eq. 32) but assumes males only benefit from matching female size and do not experience viability costs from growth. Relaxing this assumption to include trade-offs between male growth investment and survival would require reformulating the male fitness function and determining how such costs alter convergence stable strategies and polymorphism conditions.

    Directional and disruptive selection in populations structured by class and continuous ontogeny under incomplete plasticity · 2026 · DOI

  • Limited testing of the habitat-mediated hypothesis has been undertaken in longitudinal studies of single populations, - The study focused on the period of 1997-2016, - The study did not include second breeding attempts…

    Effects of environmental conditions on mate fidelity in a socially monogamous seabird · 2025 · DOI

  • Further studies should investigate the effects of environmental conditions on mate fidelity in other species, - Longitudinal studies of single populations are needed to fully understand the drivers of mate fidelity, - Research on the mechanisms linking preseason environmental conditions to pairing decisions…

    Effects of environmental conditions on mate fidelity in a socially monogamous seabird · 2025 · DOI

  • The number of offspring produced varies widely among OMUs, suggesting the potential for strong selection pressure on traits of leader males.

    Selection for a secondary sexual trait in male hamadryas baboons · 2026 · DOI

  • This study broadens the perspective on endocrine correlates of avian life-history evolution by testing their generality in an understudied Afrotropical–Palaearctic system.

    Comparative analysis of plasma steroid hormone levels reveals lower concentrations in Afrotropical than European temperate zone passerines · 2026 · DOI

  • The need for a framework to understand and predict AI behavior - The lack of a coherent first-principles foundation for understanding AI…

    Because Definitions Matter: A Reader's Guide to the Applied Evolutionary Ethology Paper Series · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Animal Behavior and Reproduction

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) The various ways in which NCEs can manifest has gained considerable research attention, but the NCEs of parasite exposure on host mating behaviour remain unknown (“Nearly bitten, twice shy: effects of prior and current parasite exposure on…”, 2026); (2) In social species, some individuals consistently lead collective movements while others follow, but whether these roles persist when movement is externally induced remains unknown (“Individual leadership in cattle persists when collective movement is induced by…”, 2026); (3) Sexual selection in simultaneous hermaphrodites can act through male–male competition and female choice, often favouring male-biased traits, yet remains understudied relative to gonochorists (“Sex-limited experimental evolution, mating, and sexual conflict in a…”, 2026); (4) While sex and age are well-known determinants of dominance, the role of early-life rearing history remains poorly understood, particularly in long-lived birds (“Structured aggression and dominance dynamics in long-lived colonial African…”, 2026); (5) It has been shown that behavioural repeatability decreases with longer inter-test intervals, and while many species are well investigated in this context, the guinea pig, representing an important laboratory model, remains understudied (“Analysis of short-term and long-term repeatability of behaviour in guinea pigs”, 2026). 616 gap statements have been mined from Animal Behavior and Reproduction papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 3,381 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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