The journal publishes reviews, original contributions and commentaries dealing with quantitative empirical and theoretical studies in the analysis of animal behavior at the level of the individual, group, population, community, and species. The section "Methods" considers submissions concerning statistical procedures and their problems, as well as with problems related to measurement techniques.

Special emphasis is placed on ultimate functions and evolution of ecological adaptations of behavior, in addition to mechanistic studies of proximate cause.    

Among aspects of particular interest are intraspecific behavioral interactions, with special focus on social behavior including altruism, cooperation and parental care; pre- and postzygotic sexual selection;kin recognition and kin selection, group structure, social networks; interspecific behavioral interactions including competition, resource partitioning, speciation, foraging, mutualism, predator-prey interactions and parasitism; signalling, behavioral ecophysiology, information processing and neuroecology; behavioral genetics; sociogenomics, behavioral plasticity and behavioral syndromes; dispersal and orientation in space and time; and relevant evolutionary and functional theory.

Founding Editor
Hubert ("Jim") Markl †
Konstanz, Germany

Chief Editors
Theo C. M. Bakker
(Vertebrates)
University of Bonn
Institute for Evolutionary Biology and Ecology
An der Immenburg 1
53121 Bonn, Germany
e-mail: besedass@uni-bonn.de
James F.A. Traniello
(Invertebrates)
Boston University
Department of Biology
5 Cummington Street
Boston, MA 02215, USA
e-mail: jfat@bu.edu
Editorial Assistant
Saskia Hesse
Bonn, Germany
e-mail: besedass@uni-bonn.de


Reviews Editor 
Fritz Trillmich, Bielefeld, Germany
Associate Editors 
Alexander T. Baugh, Swarthmore, PA, USA
Peter A. Bednekoff, Ypsilanti, MI, USA
Thomas Breithaupt, Hull, UK
Charles R. Brown, Tulsa, OK, USA
Henrik Brumm, Seewiesen, Germany
Jae Chun Choe, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Nicola Clayton, Cambridge, UK
Sylvia Cremer, Klosterneuburg, Austria
Darren Croft, Exeter, UK
Ned A. Dochtermann, Fargo, ND, USA
Sharon Downes, Narrabri, Australia
Esteban Fernández-Juricic, West Lafayette, IN, USA
Marco Festa-Bianchet, Sherbrooke, Canada
Jeremy Field, Exeter, UK
Joachim G. Frommen, Hinterkappelen, Switzerland
Caitlin R. Gabor, San Marcos, TX, USA
Martin Giurfa, Toulouse, France 
Jefferson A. Graves, St Andrews, UK
Ian M. Hamilton, Columbus, OH, USA
Jürgen Heinze, Regensburg, Germany
David Hosken, Exeter, UK
Elise Huchard, Montpellier, France
William Hughes, Leeds, UK
Laurent Keller, Lausanne, Switzerland
Darrell J. Kemp, Sidney, Australia
Mirjam Knoernschild, Berlin, Germany
Erkki Korpimäki, Turku, Finland
Marty Leonard, Halifax, Canada
Jan Lindstrom, Glasgow, UK
Kai Lindström, Turku, Finland
Constantino Macías Garcia, México City, México
Thomas Madsen, Wollongong, Australia
Janet Mann, Washington, D.C., USA
Kevin McGraw, Tempe, AZ, USA
Dhruba Naug, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Alexander G. Ophir, Ithaca, NY, USA
Andrea Pilastro, Padova, Italy
Jeff Podos, Amherst, MA, USA
Stephen Pruett-Jones, Chicago, IL, USA
Jonathan N. Pruitt, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Michel Raymond, Montpellier, France
Dustin Rubenstein, New York, NY, USA
Kathreen E. Ruckstuhl, Calgary,Canada
Olav Rueppell, Greensboro, NC, USA
Scott Sakaluk, Normal, IL, USA
Albrecht Schulte-Hostedde, Sudbury, Canada
Kerry L. Shaw, Ithaca, NY, USA
Manuel Soler, Granada, Spain
Carl Soulsbury, Lincoln, UK
Theodore Stankowich, Long Beach, CA, USA
Kyle Summers, Greenville, NC, USA
Lotta Sundström, Helsinki, Finland
Amy L. Toth, Ames, IA, USA
Sean D. Twiss, Durham, UK
Maria A. van Noordwijk, Zürich, Switzerland
Kees van Oers, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Bernhard Voelkl, Bern, Switzerland
David P. Watts, New Haven, CT, USA
Nina Wedell, Penryn, UK
Anja Widdig, Leipzig, Germany
Gerald Wilkinson, College Park, MD, USA
Wolfgang Wiltschko, Frankfurt,Germany