Behavioral Systems

NSF BIO supports research in animal behavior including integrative research to understand how and why individuals and groups of animals do what they do in nature. Projects that cross multiple levels of analysis to uncover connections between the development, mechanisms, adaptive value, and evolutionary history of behavior are encouraged. Research may address species-specific or comparative studies, as well as modeling and theoretical approaches that use animal systems to discover and explore overarching principles of the biology of behavior, and to advance a complete understanding of the integrated behavioral phenotype from genes to ecosystems. BIO recognizes that behavioral phenotypes play a key role in animal responses to pressing environmental challenges, and thus, studies of the role of animal behavior in responses to urbanization and other environmental change, and disease dynamics are encouraged.