research paper topics for animal behavior

162 Best Animal Research Topics To Nail Your Paper In 2023

The world is filled with living things. There are some animals that we know about, some that we will discover, and there are many that we might never know about. All our knowledge about animals is mostly dependant on researchers. Well, we are rooting for you to be the next great researcher. Be it zoology, veterinary, or live wild stock, your study needs a research topic. If you’re looking for the best animal research topics to nail this year, we’re here with your help.

Table of Contents

Best Animal Research Topics

We have 162 Animal Research Topics that will help you get the best grades this year.

Physiology of Animals Research Topics

• Description of the knowledge required to work in animal physiology
• Study of animal species with different specialties in the sciences of nature and life
• Life sciences and socioeconomic impacts
• Neurulation appendages birds
• Exercises on gastrulation and neurulation
• Gastrulation amphibians birds
• Fertilization segmentation in the sea species
• Gametogenesis: A Detailed Introduction
• Study of Delimitation: bird appendages
• Particularities of the developmental biology of certain species
• Technical-commercial animal physiology
• Terrestrial and marine ecosystems
• Animal biology and forensic science: Is there a connection?
• Animal Biology Biotechnology and molecules of interest regarding food and industry
• The interest in biology in the diagnosis of animal and plant diseases
• Toxicology and environmental health concerns in animal physiology
• Animal and plant production
• Fundamentals of animal physiology research and analysis
• Behavior and evolution Genetics of behavior in animals
• Adaptation and evolution of behavior
• Comparative studies of general ecology, zoology, and animal physiology
• Study of animals about the conditions prevailing in their immediate environment
• Endocrine and neuroendocrine systems in animals
• Studying the nervous systems in birds
• Genitals and reproductive physiology of birds
• Understanding of the anatomical and functional particularities of invertebrates
• Biology and physiology of invertebrates
• Reconstruction of phylogenetic trees
• Morpho-anatomical arguments and the importance of fossils
• Argued classification of animals
• Study of the evolution of living organisms by making updates on recent advances in Animalia
• Phylogeny and animal evolution
• Principles of echolocation in the bats
• Possible evolution of the increase in complexity of the primitive nervous system
• The nervous system of the insect
• Circulation in animal physiology
• Animals without a differentiated circulatory system
• Water and mineral balance in animals
• Thermoregulation in animals
• Musculoskeletal system in animals
• Study of animal blood
• Biological rhythms of animals
• Skin and teguments of mammals
• Animal nutrition and metabolism
• Hormones and endocrine system of animals
• Emerging organic pollutants
• Mechanisms of toxicity in animals
• Animal physiology in animals from temperate regions
• Genetic correlations between animal species
• Animal communities, forest ecology, and forest birds
• Wildlife-habitat modeling

Looking for research topics in general? Read 402  General Research Paper Topics

Animal Research Topics For Student

• Impact of the agricultural raw materials crisis on the marketing of livestock feed
• Analysis of the competitiveness of poultry produced in the USA
• Animal cruelty in USA and European countries
• Seroprevalence of neosporosis in cattle herds
• The peri-urban dairy sector
• Effect of the liberalization of the veterinary profession on the vaccination coverage of livestock
• Why do people kill animals? The psyche behind animal cruelty
• Evaluation of the growth performance of three sheep breeds
• Study on the protection of terrestrial ecosystems
• Ecology of African dung beetles
• Effects of road infrastructure on wildlife in developing countries
• Analysis of the consequences of climate change related to pastoral livestock
• Strategies for management in the animal feed sector
• The feeding behavior of mosquitoes
• Bee learning and memory
• Immediate response to the animal cruelty
• Study of mass migration of land birds over the ocean
• A study of crocodile evolution
• The cockroach escape system
• The resistance of cockroaches against radiation: Myth or fact?
• Temperature regulation in the honey bee swarm
• Irresponsible dog breeding can often lead to an excess of stray dogs and animal cruelty
• Reliable communication signals in birds

Also see:  How to Write an 8 Page Research Paper ?

Animal Research Topics For University

• Color patterns of moths and moths
• Mimicry in the sexual signals of fireflies
• Ecophysiology of the garter snake
• Memory, dreams regarding cat neurology
• Spatiotemporal variation in the composition of animal communities
• Detection of prey in the sand scorpion
• Internal rhythms in bird migration
• Genealogy: Giant Panda
• Animal dissection: Severe type of animal cruelty and a huge blow to animal rights
• Cuckoo coevolution and patterns
• Use of plant extracts from Amazonian plants for the design of integrated pest management
• Research on flying field bug
• The usefulness of mosquitoes in biological control serves to isolate viruses
• Habitat use by the Mediterranean Ant
• Genetic structure of the  African golden wolf  based on its habitat
• Birds body odor on their interaction with mosquitoes and parasites
• The role of ecology in the evolution of coloration in owls
• The invasion of the red swamp crayfish
• Molecular taxonomy and biogeography of caprellids
• Bats of Mexico and United States
• What can animal rights NGOs do in case of animal cruelty during animal testing initiatives?

Or you can try 297 High School Research Paper Topics to Top The Class

Controversial Animal Research Topics

• Is it okay to adopt an animal for experimentation?
• The authorization procedures on animals for scientific experiments
• The objective of total elimination of animal testing
• Are there concrete examples of successful scientific advances resulting from animal experimentation?
• Animal rights for exotic animals: Protection of forests and wildlife
• How can animal rights help the endangered animals
• Animal experimentations are a type of animal cruelty: A detailed analysis
• Animal testing: encouraging the use of alternative methods
• Use of animals for the evaluation of chemical substances
• Holding seminars on the protection of animals
• Measures to take against animal cruelty
• Scientific research on marine life
• Scientific experiments on animals for medical research
• Experimentation on great apes
• Toxicological tests and other safety studies on chemical substances
• Why isn’t research done directly on humans rather than animals?
• Are animals necessary to approve new drugs and new medical technologies?
• Are the results of animal experiments transferable to humans?
• Humans are not animals, which is why animal research is not effective
• What medical advances have been made possible by animal testing?
• Animals never leave laboratories alive
• Scientific interest does not motivate the use of animal research
• Animal research is torture 
• How can a layperson work against the animal testing?

Every crime is a controversy too, right? Here are some juicy  Criminal Justice Research Paper Topics  as well.

Animal Research Topics: Animal Rights

• Growing awareness of the animal suffering generated by these experiments
• What are the alternatives to animal testing?
• Who takes care of animal welfare?
• Major global organizations working for animal rights
• Animal rights in developing countries
• International animal rights standards to work against animal cruelty
• Animal cruelty in developing countries
• What can a layperson do when seeing animal cruelty
• Role of society in the prevention of animal cruelty
• Animal welfare and animal rights: measures taken against animal cruelty in developing countries
• Animal cruelty in the name of science
• How can we raise a better, empathetic and warm-hearted children to put a stop to animal cruelty
• Ethical animal testing methods with safety
• Are efforts being made to reduce the number of animals used?
• The welfare of donkeys and their socioeconomic roles in the subcontinent
• Animal cruelty and superstitious conceptions of dogs, cats, and donkeys in subcontinent
• Efforts made by international organizations against the tragedy of animal cruelty
• International organizations working for animal welfare
• Animal abuse: What are the immediate measures to take when we see animal cruelty
• Efforts to stop animal abuse in South Asian Countries
• Animal abuse in the name of biomedical research

Talking about social causes, let’s have a look at social work topics too: 206  Social Work Research Topics

Interesting Animal Research Topics

• The urbanization process and its effect on the dispersal of birds:
• Patterns of diversification in Neotropical amphibians
• Interactions between non-native parrot species
• Impact of landscape anthropization dynamics and wild birds’ health
• Habitat-driven diversification in small mammals
• Seasonal fluctuations and life cycles of amphipods
• Animal cruelty in African countries
• Evolution of the environmental niche of amphibians
• Biological studies on Louisiana crawfish
• Biological studies on Pink bollworm
• Biological studies on snails
• Biological studies on Bush Crickets
• Biological studies on Mountain Gorillas
• Biological studies on piranha
• Consequences of mosquito feeding
• Birds as bioindicators of environmental health
• Biological studies on victoria crowned pigeon
• Biological studies on black rhinoceros
• Biological studies on European spider
• Biological studies on dumbo octopus
• Biological studies on markhor
• Study of genetic and demographic variation in amphibian populations
• Ecology and population dynamics of the blackberry turtle
• Small-scale population differentiation in ecological and evolutionary mechanisms
• Challenges in vulture conservation

Also interesting: 232  Chemistry Research Topics  To Make Your Neurochemicals Dance

Submarine Animals Research Topics

• The physiology behind the luminous fish
• A study of Fish population dynamics
• Study of insects on the surface of the water
• Structure and function of schools of fish
• Physiological ecology of whales and dolphins
• Form and function in fish locomotion
• Why do whales and dolphins jump?
• Impact of Noise on Early Development and Hearing in Zebrafish
• Animal cruelty against marine life on the hand of fishermen

Read More:  Accounting Research Topics

Animal Biology Research Topics

• Systematic and zoogeographical study of the ocellated lizards
• Morphological study of neuro histogenesis in the diencephalon of the chick embryo
• Anatomical study of three species of Nudibranch
• The adaptive strategy of two species of lagomorphs
• The Black vulture: population, general biology, and interactions with other birds
• Ocellated lizards: their phylogeny and taxonomy
• Studies on the behavior of ocellated lizards in captivity
• Comparative studies of the egg-laying and egg-hatching methods of ocellated lizards
• Studies on the ecology and behavior of ocellated lizards
• The taxonomic and phylogenetic implications of ocellated lizards
• Research on the egg-laying and egg-hatching methods of ocellated lizards
• Studies on the ecology and behavior of ocellated lizards in their natural environment
• Comparative studies of the egg-laying and egg-hatching methods of ocellated lizards in different countries
• Studies on the ecology and behavior of ocellated lizards in their natural environment in the light of evolutionary and ecological insights

Animal research topics are not hard to find for you anymore. As you have already read a load of them. You can use any of them and ace your research paper, and you don’t even need to ask permission. If you are looking for a research paper writing service , be it animal research, medical research, or any sort of research, you can contact us 24/7.

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Perspective

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Behavioral ecology: New technology enables a more holistic view of complex animal behavior

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, California, United States of America

• Gail L. Patricelli

Published: August 24, 2023

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002264
• Reader Comments

As any animal observer will tell you, behavior is complex. A more holistic view of this complexity is emerging as technological advances enable the study of spatiotemporal variability and expand the focus from single components to behavioral systems.

Citation: Patricelli GL (2023) Behavioral ecology: New technology enables a more holistic view of complex animal behavior. PLoS Biol 21(8): e3002264. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002264

Copyright: © 2023 Gail L. Patricelli. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The author received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist.

This article is part of the PLOS Biology 20th Anniversary Collection.

Behavior is more than just a suite of traits; it is the crux where the inside of the organism meets and interacts with the external environment. On the inside of the organism, behavior emerges through an interaction of genetic, physiological, cognitive, and developmental processes, which can be affected, in turn, by that organism’s behavior and experience. Behavior is also how organisms respond to—and influence—the biotic and physical environment, which includes potential mates, rivals, offspring, group members, predators, prey, and pathogens—all with their own behaviors—interacting amidst changing seasons and climates. And behaviors may manifest at multiple scales, from individuals to swarms. For the past 20 years and going forward, many of the exciting frontiers in the study of animal behavior involve grappling with this complexity in a more holistic way, examining the causes and functions of variability in behavior over space and time, and scaling up from components to systems, examining interaction networks that function as a whole.

Many breakthroughs on key aspects of animal behavior (social behavior, mate choice, communication, predator–prey dynamics, foraging ecology, and migration) have been enabled by advances in technology that allow us to collect detailed and simultaneous data from many components of complex systems ( Box 1 ). These tools are made possible by increased computing power, rapid advances in machine learning, and the development of smaller, cheaper, and more powerful hardware. Such tools are pushing the study of behavior, like other fields of science, into the “big data” era.

Box 1. Technology allowing a more holistic view of animal behavior.

Advances in both hardware for collecting data and machine learning software to analyze those data are expanding the detail and the scale at which we can study behavior.

• Animal-borne telemetry tags, which collect or transmit data about movements and other measures, can be miniaturized to much less than a gram and provide precise locations with onboard GPS or data from sensors (e.g., accelerometers, physiological monitors, microphones, or light-level monitors). Tags may store or transmit data to other tags, land-based receiver arrays, or satellites (e.g., ICARUS or MOTUS). These tags reveal aspects of animal lives that were previously unobservable, helping to identify critical resources and habitats for protection (e.g., migration corridors and refueling sites), exposure and response to stressors (e.g., human activity, noise and light pollution), and cryptic behaviors (e.g., nocturnal movements, quiet communication, and visits to potential mates).
• Other key hardware includes synchronized microphone arrays to triangulate animal positions from the arrival time of their vocalizations [ 1 ], drones with imaging tools, terrestrial laser scanning (ground-based LiDAR) for detailed habitat measures, and Passive Integrated Transponders (PIT tags).

Machine learning

• Supervised machine learning, trained on human-annotated data sets, is automating tedious tasks and making detailed analysis of large datasets more feasible.
• Unsupervised machine learning can identify new patterns in movement tracks and other behavioral data, providing insights less limited by human biases and reducing (not eliminating) subjective decisions about which characteristics to measure.
• On videos, freely available software [ 2 ] uses machine learning to track position and orientation on multiple individuals, enabling the study of social networks and swarm dynamics. Machine learning can also be used for pose estimation by tracking the relative position of multiple body parts for biomechanical studies of behaviors (e.g., DEEPLabCut [ 3 ]).
• On audio recordings, machine learning is automating detection and identification of sounds from birds, bats, and other vocal animals, enabling acoustic monitoring over time, in remote locations, and at night [ 4 ] and increasing the feasibility of using synchronized microphone arrays to study vocal behavior and movements [ 1 ].

Spatiotemporal variability is a ubiquitous feature of animal behavior. By necessity, behaviors are often measured by choosing a few key characteristics that can be scored accurately and repeatably, often averaging multiple measures from consistent conditions. This allows behaviorists to examine, for example, the relationship between courtship rate and mating success, or dominance hierarchies in social groups. While important, there is increasing awareness that fascinating biology is being averaged away, such as differences among individuals in the ability to execute behaviors consistently or adapt to changing social and environmental situations, or variation among groups in the stability of social networks [ 5 – 7 ]. The past few decades have seen frameworks for understanding aspects of this behavioral variation, such as consistent individual differences (CIDs) and personality, behavioral reaction norms, and dynamic social network analyses, but the difficulty of collecting data has limited the scope of empirical work.

To capture and analyze variability itself, we need enough snapshots to make a movie, multiple measures of behaviors within and among individuals or groups, across time and context, so the patterns of change can be examined. New hardware and machine learning algorithms for tracking movements and recognizing patterns are opening exciting new opportunities for collecting such data [ 2 , 4 , 8 ].

For example, using GPS telemetry tags in the wild or overhead video in captive enclosures, it is increasingly feasible to study the causes and consequences of CIDs in behavior, such as activity level or aggressiveness, by tracking multiple individuals throughout development or among contexts. Patterns of behavioral variation can then be examined relative to genotype, epigenetics, experience, adult behavior (of the focal animal, their parents, and their offspring), and social group dynamics. In fish, for example, tracking has revealed that CIDs in behavior among clonal mollies raised in identical conditions are present from birth and strengthen over time [ 9 ] and that CIDs among sticklebacks in sociability and boldness can affect the movement and foraging performance of entire shoals [ 10 ].

Similar machine learning algorithms can track the position of body parts for pose estimation, automating frame-by frame analysis of biomechanics during courting, fighting, prey capture, locomotion, and other behaviors [ 3 , 8 ]. This can save time, expand the number of traits measured on focal or interacting individuals, and reduce subjectivity in analyses ( Box 1 ). These opportunities for high-resolution data collection will (I hope) inspire further development of theory in neglected areas, such as optimal tactics during courtship and other dynamic behavioral interactions [ 5 ].

New tracking tools are also helping us to scale up from spatiotemporal analyses of behavioral components to a systems-level view of the whole. The systems approach focuses on structure–function relationships, moving from cause-and-effect thinking to synergistic thinking, by emphasizing interactions, linkages, and integrated phenotypes [ 5 , 11 ].

For example, a hot topic of research for more than 20 years has been why sexual selection frequently favors complex courtship displays with components in different sensory modalities, combining songs, dances, colors, scents, and vibrations [ 5 , 6 , 11 ]. A recent comparative analysis of the famously complex and spectacular displays of 40 species of birds-of-paradise utilized video and audio recordings, as well as color patterns from museum skins, finding positive relationships instead of trade-offs between complexity in the acoustic, color, and behavioral display components [ 12 ]. The authors argued that integrated suites of traits evolve as a courtship phenotype, with functional overlap and interdependency providing robustness and promoting diversification. Further research is needed to determine whether similar patterns emerge in the complex courtship displays of other clades of birds, as well as clades of reptiles, amphibians, fishes, insects, and spiders. With machine learning tools for automated data collection, such broad comparative analyses are becoming possible with growing online databases, such as libraries of audio and video recordings and 3D scans of museum specimens. Ultimately, to understand the evolution of complex courtship phenotypes, as in birds-of-paradise, we must also understand how male display components interact to stimulate the females’ sensory, cognitive, and motivational systems to influence their mate choice. In other words, a holistic approach is also required to understand the aesthetic experiences and complex preferences of the females these courtship displays evolved to impress. This interface between behavioral ecology and neuroethology promises exciting discoveries about the evolution of some of nature’s most beautiful spectacles.

Systems-level analyses of multicomponent social groups have been similarly insightful. Tracking of large groups of birds is revealing surprisingly complex, multilevel social systems, from families, to cohesive groups of unrelated individuals, to fission–fusion dynamics among groups, to structured flocks of interacting species [ 13 ]. Tracking is also allowing the detailed examination of collective behaviors [ 10 , 14 ], exploring how behavioral rules followed by individuals scale into emergent properties of groups, such as swarming behavior of locusts. For example, by modelling how group size and spacing affect individuals’ views through the crowd, researchers are learning how geometry affects swarm dynamics and collective decisions.

Along with benefits of new technology, come challenges. To name a few, minimizing the impacts of our technology on animal bearers, finding meaningful biology in the output of black box algorithms, and not letting data volume and high statistical power substitute for thoughtful experimental design and biologically relevant effect sizes. Downloading data from satellites is no substitute for time in the field or lab learning about natural history and carefully observing behaviors, which is essential to inspire creativity and anchor us to the real world. At its best, new technology complements existing methods and helps to reveal hidden dimensions of behavior. Moving into the big data era, animal behavior, like other fields, can minimize pitfalls by increasing transparency, standardization, and sharing of data, algorithms, and statistical code.

As the pace of urbanization, habitat loss, climate change, and other human impacts increase, behavior will often be the first response, either allowing animals to adjust to change, or not. Behavioral changes are often the first signs scientists can measure as evidence of human impacts. Behavior is also what often inspires public fascination and concern about wildlife. Therefore, in addition to addressing basic questions about behavioral evolution, new technology and a more holistic view of animal behavior is key to understanding, predicting, and mitigating human impacts on wildlife. For example, behaviorists are revealing how noise and light pollution impact social behaviors, improving methods for population monitoring and restoration, and reducing human–wildlife conflict. The next 20 years will bring increased opportunity and increased necessity for animal behaviorists to engage actively with conservationists, policy makers, stakeholders, and the public to find solutions to these complex problems.

Acknowledgments

The author apologizes to the hundreds of authors and ideas in the field of animal behavior that there was insufficient space to credit here.

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News Feature | 05 September 2023

These animals are racing towards extinction. A new home might be their last chance

Some of the most threatened animals might not survive in their current habitat because of climate change. Researchers are testing a controversial strategy to relocate them before it’s too late — starting with Australia’s rarest reptile.

Research Briefing | 30 August 2023

Peering into bats’ brains as the animals fly and feed together

Many animals, including humans, live together and move in coordination with others, but little is known about how neurons represent or govern such complex behaviours. By studying free-flying bats, we found that neural activity in a region of the brain called the hippocampus contains a rich representation of the spatial and social environment that could support collective behaviour.

Research Briefing | 16 August 2023

Neural basis of why mammals eat more in the cold

Feeding and the maintenance of internal body temperature are tightly linked in warm-blooded animals, and mammals eat more in the cold to maintain their body heat. Experiments reveal that a small nucleus in the brain’s thalamus controls feeding behaviour specifically in cold conditions by directly activating a reward centre in the brain.

News & Views | 09 August 2023

Replication study casts doubt on magnetic sensing in flies

It has long been thought that the fly Drosophila melanogaster can detect Earth’s magnetic field and offers an ideal system in which to examine this enigmatic sense. However, a rigorous replication of key studies fails to support this idea.

• Eric J. Warrant

News & Views | 25 July 2023

From the archive: pollination, and Charles Darwin ponders scared ants

Book Review | 17 July 2023

To save bears, we must learn to live alongside them

With urban areas expanding and climate change shrinking bears’ habitats, the animals’ interactions with humans will make — or break — efforts to preserve their populations.

• Henry Nicholls

Nature Video | 30 June 2023

First glimpses inside octopus’s sleeping brains reveals human-like patterns

Neural activity show an ‘active’ sleep stage similar to REM sleep in mammals.

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Articles on Animal behavior

Displaying 1 - 20 of 95 articles.

Friday essay: from political bees to talking pigs – how ancient thinkers saw the human-animal  divide

Julia Kindt , University of Sydney

Training an animal? An ethicist explains how and why your dog − but not your frog − can be punished

Jon Garthoff , University of Tennessee

Why monkeys attack people – a primate expert explains

Tracie McKinney , University of South Wales

The surprising reason why insects circle lights at night: They lose track of the sky

Samuel Fabian , Imperial College London ; Jamie Theobald , Florida International University , and Yash Sondhi , University of Florida

Do dog ‘talking buttons’ actually work? Does my dog understand me? Here’s what the science says

Susan Hazel , University of Adelaide and Eduardo J Fernandez , Florida Institute of Technology

Rats are more human than you think – and they certainly like being around us

Tobias Linné , Lund University

Climate change is altering animal brains and behavior − a neuroscientist explains how

Sean O'Donnell , Drexel University

Wild animals that survive limb loss are astonishing – and a sign of the havoc humans are wreaking on nature

Tara Pirie , University of Surrey

‘Phantom decoys’ manipulate human shoppers – but bees may be immune to their charms

Caitlyn Forster , University of Sydney ; Eliza Middleton , University of Sydney , and Tanya Latty , University of Sydney

Female animals teach each other to choose unusual males – new research

Louise Gentle , Nottingham Trent University

Playful whales can use seaweed as a hat – or exfoliant. This “kelping” behaviour is more common than we realised

Olaf Meynecke , Griffith University

G20 summit’s plan to scare off monkeys by mimicking their ‘natural enemies’ may work – but not for the reasons it’s supposed to

Isabelle Catherine Winder , Bangor University

Why not all urban foxes deserve their ‘ bin-raiding ’ reputation

Blake Morton , University of Hull and Kristy Adaway , University of Hull

Sun bears appear so human-like they are mistaken for people in suits – experts explain

Chris Newman , University of Oxford ; Christina Buesching , University of British Columbia , and Dingzhen Liu , Beijing Normal University

How some fish learned to hide behind others to hunt – new research

Sam Matchette , University of Cambridge

Cats first finagled their way into human hearts and homes thousands of years ago – here’s how

Jonathan Losos , Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis

How swarming animals can help humans and AI make better decisions

Samuel Johnson , University of Oxford

Why we’re searching for the evolutionary origins of masturbation – and the results so far

Matilda Brindle , UCL

Changing wild animals’ behavior could help save them – but is it ethical?

Daniel T. Blumstein , University of California, Los Angeles ; Catherine Price , University of Sydney , and Thom van Dooren , University of Sydney

Greedy gulls decide what to eat by watching people – new research

Paul Graham , University of Sussex

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Principal Lecturer in Wildlife Conservation, Nottingham Trent University

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Professor Emeritus of Behavioral Pharmacology and Animal Behavior, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Tufts University

Postdoctoral research fellow, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research

Associate Professor, School of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Adelaide

Affiliate Faculty in Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology, Colorado State University

Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England

Lecturer in Zoology, Bangor University

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244 Awesome Animal Topics for Research Papers

So, did your professor just asked you to write an exceptional animals research paper? You may think that it is an easy assignment, but it may not be. Don’t wait until the last possible moment to write this essay because you may not be able to do a good job on it. Even though you know how to write the paper, there is another problem you need to take into consideration: finding a great topic.

Truth be told, finding excellent animal topics for research papers is a lot more difficult than you think. Yes, you can find many such topics on the Internet, but you won’t be able to find an original one. Unfortunately, your classmates are using the same websites to look for ideas. This means that you could pick a topic that one or more of your classmates have already selected. Your teacher will definitely not appreciate it, and this will reflect on your final grade.

Looking for Awesome Animal Topics for Research Papers?

All students looking for research paper on animals should visit this page periodically. Our topics are the best and they are all 100% original. Also, many of them are relatively easy to use. Keep in mind that a good topic is one that has plenty of information about it on the Internet. Why spend days doing the research when you can start writing the paper right away?

But why would you choose our animal research topics? There are surely other good topics on the Internet. Well, there really aren’t that many good ideas on other websites. Here are just some of the reasons to take a look at our ideas and pick the best topics for your next research paper:

All our ideas are original at the time this article was written. These topics have been created by our experienced ENL writers. We are working hard to add new topics periodically. Also, we are removing topics that are not of interest anymore. You can use any of our topics without having to pay anything. Yes, this list of topics really is 100 percent free. You do not have to give credit to our website when you use a topic you find on this page. You are free to reword our topics as you see fit. You can always get in touch with our experienced writers and editors if you need more topics. We can compile a brand new list just for you in no time.

Choose One of Our 244 Research Topics About Animals

You can find everything from animal rights to veterinary doctor topics in our latest list of 244 animal topics for a research paper. Enjoy:

Easy Animal Topics to Write About

If you are looking for some easy animal topics to write about, we have the best ideas. Check out the ideas below and pick the best one for your next research paper:

• Discuss a well-known Asiatic horse breed
• Dog vs. cat as a pet
• How to train a pony quickly
• Polar bears at the South Pole?
• Saving the last remaining orangutans
• The weirdest 3 animals on Earth
• Poaching and its negative effects
• Best ways to train a dog
• Negative effects of veal on humans
• Best ways to train a cat
• Discuss the classification of migratory birds
• Why are penguins flightless birds?
• Africa and its wildlife: an in-depth analysis
• Can you have a pet spider?
• Can Grizzly bears sense fear?
• Methods to prevent poaching in wildlife preserves
• Negative effects of pork meat on humans
• The disastrous effects of palm oil

Interesting Animal Research Topics

If you are looking for some of the most interesting animal research topics on the Internet, you have arrived at the right place. Here are some ideas for you:

• Are mosquitos useless insects?
• Lion prides in African wildlife preserves
• Talk about the anatomy of the hyena
• An in-depth look at the Tardigrade
• Discuss the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
• Best wildlife parks in the United States
• Animal adaptations to survive the desert
• Endangered animal species in the UK
• Analyze a butterfly’s life cycle
• Are dolphins really as intelligent as they are portrayed?
• Is medical testing on animals justified?
• Pros and cons of zoos
• Giant Panda and related conservation efforts
• Benefits of poisonous animals
• Should you spay or neuter your pet?
• How do monkeys climb trees so quickly?
• Largest whales in the world
• Animal adaptations to survive the cold
• What is a porpoise?
• Ethical problems with animal testing

Research Questions About Animals

Take a look at our research questions about animals and pick the one you like. All of these questions should work great for 2023:

• Should we test antibiotics on animals?
• Why did the dinosaurs go extinct?
• How do you care for an exotic pet?
• Which is a better pet, a cat or a dog?
• Which is the largest predator in the United States?
• Are zoos inhumane prisons for animals?
• Are dolphins friendly?
• Do we have the right to kill animals?
• Should we ban hunting for sport?
• Should we give animals more rights?
• Should we stop euthanizing stray animals?
• How can we protect endangered species?
• Which is the largest land mammal in Europe?
• Should you buy a dog or adopt one?
• Do you really need a pet?
• Should exotic pets be banned in the UK?
• Can we improve the life of zoo animals?
• Should punishments for animal cruelty be more severe?
• Can a fox be a good pet?
• Is medical testing on animals justifiable?

Animal Rights Topics for Research Paper

Are you looking for awesome animal rights topics for research paper? No problem, we have a list of the most interesting topics right here:

• Talk about animal rights in the US
• Giving more rights to animals in the US
• Discuss animal rights in China
• Do feral dogs have any rights?
• Analyze animal rights in Europe
• Do invasive species have rights too?
• Discuss animal rights in the United Kingdom
• Fishing practices and animal rights
• Analyze animal rights in North Korea
• Discuss animal rights in zoos
• Destroying predator animals without breaking the law
• Discuss animal rights in India
• Do feral cats have rights too?
• Analyze the ethics behind pet euthanasia
• Factory farming and animal rights
• Discuss cow rights in India
• Animal rights violations in the whaling industry
• Cosmetics testing on animals
• Analyze the decline of ivory trade worldwide
• Cockfighting in the United States

Simple Animal Rescue Topics

We know you probably don’t want to spend too much time working on your research paper. Check out the following list of simple animal rescue topics and choose one:

• Why should we rescue animals in need?
• Effects of Australian bushfires
• Poor social skills of rescue animals
• What does animal rescue do?
• Negative effects of wildfires on animals in the US
• Should zoos be forced to rescue animals?
• Euthanizing rescued animals
• Exotic animals in the United States
• Resource guarding problems with rescue dogs
• Lack of veterinary care for rescued animals
• Inadequate screening procedures for adoption
• Anxiety problems in rescue dogs
• Destructive behavior in rescue cats
• The dangers of animal rescue operations
• Where do rescued animals end up?
• Are all rescued animals traumatized?

Veterinary Topics for Research Paper

Interested in writing about veterinary topics? Our experienced writers and editors have compiled a list of great veterinary topics for research paper:

• What does being a veterinarian mean?
• Challenges of the veterinary profession
• What is Brucellosis?
• Most common cat diseases in the United Kingdom
• Discuss biomedical research conducted on animals
• Talk about poor veterinary care in rural areas of Europe
• Discuss natural animal feeds
• Breakthroughs in veterinary technology
• Best way to fight a Tapeworm infection
• Diseases humans can get from pets
• Most popular exotic animals as pets in 2023
• Using punishments effectively for training purposes
• Why it’s good to microchip your pets
• Causes of mycotoxicoses
• Ways to treat a Hookworm infection
• Is there an effective cure for Rabies?
• Most common dog diseases in the US
• Can Campylobacteriosis infections cause death?

Animal Abuse Topics

If you want to write about animal abuse and other related subjects, we have a list of animal abuse topics that should get you a top grade on your next research paper:

• Talk about animal abuse issues in the United States
• Animal abuse issues in the United Kingdom
• Animal cruelty versus animal abuse
• Discuss animal abuse issues in China
• Effects of animal hoarding behaviors
• Staging animal fights is abuse
• Animal abuse issues in Eastern Europe
• Cruelty to animals leading to violence against people
• Animal abuse issues in India
• Is animal testing animal abuse?
• Can neglect be considered animal abuse?
• Animal abuse: rural versus urban cases
• Shooting is an animal abuse
• Animal abuse laws in the US
• Animal abuse laws in the UK

Animal Topics for High School

Looking for some of the best animal topics for high school? Take a look at the list below and pick the most interesting idea:

• Why is veterinary care so expensive?
• Differences between dromedaries and camels
• Should pets be allowed in school?
• Compare and contrast lions and cheetahs
• Wild animals as pets in the UK
• The worst pet on Earth
• Adopting an animal from the local animal shelter
• Can elephants swim?
• An in-depth look at the camel
• Compare and contrast cats and dogs
• Discuss irresponsible dog breeding in your city
• Analyze the habitat loss of orangutans
• How do killer whales hunt?
• Animal rights issues in Asia
• Discuss disastrous fishing practices
• Animal welfare issues in adoption centers

Animal Testing Research Topics

Talking about animal testing research topics shouldn’t worry you, as long as you remain objective and impartial. Here are some relatively simple topics on this:

• Is it ethical to test cosmetics on animals?
• Animals used for chemical warfare testing
• Lab mice and their awful fate
• Testing vaccines on animals
• Finding a cure for Covid-19 using animals
• Stem cell research using animals
• Worst medical tests done on animals
• Banning animal experimentation in the UK

Animal Cruelty Topics

Looking for the best and most interesting animal cruelty topics you can find? We have a list of ideas right here for high school and college students:

• Animal cruelty punishments in the US
• What constitutes animal cruelty?
• Puppy mills in the United States
• Animal cruelty punishments in the UK
• Exotic animals as pets: a form of cruelty
• Dog fighting
• Pet overpopulation in large cities
• Factory farming
• Animal abuse vs. animal cruelty

Persuasive Topics About Animals

Writing about animals in a persuasive manner shouldn’t be too difficult. If you have access to some good persuasive topics about animals to write about, things will get even easier:

• Stop deforestation before it is too late
• Avoid eating animal foods
• The effects of global warming on wildlife
• Stop using animals in circuses
• Avoid eating pork
• Get your pet a microchip
• Is pet insurance worth the money?
• Foxes are not meant to be pets
• Adopt your pet instead (as opposed to buying it)
• Negative consequences of pollution on animals
• Banning factory farming practices

Endangered Animals Topics

Do you want to raise awareness about endangered species of animals? No problem, we have some of the greatest endangered animals topics right here:

• Can we save the whooping crane?
• Saving the bonobo monkey
• Can we save the peregrine falcon?
• The endangered Galapagos penguin
• Can we save the black-footed ferret?
• Save the South Asian river dolphin
• Can we save the whale shark?
• The dwindling population of Loggerhead sea turtles
• Can we save the Monarch butterfly?

Advanced Topics About Animals

If you want to impress your professor, why not write your research papers on some advanced topics about animals? Here are a couple of interesting ideas for students:

• The life cycle of an alligator
• Most dangerous exotic pets
• Deep sea fish adaptations
• Discuss bioluminescence

Informative Animal Topics for an Essay

Writing an informative essay is definitely not a complicated thing to do. However, the grade you get on your paper depends on the quality of the informative animal topics for an essay:

• Describe the rabbit
• Discuss the red panda
• Describe the horse
• What is a Saola?
• Talk about the Thylacine
• An in-depth look at the Asian elephant
• Talk about the Dodo bird
• Wolfs on the edge of extinction
• What is a Kakapo bird?
• Are polar bears in danger?
• The life of the green sea turtle

Complex Veterinarian Research Paper Topics

If you want to try your hand at some complicated research papers, we have some quite complex veterinarian research paper topics right here:

• How do dog vaccines work?
• Why are lab mice perfect for experiments?
• Animals in extreme cold conditions
• Animals at extreme depths: adaptations

Most Engaging Animal Topics

We know, you want to engage your audience and impress everyone in the class. Here are some of our most engaging animal topics. Pick one and start writing now:

• Buying your child a pet
• Animal fight games in the UK
• Should you vaccinate your cat?
• Zoo animals psychological issues

Topics About Your Favorite Animal

Everyone has a favorite animal, including your teacher. So, why not write something about it? Here are some topics about your favorite animal that should work great:

• What is your favorite animal and why?
• The funniest animals in existence
• Why do dogs make such good pets?
• Should you own an exotic pet?
• What do you appreciate about your favorite animal?
• The best animal in the world
• The traits of your favorite animal
• Can an animal be loyal?

Animal Topics for College

College students should not pick easy topics because professors tend to penalize them. Check out these animal topics for college students and select one of them:

• The best pet for a college student
• How do Tardigrades survive in space?
• Using snake venom to make anticancer drugs

Controversial Animals Topics

Why would you be afraid to write about controversial topics? Check out our list controversial animals topics and pick the best one for your needs right now:

• Chemical testing on animals
• Weapon testing on animals
• Testing cosmetic products on animals
• Testing new drugs on animals
• Animals used in scientific experiments
• Saving laboratory mice from their fate
• Poaching in Africa
• Stopping the trade of ivory
• Hunting animals for their fur

Topics on the Conservation of Animal Species

There are so many endangered species of animals in the world that it’s difficult to pick one to write about. Here are some of our most interesting topics on the conservation of animal species:

• An in-depth look at the conservation of wild orangutans
• Analyze conservation efforts of the lion population
• Saving the blue whales from extinction
• An in-depth look at the conservation of wild cheetahs
• An in-depth look at the conservation of wild tigers
• Is the California condor an endangered species?
• Saving the snow leopards from extinction
• Analyze conservation efforts of the giant panda population
• An in-depth look at the conservation of wild Javan rhinoceros

Argumentative Essay Topics About Animals

Finding some exceptional argumentative essay topics about animals can be difficult, especially if you want your paper to stand out from the rest. Here are some great ideas for you:

• Cats make the best pets
• Animals should not be held in captivity
• Exotic pet ownership must be banned
• Palm oil should be banned
• Zoos should be more tightly regulated
• Never feed wildlife no matter what
• We need more elephant sanctuaries
• Stopping Maasai from hunting lions
• Dogs make the best service animals
• Hyenas are becoming an endangered species
• The importance of flies

Get Help From Our Professional Writers

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Behavioral Research Blog

By noldus information technology, search the blog, subscribe to the blog - get updated monthly.

Examples of Animal Behavior Research

Animal behavior research can involve a wide range of animal species and research subjects. In ethology, animal behavior is studied under natural conditions. Ethology has its roots in the scientific work of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), as well as Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907-1988).

Ethology combines laboratory and field science, and also has strong relations to other disciplines, such as neuroanatomy, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Researchers in this field of study are interested in understanding the functions, causes, development, and evolution of animal behavior.

In this blog post we describe several examples of animal behavior research. Want to read even more? Please visit our Behavioral Research Blog !

Table of contents

• Observing monkey behavior

Interactive enrichment for great apes

Behavioral observation of new zoo habitat for elephants, neuroscience research with guinea pigs, domesticated vs wild animals, chicken welfare, spatial behaviors in sheep, a rat model for parkinson's disease, how to monitor rat social behavior.

• Spatial learning in rats
• How fruit flies find your food

Zebrafish studies

Studying shrimp feeding behavior.

• Measuring aggressive behavior in dolphins

Observing monkey behavior and their use of tools

We already know some monkeys display above average intelligence. Behavioral studies have shown that capuchin monkeys use tools such as boulders and logs as anvils upon which they can crush nuts. Fragaszy et al. studied a group of wild capuchin monkeys in Brazil, specifically the placement of nuts prior to striking them. An interesting detail: they studied this same behavior in humans as well.

Keep reading:  Observing monkey behavior – cracking the nut

There is growing empirical support demonstrating improved welfare in captive animals when they can exert control over their environment. Research shows that great apes can successfully interact with digital media devices and can demonstrate behavioral changes when presented with digital enrichments.

Nicky Kim-McCormack and her colleagues from Australian National University studied the effects of digital enrichment on animal welfare. They included Seoul Zoo’s six orangutans and four chimpanzees in their study.

Continue reading:  Measuring changes in captive great ape welfare

The Oregon Zoo (Portland, OR, US) houses a herd of 5 Asian elephants. The zoo wanted to improve their welfare with evidence-based approaches. This meant creating a complex new habitat and monitoring the elephants closely by measuring hormone levels, activity, and behavior before, during, and after construction. 

They used The Observer XT behavioral analysis software to monitor the transition of the elephant herd to their new zoo habitat at the Oregon Zoo. This study, recently described in Animals, is a great example illustrating why behavioral observation matters. 

Continue reading: Behavioral research shows how elephants like their new habitat at the Oregon Zoo

Photo: Oregon Zoo

According to Kiera-Nicole Lee and her colleagues, guinea pigs differ from mice and rats, and that just might make them more suitable for some neuroscientific studies. This is due to the fact that results from studies with guinea pigs are more easily translated to humans.

Find out more :  Why guinea pigs are just like us

Not many studies have compared the behaviors of wild and domesticated animals. When they do, such as with guinea pigs, they mostly compare adults.

Zipser et al. were curious to find out whether the differences in behavior between domesticated guinea pigs and the wild cavies were also found earlier on, and so they compared these species during the early and late phase of adolescence.

Read more:  How wild cavies and domesticated guinea pigs differ

There are almost 100 million chickens in the Netherlands — that's about 17 times as many chickens as people. Their welfare has improved enormously in the past few years, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. 

In the ChickenStress project, we work with different partners to improve chicken welfare and reduce problems like feather pecking.

Read more:  Research aims of the ChickenStress project

The study of movement, activity, and behavior is valuable in research on animal health and welfare, specifically in livestock research . Understanding animal behavior in different environments provides insights that can help improve their living conditions.

There is still a lot to learn about the behavioral and social patterns in sheep. At the Aberystwyth University in Wales, UK, researchers used TrackLab for tracking and detailed analysis of spatial behaviors in sheep.

Tracking sheep to learn their behavior .

Request a demo to obtain real-time insights into the activity, welfare, and health of your livestock.

• Accurate tracking data
• Gain insights into many parameters
• Easily access, export, and analyze data

Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects mobility in a life-changing way. Slow movement, shuffling of the feet, and difficulties initiating movement are all impairments we recognize as typical for this disease.

Researchers Jordi Boix and his colleagues, from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, used two rat models to investigate a number of gait parameters. Their aim was to find resemblance to human symptoms, and to specifically find them early on.

Read more:  Using gait analysis in research on Parkinson's disease

How to measure spatial learning in rodents: 5 proven ways

Spatial learning basically refers to the association or representation of an organism in a three-dimensional environment. If we translate this to basic animal research terms: An animal learning its position in a given space. This task highly relies on visual cues and/or landmarks, whether in humans or animals.

Why is it important and how do we measure it? Here we dive into 5 different behavioral tests that specifically measure spatial learning and memory in rodents.

Monitoring and analyzing the social behavior of group housed rodents is something that many researchers find extremely challenging. It can also be very time consuming. However, including social behavior as part of a phenotypic screen has important benefits, and eventually leads to better translational value of rodent models . During her PhD research, Suzanne Peters developed an automated analysis that allows for the monitoring of socially interacting rats.

Read more:  Into the lab: how to monitor rat social behavior

Aither recent study by Bartal et al drove our curiousity to write this blog about altruistic behavior in rats . This study shows how this type of behavior is neurally linkend to the social functioning of humans. 

Request a free trial and find out what EthoVision XT can do for your research!

• A cost-effective solution
• Powerful data selection
• Most cited video tracking system

How fruit flies find your food (and mates!)

Those tiny flies that take over your garbage cans in the summer? They are called fruit flies for a reason! They have a fantastic sense of smell. Drosophila melanogaster (or fruit flies) are a popular animal model for researchers , because they have a fairly similar genetic makeup to our human genome, and they are easily manipulated to create genetically different strains. For neuroscientific studies, this makes them a really good model to learn about the effects of genes on behavior.

Find out what researchers discovered about  fruit flies and their smell .

The zebrafish has become an important vertebrate model to study (developmental) neurobiology and behavior, not in the least because of recent improvements in transgenic, optogenetic and imaging techniques, and behavioral assays.

More and more studies with zebrafish are conducted. Some examples:

• A new zebrafish model for ALS-related gene mutations
• How to measure complex exploratory behavior in larval zebrafish
• How optogenetics is used to study the stress response in zebrafish larvae
• Social buffering in zebrafish
• Strain differences in zebrafish behavior and physiology
• Studying zebrafish behavior using video tracking software

Request a free demo for your zebrafish research.

• Measure activity, heartbeat, and flow
• Track the movement of adult zebrafish
• Control your testing environment

Shrimp is a popular dish, and these crustaceans are a very large part of commercial aquaculture. Especially Pacific white-leg shrimp, as they grow fast and are able to adapt to a wide range of environments. Finding the optimal way to feed shrimp can make or break profitable farming. 

This is why investigating the best feeding protocols has gained more interest lately, and a big part of that is looking at feeding behavior. In fact, understanding the basics of shrimp behavior is a crucial fundament to the refinement of feeding practices. 

Learn more about studying shrimp feeding behavior and why it’s important for aquaculture .

Using the Observer XT to measure aggressive behavior in Dolphins

Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) and bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncates) are a sympatric species, meaning they are very closely related while also inhabiting the same geographic region, in this case, the northern Bahamas. These species are known to travel and forage together but they also engage in aggressive interactions. 

Volker and Herzing, from the Florida Atlantic University, recently published an article in ‘Animal behavior and cognition’ on aggressive interactions between dolphins . 

• Lee, K.-N.; Pellom, S.T.; Oliver, E.; Chirwa, S. Characterization of the guinea pig animal model and subsequent comparison of the behavioral effects of selective dopaminergic drugs and methamphetamine . Synapse, accepted article , doi: 10.1002/syn.21731.
• Zipser, B.; Schleking, A.; Kaiser, S.; Sachser, N. (2014). Effects of domestication of biobehavioural profiles: a comparison of domestic guinea pigs and wild cavies from early to late adolescence . Frontiers in Zoology , 11 , 30.
• Boix, J.; von Hieber, D.; Connor, B. (2018). Gait Analysis for Early Detection of Motor Symptoms in the 6-OHDA Rat Model of Parkinson’s Disease . Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience , 12 , 39.
• Capriello, T.; Consiglio Grimaldi, M.; Cofone, R.; D'Aniello, S.; Ferrandino, I. (2019). Effects of aluminium and cadmium on hatching and swimming ability in developing zebrafish. Chemosphere , 222  (2019), 243-249.
• Kim-McCormack, N.E.; Smith, C.L.; Behie, A. M. (2016). Is interactive technology a relevant and effective enrichment for captive great apes? Applied Animal Behavioural Science , 185 , 1-8.
• Fragaszy, D.M.; Liu, Q.; Wright, B.W.; Allen, A.; Welch Brown, C.; Visalberghi, E. (2013). Wild bearded capuchin monkeys (sapajus libidinosus) strategically place nuts in a stable position during nut-cracking. PLOS ONE , 8 (2) , e56182.
• Volker, C. L.; Herzing, D. L. (2021). Aggressive Behaviors of Adult Male Atlantic Spotted Dolphins: Making Signals Count during Intraspecific and Interspecific Conflicts. Anim. Behav. Cogn., 8 (1) , 35–51

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Psychological Science Explores the Minds of Dogs

A special issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science  explores all that psychological scientists have learned about dog behavior and cognition in recent years.

Research Topic: Animal Behavior

Research suggests that findings about human risk preferences also apply to risk-taking in chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary ancestor in the animal kingdom.

Similarities in Human and Chimpanzee Behavior Support Evolutionary Basis for Risk Taking

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Cattell Fund Projects Include Research on Children’s Executive Function, Empathy Choice, and More

Audio cues can not only help us to recognize objects more quickly but can even alter our visual perception. That is, pair birdsong with a bird and we see a bird—but replace that birdsong with a squirrel’s chatter, and we’re not quite so sure what we’re looking at. 

Hearing is Believing: Sounds Can Alter Our Visual Perception

Irene Pepperberg pioneered the study of bird cognition back in the 70s and still studies the cognitive and communicative abilities of grey parrots. In this conversation with APS’s Ludmila Nunes, she speaks about research on parrots’ cognitive abilities, their conservation and preservation in the wild, and much more. 

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March 27, 2024

How Animal Brains Tell Friends from Strangers

A small section of the mouse brain’s hippocampus uses specific neural codes to denote social familiarity and identity

By Ingrid Wickelgren

Matthijs Kuijpers/Alamy Stock Photo

You see a woman on the street who looks familiar—but you can’t remember how you know her. Your brain cannot attach any previous experiences to this person. Hours later, you suddenly recall the party at a friend’s house where you met her, and you realize who she is.

In a new study in mice, researchers have discovered the place in the brain that is responsible for both types of familiarity—vague recognition and complete recollection. Both, moreover, are represented by two distinct neural codes. The findings, which appeared on February 20 in Neuron, showcase the use of advanced computer algorithms to understand how the brain encodes concepts such as social novelty and individual identity, says study co-author Steven Siegelbaum, a neuroscientist at the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University.

The brain’s signature for strangers turns out to be simpler than the one used for old friends—which makes sense, Siegelbaum says, given the vastly different memory requirements for the two relationships. “Where you were, what you were doing, when you were doing it, who else [was there]—the memory of a familiar individual is a much richer memory,” Siegelbaum says. “If you’re meeting a stranger, there’s nothing to recollect.”

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The action occurs in a small sliver of a brain region called the hippocampus , known for its importance in forming memories. The sliver in question, known as CA2, seems to specialize in a certain kind of memory used to recall relationships. “[The new work] really emphasizes the importance of this brain area to social processing,” at least in mice, says Serena Dudek, a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, who was not involved in the study.

A student in Siegelbaum’s lab helped establish this role about a decade ago, when he developed a genetic method for silencing CA2 in mice. With CA2 out of commission, mice could no longer tell an unfamiliar mouse from a littermate. The memory deficit was limited to social contexts as opposed to, say, memory for objects or locations that had no social meaning: the mice could still recognize familiar objects, for instance, or navigate a maze. “The surprise was that this one particular subregion was so critical in the mice for social memory,” Siegelbaum says.

But it was still not clear how the cells in the region were performing this function. “The question was: What’s going on in the brain of these mice in the CA2 region?” Siegelbaum says. To answer this question, Siegelbaum’s team had to devise a way to record neural activity in CA2 during social interactions—and to analyze that activity.

In 2018 then graduate student Lara Boyle began tackling the problem of recording the goings-on in CA2 using a miniscope, a type of microscope small enough to be worn like a hat on a mouse’s head. Boyle, a co-author of the new paper, endowed CA2 neurons with a protein that glows in the presence of calcium, the mineral that rushes into neurons when the cells are active. She positioned the microscope to detect the glow, measure its intensity and convert the measurements to electrical signals to be processed by a computer.

The apparatus recorded the activity of 50 to 60 neurons at a time as a mouse interacted with either two unfamiliar mice, two littermates or a littermate and a stranger. The mice in each of these pairs were contained separately in small wire “cups” on the left and right sides of the cage. Comparing the brain activity during the interactions, the researchers hoped, would reveal how the mouse recognized other mice as strangers or littermates or distinguished them as individuals. As it happened, however, the scientists could not make enough sense of the signals at first to determine how the brain was making these calls.

So in 2020 Boyle and Siegelbaum teamed up with Zuckerman neuroscientist Stefano Fusi and postdoctoral fellow Lorenzo Posani, who built a “linear decoder,” software that could decipher the glut of neural patterns. As reported in the new paper, the decoder processed the responses of individual mice to ferret out how the brain encrypts social familiarity and identity. The mouse brain uses a “very special code” for representing other mice, Fusi says.

The decoder uncovered a neural signature for the concepts of novelty and familiarity that applied across various pairs of both newly encountered and familiar mice. “A [proverbial] light would shine somewhere in the brain that says ’novelty’ or ‘familiarity,’ independent of the identities of these mice,” Siegelbaum says. “That was probably one of the biggest aha! moments of the study.”

What’s more, the better a mouse’s CA2 neurons distinguished between a novel and a familiar animal, the more adept the animal seemed to be at telling the mice in the cups apart. Because mice like novelty, they prefer to spend time with a stranger rather than a littermate. So the animals whose brains had the sharpest novelty detectors, as identified by the linear decoder, spent the most time sniffing the novel mouse relative to the familiar one.

The researchers also found neural patterns that enabled the mice to distinguish two familiar animals or two strangers. “You can decode with some level above chance not just whether [a mouse is perceiving] a novel animal or a familiar animal but [also] the identity of that animal,” Dudek says.

And the way the brain captures that identity is different for strangers than it is for familiar animals, Siegelbaum says. The researchers determined, for example, that the neural code for social identity depended on the location of the mice in the cups to a greater degree when those mice were familiar, consistent with the idea that memories of known individuals are rooted in a place, among other details. By contrast, no such details are attached to strangers, so the code is simpler, he says.

The principles behind these newly discovered brain signatures could inform better machine-learning systems, Fusi says. At present, computers must be trained on new information in very specific ways, or they suffer “catastrophic forgetting” of previous knowledge. “If you want [a machine-learning system] to continually learn for an entire life, we don’t have a way of doing that,” Fusi says. “Machines don’t learn in a natural environment like we do.” The new understanding of how the animal brain encodes social information, he says, could spawn ideas for solving the problem of catastrophic forgetting.

The study’s results also represent a small step toward a complete understanding of a social memory, says Thomas McHugh, a neuroscientist at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science in Japan, who was not involved in the research. “What we really want to understand as a field is how a memory’s formed that integrates all these components—who we are interacting with, where we are, what we’re doing—the contents of an event or episode,” McHugh says. “This [study] gives us some thoughts on how we might do that.”

CA2 is unlikely to act alone in this process because it connects to other brain regions that also play roles in social learning, memory and behavior, Dudek says. But if the findings in mice apply to humans, the work could help researchers uncover the roots of social difficulties in people, such as those that occur in schizophrenia and autism. Scientists could, for example, look for changes in the neural code of CA2 neurons in genetic mouse models of these conditions. “It’s important to have this baseline data to understand what changes in these models” as a step to understanding what changes in humans, McHugh says.

From there, researchers might find ways to normalize that circuitry to improve social memory, Siegelbaum says. “How many different disorders of memory are there?” he adds. “Do they all involve the same type of changes in neural processing, or are there more specific changes that are associated with different forms of disease?” Having a better way to classify these changes may lead to more targeted treatments, Siegelbaum says.

• Frontiers in Robotics and AI
• Bio-Inspired Robotics
• Research Topics

Robotics to Understand Animal Behaviour

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About this Research Topic

For centuries, designers and engineers have turned to biological systems to seek inspiration for constructing functional, flexible, and efficient robots. Over the years biologically inspired robotics has matured into a significant branch of robotics. Recently, biologists and interdisciplinary teams are

For centuries, designers and engineers have turned to biological systems to seek inspiration for constructing functional, flexible, and efficient robots. Over the years biologically inspired robotics has matured into a significant branch of robotics. Recently, biologists and interdisciplinary teams are using robots as viable testbeds to help explore and evaluate hypotheses in animal behaviour. This strategy offers a suitable alternative to traditional biological methods, which have severe limitations including the feasibility to minimize confounding influences and isolate effects, the effects of the experiment and the experimenter on the study animal, and other limitations imposed by the behaviour of the animals, etc.. For example, a fish-like robot can greatly help biologists collect in-situ data on fish schooling behaviour with limited interferences from human or other factors, explore potential mechanisms of hydrodynamic benefits among individuals, and test hypotheses in collective motion by including the robot in the loop of collective animal behaviour. 

This Research Topic aims to expand the application of bio-inspired robots and to provide new ideas for studies in animal behaviour from animal locomotion to collective behaviour. Current studies on bio-inspired robots mainly focus on how to construct and control these platforms for artificial missions. Limited studies consider the applications of bio-inspired robots as a tool to better understand biological phenomena. Taking advantage of bio-mimics in both morphology and control, bio-inspired robots can be a great platform to study animal behaviour, such as animal locomotion, individual movement, and group behaviour. In general, the goal of the Research Topic is to collect those interdisciplinary studies that reverse the idea of bio-inspired robots by applying engineering methods (theory, simulation, or experiment) to study animal behaviour in biological systems. 

To achieve this goal, this Research Topic will showcase recent developments in using bio-inspired robots to understand animal behaviour. Interdisciplinary studies which cover both engineering and biological sciences are ideal but not necessary. Studies without biological data are also acceptable, as long as they follow the spirit of using robots to either explore or test hypotheses in animal behaviour.

This Research Topic will explore themes including, but not limited to:

• Aerodynamics in flying robots and animals

• Sensing and locomotion control in flying robots and animals

• Hydrodynamics in swimming robots and animals

• Sensing and locomotion control in swimming robots and animals

• Forging behaviour in robots and animals

• Obstacle/predator avoidance behaviour in robot and animals 

• Formation control in groups of robots and animals

• Collective behaviour in groups of robots and animals

Keywords : Bio-Inspired Robots, Animal Behavior, Robotics, Animal Movement, Sensing and Locomotion Control, Collective Behavior

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.

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The behavior of ant queens is shaped by their social environment

The queens in colonies of social insects, such as ants, bees, and wasps, are considered the veritable embodiment of specialization in the animal kingdom. The common perception is that the queen's only task is to lay eggs -- and that this attribute is an inherent trait, not influenced by external factors. In contrast, recent research undertaken at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has demonstrated that in certain ant colonies the social environment can play a crucial role in shaping the behavioral specialization of the queens. "With regard to the ant species we studied, it is social factors that control whether queens become specialized or not. Our findings challenge the widely accepted notion of social insect queens as inherently specialized egg-laying machines," stated Dr. Romain Libbrecht.

The research was conducted by the Reproduction, Nutrition, and Behavior in Insect Societies group at JGU under the supervision of Dr. Romain Libbrecht, an evolutionary biologist. The corresponding paper has recently been published in Functional Ecology . Dr. Romain Libbrecht currently works at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in the Insect Biology Research Institute of the University of Tours.

Concept of insect societies as superorganisms consisting of specialized individuals

It is generally assumed that social insect colonies consist of queens that monopolize reproduction and sterile workers responsible for all non-reproduction-related tasks, such as the care of the brood, i.e., eggs and larvae. Libbrecht's team now questioned this basic assumption. They focused on ant species where the queens found new colonies alone and without the help of workers. "Interestingly, these founding queens are not yet specialized in terms of their behavior at this stage of their lives," Libbrecht pointed out. "They themselves assume all tasks in the nest, such as brood care, to ensure successful production of the first generation of workers."

In their experiments, Libbrecht's group studied the black garden ant Lasius niger that is native to Germany. They found the social environment to be a core factor in determining the behavioral specialization of founding queens. "The introduction of workers in the nests of founding queens suppressed the natural predisposition of the queens to look after their brood themselves. And, conversely, when we isolated queens specialized in egg-laying from their workers, they rapidly reverted to the brood care behavior observed in the case of founding queens, even after many years of specialization."

Revision of the accepted view of the division of labor in insect societies

Libbrecht emphasized that the behavior observed during the study challenges the traditional view of social insect queens as being intrinsically specialized in egg production. Instead, the findings demonstrate that the presence of workers not only triggers the egg-laying specialization of queens but also actively maintains it in established colonies. The discovery of such social control of queen specialization may reshape our understanding of the functioning of insect societies and their division of labor.

Romain Libbrecht was head of the Reproduction, Nutrition, and Behavior in Insect Societies group at the Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution (IOME) at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz from 2016 to 2022. Since 2023, he has been a researcher at the Insect Biology Research Institute at the CNRS of the University of Tours. He is particularly interested in examining how organisms adjust their reproduction, physiology, and behavior in response to environmental conditions.

• Insects (including Butterflies)
• Mating and Breeding
• Behavioral Science
• Evolutionary Biology
• Environmental Awareness
• Exotic Species
• Environmental Policy
• Africanized bee
• Characteristics of common wasps and bees
• Sociobiology
• Egg (biology)

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Materials provided by Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Vahideh Majidifar, Marina N. Psalti, Martin Coulm, Ebru Fetzer, Eva‐Maria Teggers, Frederik Rotering, Judith Grünewald, Luca Mannella, Maxi Reuter, Dennis Unte, Romain Libbrecht. Ontogeny of superorganisms: Social control of queen specialization in ants . Functional Ecology , 2024; DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.14536

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Frans de Waal, biologist who championed animal intelligence and emotion, dies at 75

The primatologist found parallels between human behavior and that of our evolutionary cousins.

Frans de Waal, the prolific Dutch-American primatologist and author whose research revealed the depth and breadth of emotion and intelligence in nonhuman animals, died from stomach cancer on March 14 in Stone Mountain, Georgia, according to the New York Times . He was 75.

“It’s difficult to sum up the enormity of Frans de Waal’s impact, both globally and here at Emory,” said Lynne Nygaard, chair of Emory University’s department of psychology,   in a statement on the school's website . “He was an extraordinarily deep thinker who could also think broadly, making insights that cut across disciplines. He was always ready to participate in an intellectual discussion.” De Waal’s studies of animal behaviors that were once ascribed solely to humans—fairness, empathy, altruism, reciprocity, self-recognition, conflict resolution, grief, and consolation—played a pivotal role in bringing about the acceptance of animal emotion as a valid line of scientific inquiry.

( What are animals thinking? They feel empathy, grieve, seek joy just like us .)

Born in the city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, in 1948, de Waal showed an early enthusiasm for animals, keeping (with varying degrees of success) a modest menagerie that included mice and jackdaws, relatives of crows. Some of the jackdaws, de Waal recounted in stories, would even fly to and from school with him each day.   After an underwhelming introduction to biology in high school, de Waal almost went on to study mathematics or physics. It was his mother who reminded him of his long-standing interest in animals, and in 1966, he began an undergraduate degree in biology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen (now the Radboud University Nijmegen) in the Netherlands.  

De Waal’s entry into primate research was the result of a happy coincidence. He found biology to be somewhat dry, with its heavy focus on anatomy. The psychology department, where he spent time during his studies to earn extra money, happened to have two chimpanzees. This early exposure to primates would prove pivotal. At a career retrospective in 2014, he regaled the audience with a tale of how the chimps would become sexually aroused when female colleagues passed the enclosure. He and a male colleague sought to test this by dressing up as women—apparently eliciting little to no interest from the male chimpanzees. It was, he conceded, an imperfectly designed experiment.

In 1977, de Waal received his doctorate in biology from Utrecht University, where he worked under professor and mentor Jan van Hooff, an expert in primate facial expressions. His dissertation looked at aggression and alliance formation in macaques. He went on to serve as the C.H. Candler Professor in the psychology department of Emory University, in Georgia, and as the director of the Living Links Center at Emory’s Yerkes National Primate Research Center. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, and occupied the role of editor-in-chief of the journal Behaviour from 2011 until 2024.  

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De Waal was frustrated with what he saw as a misplaced focus on aggression in primates; he was more interested in cooperative behavior and cognition. In what became a theme throughout his career, his studies of reconciliation and conflict resolution among primates were initially controversial and challenged the prevailing orthodoxy, but as the data were confirmed his ideas went on to gain widespread acceptance. In the field of animal emotion, de Waal made his biggest mark. The post-Darwin consensus on animal behavior steered away from anthropomorphizing, or attributing to animals any characteristics perceived as uniquely human. De Waal saw this as a form of “anthropo-denial.” In his view, the question wasn’t whether or not animals had emotions; rather, it was how to study them. The species perhaps most closely associated with de Waal is the bonobo, a close relative of chimpanzees that he first saw at a zoo in the Netherlands. It only took a minute, he would later relate, for him to realize they were different from chimps in both vocalization and behavior. He knew immediately that he needed to study them. Colleagues at the time couldn’t understand why he would want to spend time on what were then referred to as “pygmy chimps,” often derided as “the poor man’s chimpanzee.”

But he found a home for his research at San Diego Zoo and in 1983 received a National Geographic Society grant to study the zoo’s bonobos. His work raised the profile of bonobos, the species he dubbed the “make love, not war” primate and called “peace-loving hippies.”   He contended that science’s focus on the chimpanzee as our closest living relative made little sense, and suggested that bonobos were also genetically similar to humans, therefore equally deserving of attention.   De Waal found the establishment somewhat prudish where the subject of sex—a cherished form of recreation for the bonobo—was concerned. At a   2014 symposium celebrating his career , he joked with the audience: “I talked openly about the sexual behavior,” he said. “At the time, American and Japanese scientists who worked on bonobos—they knew what they did, but they didn’t talk about it. They were too shy about it!” He noted that Americans would describe bonobos as “fairly affectionate. And you know, if I were affectionate like that in the streets of New York I would get arrested immediately!” When he started to put a book on bonobos together with wildlife photographer Frans Lanting, which features explicit sexual pictures of the apes, “we had to put it in the contract with our publishers that they would not censor our pictures.” Their photo book, Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape , published in 1997. Lanting paid tribute to his colleague in an email to   National Geographic in May 2022: “Frans de Waal’s work helps us understand who we are in the context of our next of kin on the tree of life. He has a unique ability to connect the evolutionary dots for a broader audience without sacrificing the scientific principles he was equally well-versed in. He is a great storyteller and not afraid to raise questions which fuel the public conversation about the deep connections between us as humans with our nearest relatives in the great primate family we’re all part of,” Lanting said.  

Primatologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Karen Strier, told   National Geographic in an email that de Waal unquestionably changed the way science views (and treats) primates. “His most influential insights, in my view, can be divided into three areas,” says Strier. The first was that “nonhuman primates are more thoughtful than we thought, in both their cognitive abilities and in their empathy and morality,” she says, spurring more ethical treatment of primates. The second: Frans’ “fine-grained observations of individuals in social groups, powerful experimental and analytical designs, and informative comparisons among closely-related species” showed the scientific community that a tremendous amount can be observed and concluded about primates through non-invasive techniques. The third, Strier says, is that “through his work we have gained new perspectives” on the evolution of our own behavior as humans. To de Waal, the existence of emotions and behaviors such as fairness in animals was obvious. The question was simply how to quantify and qualify these traits. His approach to experiments and observation yielded hard data, bringing scientific credibility to previously elusive concepts. In 2003, de Waal and colleague Sarah Brosnan conducted experiments in which capuchin monkeys were “paid” with either cucumber pieces or much-coveted grapes in return for completing a task. Footage of the disgruntled capuchin given the inferior cucumber went on to be a viral hit, clearly demonstrating that capuchins understand the concepts of fairness and injustice .

In 2011, de Waal and colleagues went on to prove that chimpanzees are inherently altruistic as well. When given a choice between helping themselves, or themselves and another, they will choose the latter.  

He authored 16 books , which have been translated into over 20 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide. It was   Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes that catapulted his work into the popular imagination, drawing parallels between the behavior of our primate relatives and that of another species: human politicians.   De Waal referred to writing books as his parallel career. Inspired by ethologist and author Desmond Morris, he understood the value of popularizing science. With a flair for presenting a compelling narrative underpinned by scientific rigor, de Waal achieved the rare feat of attaining and maintaining both popular success and the respect of his scientific peers. His 2016 book Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? landed on the New York Times best sellers list, and his 2019 book   Mama’s Last Hug won the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Award. “It is rare for a scientist to have such an enormous positive impact on both the academic field in which they work and the public’s perception and understanding of that field,” Joshua Plotnik, an elephant cognition expert who earned his Ph.D. under de Waal, told National Geographic by email. “Frans [was] most certainly one of those scientists.”

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Critical Problems for Research in Animal Sheltering, a Conceptual Analysis

Kevin horecka.

1 Research Department, Austin Pets Alive!, Austin, TX, United States

2 Arkansas State University, Department of Political Science, Jonesboro, AR, United States

Animal shelter research has seen significant increases in participation over the past several decades from academic organizations, private organizations, public entities, and even corporations that aims to improve shelter programs, processes, operations, and outcomes for the various stakeholders/participants involved in a shelter system (animals, humans, the community, wildlife, and the environment). These efforts are scattered through a huge variety of different research areas that are challenging to define and scope for organizations seeking to start new lines of research inquiry. This work aims to enumerate some of the most critical outstanding problems for research in animal sheltering in a conceptual framework that is intended to help direct research conversations toward the research topics of highest impact (with the highest quality outcomes possible). To this end, we define seven (7) key areas for research: animal behavior, adoptions and special needs populations, medical conditions, disease transmission, community, ecology, and wellness (one health), operations, and public-private-academic-corporate collaboration. Within each of these areas, we review specific problems and highlight examples of successes in each area in the past several decades. We close with a discussion of some of the topics that were not detailed in this manuscript but, nonetheless, deserve some mention. Through this enumeration, we hope to spur conversation around innovative methodologies, technologies, and concepts in both research and practice in animal sheltering.

Introduction

Animal Sheltering in Western society, in some form, has existed since the mid-1800's (with the creation of both the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1824 and 1866, respectively) and has been a constantly evolving field to both the benefit ( 1 , 2 ) and detriment ( 3 , 4 ), of its stakeholders: animals, pet owners, communities, and the organizations that tie these groups together. In the past several decades, a cultural shift has been occurring in which animal welfare ( 5 , 6 ) has received more attention, resources, and scrutiny than in the decades before. Success in sheltering is commonly measured by the Live Release Rate (hereafter LRR) that is obtained by dividing the total number of live animal outcomes (such as adoptions and transfers) by the total number of live animal intakes ( 7 ). Many cities have been able to increase their LRR and those of surrounding counties above 90 and even 95% ( 8 ), yet shelters still struggle with having adequate resources ( 9 ) and rural shelters may be more likely to struggle ( 10 ). The number of conceptual problems in sheltering is enormous, and as awareness of the needs of shelters continues to rise, more and more groups—academic, corporate, non-profit, and private—are looking for ways to contribute to the wider movement of animal welfare using their unique skills and talents. One difficulty for these potential partners is in understanding what the needs of shelters are and what high-value unsolved problems exist in the field.

Some of these are knowledge problems, others, implementation problems, and even more, systemic, cultural, and societal problems. Almost all require some manner of research to elucidate best practices and truths and differentiate them from traditions and myths. To aid interested parties in contributing to these areas of animal sheltering, we seek to enumerate and explain many of the critical problems for research in animal sheltering so that those organizations and interested parties might find a place to contribute. The key areas for future research were developed through a combination of both empirical and a priori traditions. The empirical approach used included input from animal sheltering professionals, including the responses of over 10 working groups representing more than 300 shelter professionals associated with Human Animal Support Services project to the question of what research needs were to advance animal sheltering. A priori observation and reflection of the researchers and reviews of the existing literature also helped to inform a lengthy list of research needs. These research needs were then thematically grouped in to the 7 key areas. Each of the areas was then evaluated on two factors: the degree of potential impact to animal sheltering and the difficulty in studying the problem.

Table 1 presents the 7 key areas identified. It also presents the impact potential for research in these areas by identifying the top-level impacts that advances in each topic area could have on the field of animal sheltering. While not intended to be all encompassing, this list captures the main topics generated by the authors and the consulted professionals.

The 7 key problem areas identified in this work and their impact potential in the space of animal sheltering. While not intended to be all encompassing, this list captures the main topics generated by the authors and the consulted professionals.

Figure 1 provides an additional way of examining these topical areas. This figure provides examples of critical problems for research in animal sheltering and provides a way to compare and evaluate the areas in terms of the relative difficulty of studying the problems as well as the relative magnitude of the potential impact. In addition to evaluating these factors for the key research areas identified herein, this figures also shows a framework through which other researchers could evaluate the relative impacts and difficulty of other possible research topics.

A Force Directed Graph showing the various problems discussed in this article. The size of a node represents the relative impact a solution would have. The color represents the relative difficulty of studying the problem (with red being more difficult). Links relate the topics. An interactive version can be found here: https://codepen.io/kevroy314/pen/jONoXma . Click to isolate nodes and their neighbors. Drag to move around. Scroll to zoom.

Key Areas for Research

Animal behavior.

Animal behavior is one of the most challenging and complex topics in animal sheltering. Leaving aside controversies surrounding the ethics of adopting out animals with known behavior challenges or the ending of the life of an animal, whether for the protection of the public, retribution for an incident, quality of life, or any other justification related to behavioral issues, such as biting or inappropriate elimination, the practical need to better understand and modify animal behavior to improve the lives of animals and their caregivers to improve their chances of adoption and/or their probability of remaining in the home ( 11 ) is substantial. Here, we highlight 4 key areas in animal behavior that may have the biggest impact in a shelter setting and that may be underrepresented in the literature.

Efforts to form a typology of dog behaviors that may be problematic in the home, and, specifically, dog behavior that may be averse to a successful adoption and retention in a home ( 12 , 13 ) have been attempted in the past ( 14 – 16 ). Despite the interest in canine behavior in general rising sharply in the early 1990s and more recently ( 17 ), no consensus has been reached upon a singular behavioral classification and identification system that can be used to make decisions around best practices with dogs with histories of behavior problems or potential for behavior problems. Such a classification system should have the following properties [( 18 ) for a more detailed discussion of the difficulties surrounding some of these issues]:

• Objective measurability and reproducibility.
• Characterization of common temporal progressions.
• Understood correlations between related behaviors.
• Clinical relevance to predictability and intervention.

Somewhat recent attempts ( 18 , 19 ) at assessing the efficacy of behavioral evaluations have not been as promising as might be hoped given the 50+ year history of the field, and the impact of such a system, especially in establishing new interventions that can help these animals be successfully placed in homes, could be enormous given the extreme difficulty in achieving successful outcomes for dogs with behavior issues.

One key factor in negative animal behaviors, especially as pertaining to the adoptability of animals, is the stress they experience while in a shelter setting ( 20 – 22 ). Studies of animal stress date back to 1926 ( 23 ) with animals have often serving as a model for human stress ( 24 , 25 ). Practical tools are needed to assess the impact of shelter environmental improvements. Using Biomarkers to assess stress ( 26 ) across species ( 27 – 29 ) have shown significant success in recent years. Unfortunately, the practical measurement of such biomarkers in shelter settings remains unlikely due to resource and practical constraints. Non-invasive measures of stress are possible in many species [including thermographic ( 30 , 31 ), salivary ( 32 ), visual ( 33 ), and multimodal ( 34 ) systems], though their efficacy as an intervention target is unclear. A more thorough understanding of best practices around the reduction of stress for animals in shelters will allow for significant improvement in the quality of life of long-stay animals as well as the adoptability of animals that may show fewer behavioral issues once removed from a stressful environment, with some evidence showing changes in cortisol levels, a common biomarker for stress, with even a single night removed from the shelter environment in adult dogs ( 35 ).

A key element in the success of an animal with behavioral issues, post-adoption is not simply the cessation of negative behaviors, but also the match with an adopter who can maintain the environment necessary for permanent improvement in behavior as well as following up with those adopters to ensure continued success is achieved. Preparing adopters and proper matching is key given the frequency of post adoption behavioral issues among shelter animals ( 36 ). This problem comes down to two key sets of questions:

Given evidence suggesting choice of pet is often tied to factors like appearance more than behavioral considerations ( 37 ), how should shelters best match behavioral issues with potential adopters who can handle the maintenance surrounding those issues to reduce the chance of return ( 36 , 38 , 39 ) and adverse incidents such as bites or escape from a yard?

What risks (i.e., environment impact on biting) ( 40 ) exist in the home that might exacerbate issues surrounding behavior?

Finally, when it comes to animal behavior, especially canine behavior, one of the most critical incidents that can occur is a bite incident since these can result in serious injury to persons and potentially result in liability claims against the shelter ( 41 ). The previously mentioned issues all likely contribute to the probability of a bite incident occurring, but predictions of such events, even in aggregate across a city ( 42 ), are challenging at best. A successful bite prediction system would also pose ethical issues as individuals, shelters, and cities may choose to use such a system to decide which animal's lives should be preemptively ended, to avoid the potential risk and liability. It is critical, therefore, that the predictability of bite incidents increase at the same rate as our ability to reasonably intervene to prevent the incidents.

Adoptions and Special Needs Populations

The core problem with adoptions at shelters is always “how do we get as many animals out to good homes as quickly as possible?.” Of course, as with so many seemingly simple problems, the posing of the question in such a general manner means no obvious solutions present themselves. Properly reframing the question often begins to imply solutions. Preventing the surrender of animals to the shelter system is certainly a key component to assuring positive outcomes for animals and people alike. New programs, such as the Human Animal Support Services project, are focusing heavily on programs aimed at keeping animals out of the shelter altogether and in their original homes whenever possible. Further, this paradigm shift has the potential to profoundly impact positive outcomes for community cats, who may not be best served through adoption. Although adoption is not the only possible positive outcome for all animals that enter a shelter system, for many animals (and the humans who manage the systems of sheltering), it remains an important practical and ethical outcome. Here, we review 3 key areas in adoptions that remain complex and difficult despite extensive efforts in the sheltering community. For a more complete list of these challenge areas, see the American Pets Alive! Documentation on the topic (“American Pets Alive! Resources;” https://americanpetsalive.org/resources ) ( 43 ).

First and most critically, large dogs, often considered to be those weighing over approximately 35 pounds or 16 kilograms, consistently have more difficulty in being adopted ( 44 – 46 ). This can be due to factors such as the general public perception around larger breeds ( 47 , 48 ), city ordinances banning ownership of certain breeds ( 49 ), housing restrictions implemented at the facility level ( 50 ), or concerns around safety, behavior, and compatibility with other home residents ( 51 ). These issues are exacerbated by the difficulty in accurately identifying breed information in shelter animal populations ( 52 ). As a result of these complications around getting large breeds out of shelters, shelters often end up with a stagnant population of these animals that has less turnover than other, easier to adopt categories (puppies of any breed, for example). This can create a perception that the only populations present are these large breed animals. These factors result in many of these animals having long stays and, as mentioned in prior sections, increased stress and overall wellness difficulties that further worsen their adoptable potential. Moreover, animals in the shelter are less likely to behave the way they might otherwise in a home ( 53 ), further decreasing their chances for a positive outcome. A strategy around breaking this cycle and helping large dogs would alleviate significant amounts of trapped resources as site maintenance and housing can create substantial costs and reduce flexibility in serving other populations. The importance of providing an equal opportunity for these large breed dogs to stay in their home is one consideration beyond adoption in strategy design. For example, policies that disallow the use of size of a dog as criteria for access to housing (as discussed above) would help keep these animals out of the shelter system in the first place. Adequate access to resources to behavior training could be another community level intervention that could allow more of these animals to stay in their homes.

Other Special Populations

Beyond these major issues, there are numerous conditions of decreasing commonality that require increasingly complex adaptations of program and policy to accommodate. This article cannot enumerate all such conditions, but the following list, sorted roughly by difficulty, captures some of the most critical special needs populations that require specially trained homes to inhabit, making them more difficult to adopt out:

• Geriatric Animals.
• Animals with Chronic Allergies.
• Hospice Animals.
• Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV) Cats.
• Kidney Failure Animals.
• Diabetic Animals.
• Behavior Animals.
• Animals with Paralysis and/or Incontinence.

Much of the care, maintenance, and treatment of these populations is well understood, but the problem of placing them in amenable homes is still a significant one. More research around interventions that can increase the likelihood of placement as well as the factors that impact the likelihood of special population placement may provide actionable insights [see ( 54 ) as an example in geriatric animals].

Finally, and significantly, a more thorough understanding of how to match adopters to animals ( 37 , 55 ), how to evaluate homes for safety and longevity of adoption outcomes ( 13 , 56 ), how to optimize placement of animals in homes ( 57 ), and what preferences exist when it comes to adoption practices around marketing, visitation, and engagement is desperately needed. This understanding will likely depend significantly on local cultural distinctions in populations ( 58 , 59 ) and is, therefore, difficult to examine systematically. More best practices around adoption matching and marketing would greatly simplify one of the most critical functions in animal shelters.

Unique Challenges of Cats

Another, potentially less obvious problem in sheltering is the difference in positive outcomes for cats vs. dogs. Best Friends, a national non-profit that provides the most comprehensive summary of annual shelter statistics reports that cats are still dying in shelters at a ratio of 2:1 when compared with dogs ( 60 ) despite approximately one-fourth of US households providing a home for cats ( 61 ). Many shelters consistently report difficulties in adopting out adult cats once they no longer have the appearance of a kitten ( 62 ). Further, shelter or municipal policies around the extermination of community cats ( 63 ) may also be a significant contributor to the numbers of cats not having successful outcomes in shelters.

Approaches to improving live outcomes for cats require shelters to explore ideas outside of the traditional intake to adoption framework. Some strategies that are specifically applicable to cats have been evaluated and shown to be effective such as trap-neuter-return and shelter-neuter-return, which could reduce the number of un-adoptable cats entering the shelter system ( 64 , 65 ), but more research into the social drivers and potential interventions for this issue are warranted. A development of the recognition of the ecology of community cats is an additional issue that is elaborated on in Section Operations.

Medical Conditions

In addition to its capacity as an adoption agency for unowned animals, animal shelters often perform a variety of medical services. These services depend on the location, resources, and risk tolerance each organization has, and it is often difficult for organizations to decide what to treat and what to not treat (whether euthanasia is then called for or not). One critical element of this that remains a challenge for all shelters is the effective, actionable diagnosis of disease [see, ( 66 )]. Many diseases have reliable tests (such as canine parvovirus) while others have a much more complicated history in the development of a reliable test [such as canine distemper, though many strongly claim RNA tests should be considered reliable; ( 67 – 69 )]. Cost is also a critical factor in shelter tests as even a relatively inexpensive (50 dollars) test in an outbreak scenario can be entirely impractical in a population of just a few dozen animals. Further research into low-cost testing is certainly needed for a wide variety of diseases.

Once the disease is identified, shelters often lack the resources for what would be considered “standard” care in a private practice. Some shelters opt to not offer reduced care and, instead, euthanize, while others choose to offer whatever care they can within their own ethical limitations of suffering and quality of life considerations. The need for significantly more research into evidence-based medical guidelines, and especially those that are specifically optimized for triage situations with limited resources and around medical conditions seen in shelters, is widely apparent. Some conditions, such as kitten diarrhea, may be somewhat understood in a general medical sense, but the treatments and time course do not scale appropriately for the model of a medium to large shelter.

Although many diseases could use additional scrutiny for the purposes outlined above, the following are of particular interest due to the costs, in either lives or resources, associated with typical treatment or management (T; indicates specific transmissible disease relevant to Section Disease Transmission):

• (T) Canine parvovirus ( 70 , 71 ).
• (T) Feline panleukemia ( 72 ).
• (T) Canine distemper ( 73 ).
• (T) Feline leukemia virus (FeLV) ( 74 ).
• (T) Feline immunodeficiency virus ( 75 – 78 ).
• Kitten diarrhea ( 79 ).
• Fracture and trauma management.

Disease Transmission

More so than the treatment of disease, the prevention of disease spread in the shelter environment is one of the most challenging, concretely measurable in the form of infection rates, yet ambiguous (difficult to diagnose in source) tasks a shelter may face. Shelters are examples of anthropogenic biological instability due to the housing of transient, displaced mixed-species of animals that may not have prior veterinary care or have been scavenging during times of homelessness ( 80 ). The disease transmission in shelters is further complicated by situation of overcrowding, poor levels of hygiene, and housing of multiple species which can add significant sources of stress for the animals and create a perfect environment for pathogen emergence and transmission ( 80 ). This transmission can quickly lead to a crisis in the shelter ( 81 ). Shelters that treat infectious disease like the canine parvovirus establish isolation areas in which only that disease is treated, but little is known about the ease with which these diseases spread under different quarantine practices.

Although there are many interesting diseases that are typically seen in shelters, some (such as those listed in Section Medical Conditions) are considered more impactful/deadly than others and, therefore, would make excellent targets for more detailed studies of disease spread.

While it is not officially recommended as a best practice ( 82 ), when shelters experience disease outbreaks, some may opt to depopulate, i.e., end the lives of their entire population, ( 83 ) rather than have it persist through many generations of animals flowing through the system. Better understanding of how to stem these outbreaks rapidly, efficiently, safely, in a resource-efficient manner, and given the constraints of a shelter environment (space, staffing, facility design, and the need to maintain normal operations) will allow shelters to avoid mass culling and take an approach that increases lifesaving with more confidence.

Community, Ecology, and Wellness (One Health)

Beyond the scope of the basic operations of a shelter in managing the conditions of individual animals and placing them in appropriate homes, shelters also serve a critical role in the community as providers of services that can enhance public perception and wellbeing ( 84 ). This collaboration requires an engaged community that recognizes the importance of animal welfare in the health and wellness of the larger, shared space. Best practices around establishing this type of engagement are not well identified in the existing body of knowledge. This is further confounded by variation in the distribution of resources and community attitudes in different geographic areas.

As animal shelters continue to evolve in response to societal shifts in attitudes toward animals, the focus of operations are changing from centering on adoptions to centering on the prevention of surrender of animals to the shelter in the first place [see ( 11 ) for a review]. This has already been discussed as it relates to community cats and behavior/health but there are many other human-centered reasons that animals are surrendered to shelters such as guardian health problems, housing insecurity, domestic violence, and many others ( 85 ). Our understanding of how human welfare intersects with animal welfare has the potential to have a dramatic impact on the way shelters operate in their communities. Some communities have hotlines, spay and neuter programs, and other medical/behavioral services that can potentially contribute to this issue, but the efficacy of such systems and the gaps they leave are not well understood. More significant study of the needs of local populations as they relate to shelter success is needed.

Local populations also differ in their perception and support of shelter policies, ethics, and the local system of laws that are intertwined with these efforts. No unified system of ethics is established in animal sheltering, and communities often do not understand the nuances of practices in shelters (especially regarding resource allocations and euthanasia practices). This makes galvanizing community support difficult, even in communities that have achieved remarkably high live release rates. Public perception, messaging, and ethical alignment will undoubtedly continue to be an ever-evolving socio-cultural landscape that is sorely in need of attention.

The mental health of volunteers, staff, and veterinarians ( 86 ) in animal shelters also requires much more attention than it often receives. Individuals that participate in euthanasia are reported to have higher work stress and lower job satisfaction than their counterparts ( 87 ). Suicide rates are significantly higher in the field of animal welfare than other high-stress fields ( 88 , 89 ), and more understanding and support is needing to help those working in these areas receive the help they need to continue to serve the community in a sustainable, healthy manner.

Access to Care

Access to veterinary care is emerging as a critical issue in animal welfare. Access to care is an aspect of the One Health approach to considering animal welfare due to the zoonotic potential of various diseases that can find reservoir in companion animals ( 90 ). In addition to being a risk to public health, lack of access to veterinary care can result in surrender of animals to shelters, stress to the caregiver/family ( 91 ) as well as stress to veterinarians who must counsel caregivers who cannot afford the recommended care ( 92 ). Shelters feel the impact of this as downstream recipients of animals when owners surrender due to an inability to access needed care. This can both drive surrender to shelters and result in a greater financial burden for shelters to meet medical needs that may be complicated by a historic lack of access to preventative or early intervention care. Further, shelters themselves compete in the market to employ veterinary professionals and support staff that may be further complicated by a shortage of veterinarians ( 93 , 94 ).

Access to care can be seen as a problem with multiple causes from cost to lack of transportation to the unequal distribution of veterinary resources across the landscape. Cost was identified as the most common barrier to accessing veterinary care in the Access to Veterinary Care Coalition report on this issue ( 91 ). In the past decade, costs for veterinary care have been outpacing increases in human health care ( 95 ). The average American spends 47% more on equivalent veterinary care today than a decade ago ( 96 ). The functional impact of this increasing cost is that fewer people are seeking care for their pets ( 97 ) resulting in what is considered the greatest current threat to companion animal welfare in the US ( 91 ). More research that identifies efficient, effective, and sustainable solutions to the cost of veterinary care will be key for animal shelters.

Key research questions in access to care can come down to three key areas:

Advances in areas like incremental care or spectrum of care, which are not equivalent but present different perspectives on the issue of cost-benefit analyses in treatment protocols, could reduce costs and prevent shelter surrenders but could also help shelters mitigate the increasing expense of medical treatment for animals in their care.

A deeper understanding of the number of animals surrendered for medical reasons, the types of these conditions and potential treatment routes pre-surrender would also add valuable knowledge to the animal sheltering and animal welfare communities.

Development of community-based solutions that focus on disease prevention when the cost is likely lower than when a disease process is more advanced. This includes the prevention of infectious disease transmission in the community and the development of effective education around other preventable conditions by pet guardians.

Ecology/Environment

The study of the ecology surrounding community cats has received significant attention over the past several years ( 63 , 64 , 98 – 102 ), and debates are likely to continue in this area to determine the most effective ways to ensure the health and safety of community cats and the organisms with which they interact. Additionally, ecological perspectives on the interaction between stray and roaming animals in general and the community are also of interest, but often only actively studied due to concerns over infectious disease spread such as the Rabies virus. Finally, the interaction of wildlife systems with domesticated animals may be of some interest both due to the spread of infectious disease and the more complex interactions these two animal groups may have with one another.

As animal welfare incorporates a One-health approach, further research that identifies strategies to reduce the environmental impact of shelter operations cannot be ignored. Effective ways of cleaning outdoor kennels without contributing to contaminate run-off, ecological disposal of animal waste and the evaluation of how large-scale animal transport can contribute to environmental degradation are just a few examples of the interaction of sheltering and the environment that are open for additional exploration.

In addition to the study of animal-centric, adoption-centric, and community-centric aspects of sheltering, the study of the operations that contribute to the ability of shelters to continually adapt, and advance is of critical importance if we are to have systems robust to disaster and capable of implementing our values and ethics on a global scale. Although blueprints do exist that can guide communities in setting up new shelters and enhancing existing shelters, significant problems remain in the space beyond the distribution of known solution resources. Here, we discuss 4 key operations problem areas with varying levels of complexity.

Data Problems

Shelters need to collect data to know how they are serving their animals, adopters, volunteers, staff, and community, and how to improve operations in all areas of the shelter. While the industry recognizes the need for quality data, significant barriers have been identified such as a lack of training and resources [( 103 ), additionally, see the Associate for Veterinary Informatics (AVI) for additional information on this topic; https://avinformatics.org/ ]. Solutions such as ShelterLuv, Chameleon, and PetPoint for database management go a long way to improving situations for shelters, but the ability to flexibly collect and curate all manner of useful data (including electronic medical records, location-based event history, and other meta-data about entities that comprise shelters) remains an open problem. It is also essential that the prioritization and understanding of the critical importance of data is shared by line staff as well as senior management. When line staff fail to understand the importance of complete data collection this action can be de-prioritized in fast paced shelter environment.

Beyond this, shelters need methods of protecting themselves in the sharing of data with the public, academic institutions, and each other. The public, which support shelters through taxes or donations, show widespread support, for example, for programs that reduce levels of shelter euthanasia shelters ( 104 ). The best practices around of performing data sharing and managing data access for shelters have yet to be established (though some progress has been made in recent months at the Municipal Shelter level). Over time, there have been attempts to create a single authoritative collection of sheltering data but to date, none have achieved high success. The current initiative that has achieved the most progress is Shelters Animals Count (SAC). SAC is a national database that relies on the voluntary participation by shelters and animal rescues to upload monthly sheltering summary statistics. Unfortunately, there is still relatively poor participation. For example, in 2020 there was participation by only 422 municipal shelters, 359 private shelters and 516 rescues ( 105 ). This can be contrasted with a 2014 estimate by the Humane Society of the United States of 3,500 municipal and non-profit shelters and over 10,000 rescue organizations ( 106 ). Despite the move toward increasing transparency in government, only a small handful of states and municipalities require reporting to their state and local governments, with even fewer providing enough clarity as to what should be reported for such reporting to be of use to the wider sheltering community. The result of this paucity and irregularity of data provides a significant challenge to researchers and policymakers in understanding what is happening across the nation regarding sheltering, though the contributions of states in which reporting is mandated effectively have provided a valuable starting point for these efforts.

KPI Problems

Once data is collected, linking that data down to trackable KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that are useful to shelters in improving outcomes for animals is a challenge in and of itself. The standardization of KPIs and their strict definitions has suffered from some of the disagreement and difficulties surrounding data collection. The most marked attempt to create unified KPIs occurred in 2004 resulting in the Asilomar Accords. The Live Release Rate, and methods of fairly but consistently calculating it materialized as a critical outcome of the Accords ( 107 ). This measure has never been without controversy and is limited, in part, by the wide variance in the various ways in which animal shelters operate in their community and what their priority services are ( 108 ). As the operation of shelters have changed, with more innovative programs designed to prevent animals from ever entering the shelter system appearing, advancements in medical and behavioral interventions, and the geographically biased nature of animal population distributions ( 109 ), the use of a single KPI will likely remain a source of both conflict and difficulty for many shelters. A more diverse set of KPIs will allow for shelters to perform more nuanced comparisons of their successes and failures that will enable better sharing of solutions and resources. What this list of KPIs should entail remains an open problem [see ( 110 )].

Growth Problems

Finally, as some shelters begin to stabilize the animal welfare situation in their cities, adapting to the varying degrees and paces of growth in various organizations to ensure resources are being properly utilized to the benefit of animals and the community is a challenge, to say the least. The field of Health Economics in humans has a rich history ( 111 ), and a similar field in Animal Health Economics ( 112 , 113 ) will likely need to be expanded beyond its traditional focus on production animals so that organizations are not put in a position to blindly guess at the proper allocations or resources toward different intervention programs (such as a canine parvovirus treatment program, FeLV treatment program, behavior program, or kitten foster program).

One particularly challenging program area for shelters to understand in the context of growth, integration, and resource allocation is the management of foster programs. Foster programs have been fantastically successful as a method of expanding the effective capacity of shelters, increasing live outcomes ( 114 ), enhancing community engagement, increasing quality of life of animals in care ( 35 ), and providing special assistance for more difficult to adopt populations. However, a thorough understanding of how to best engage, utilize, and grow foster programs is lacking.

Diversity Equity and Inclusion

Researchers have evidenced that the oppression of non-human animals, disabled humans, and people of color are deeply interconnected ( 115 ). If animal shelters are to continue to function as key members of diverse communities it is essential that they pay increasing attention to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in their operations both internal and external. While the community of research in this space has assembled a basic understanding of some inequities that currently exist, many others have yet to be explored in a thorough way. For example, we know that African Americans are underrepresented in leadership positions ( 116 ). The homogeneity of animal shelters is not confined to the workforce alone. Two large survey-based studies found similar results in evaluating the demographics of animal welfare volunteers concluding that most volunteers were White females in the middle to upper middle class ( 117 , 118 ). Questions of why this lack of diversity persists and what successful strategies could be used to improve conditions would be of benefit as representation of communities within organizations that serve them allow those organizations to supply the appropriate services to maximize the community benefit and foster a highly participatory, engaged, fair, enthusiastic, and ethical social system.

Beyond direct engagement with shelters as volunteers or employees, there are fecund areas for research in the provisioning of shelter operations. As increases in public-private partnerships place more animal shelters in the business of providing animal control operations, the enforcement of ordinances becomes a key issue in balancing public demand for action and the ethics and priorities of animal welfare. A recently published commentary on the subject argues that there is inherent bias in the design and enforcement of public policy around animal welfare and urges a shift from enforcement to resource provision ( 119 ). Evaluating policies and enforcement and implementation of these policies and whether biases are leading to unequal burden are not well understood though it is difficult to not draw comparisons to the arena of policing and the long, complicated relationship between marginalized communities and law enforcement personnel. Additional challenges persist in understanding potential inequities between the surrender of animals and the adoption of animals and whether these differences enforce equity imbalances or are based on existing biases and structural inequities ( 120 ).

Public-Private-Academic-Corporate Collaborations

A less visible and virtually unstudied problem in animal sheltering is the ability for organizational entities of different types and with different incentives to collaborate to the benefit of animals, their owners, the community, and each other. The social network analysis of Reese and Ye ( 121 ) is a prime example of the complex collaborative relationships that can emerge between organizations to advance lifesaving in a community. Many questions in this space exist around the best ways for these organizations to interact (i.e., what roles are best served by what organizations, what incentives are best to ensure ethical treatment of all parties, and what restrictions should be put on various types of interactions). Legal restrictions around the use of shelter animals in research may be a barrier that exists to research collaborations between shelters and academic institutions. Dialogue, consensus, and potential legislative change may be needed between animal shelters, the veterinary community, and academia to address the negative consequences of legislation originally intended to protect animals from harm.

Public-private partnerships in other areas of medicine have become increasingly common and valuable ( 122 ), and corporate sponsorship of shelters has become increasingly common. Public-private shelter partnerships are also on the rise with some proposing this structure as the new standard in the field ( 123 ). Academic collaboration with animal shelters, where academic institutions take advantage of the wealth of available subjects and data in shelters, is still a relatively new concept. Though many potential pitfalls exist in these collaborations (including issues with credit attribution, resource allocation, and ethical alignment), the potential to accelerate the state of the art in animal sheltering via these collaborations is huge thanks to the varied strengths of each organizational type.

The seven key areas for research in animal sheltering outlined above are not the only areas that might be of interest to shelter practitioners and their partners. Some additional areas of interest were not mentioned specifically in this manuscript due to the well-researched nature of the topics, the lack of clear definition in the space, and/or their relative distance from the typical practices of an animal shelter. These areas, nonetheless, merit some mention due to their importance to the area of animal welfare research at large and potential intersection with some shelter practices (depending on specific shelter policy, philosophy, and operations).

A variety of interventions have been proposed that might address some of the problems mentioned in this manuscript. On the behavior side, playgroup services have been proposed that may aid in social development and lead to more positive behavioral outcomes for dogs ( 124 ). Moreover, foster programs that take advantage of these and other medical or behavioral services to accelerate positive outcomes for animals deserve significant attention ( 35 , 125 ). Foster programs can serve as an additional reservoir for animal populations, increase community engagement in the shelter system, and encourage positive outcomes for animals in the foster system through positive environmental enrichment in homes. In situations where foster homes are not available, additional environmental enrichment to achieve similar aims may be found through clever building and facility design at the shelter site ( 126 , 127 ). Finally, a variety of programmatic and procedural interventions around lost and found animals, self-service rehoming, and intake-to-placement optimization, and field services optimization that aim to prevent animals from entering the physical shelter facility can serve as systems optimizations that improve outcomes for all parties; though, more research is needed in these areas to examine their efficacy. Each of these intervention areas, and other innovations in sheltering, deserve significantly more attention than can be afforded in this outline, and future work should attempt to address them more directly.

In addition to a variety of community and ecology problems and interventions, ethical problems in the industry of animal sheltering are not specifically addressed in this work as these are not research topics per se , but more in the realm of philosophy. Future work should examine ethical questions surrounding the topics outlined in this manuscript and other sociological research questions related to the ethics of animal shelter practices.

In this work, we present a conceptual organization of topics for research in Animal Sheltering. These topics vary significantly in difficulty and impact but represent a large swath of needed scientific contributions in the literature. Many of these areas are being actively worked upon by various research institutions (i.e., significant work in animal diseases has occurred), but some have received little attention yet (i.e., operations research). Moreover, some of these areas are being examined, but due to resource and/or methodological constraints, progress is slow. By enumerating these problems, the community of researchers attempting to improve the function of shelters for animals, staff, volunteers, and the community can more carefully and wholistically consider the breadth of applicability of their ideas and investigations and hopefully, more productively contribute to the literature.

Author Contributions

The above document was drafted and originated by KH with review, added sections on community cats, DEI, and Access to Care and most edits provided by SN. Figures were generated by KH. Both authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Funding for publication was provided by the American Pets Alive! Organization, while funding for individual authors and the creation of the work herein was provided by their respective institutions or the authors themselves.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Human Animal Support Services organization for their support and encouragement. Additionally, we would like to especially thank Dr. Nipuni Ratnayaka for her contributions to and review of some of the ideas in this document, Dr. Elizabeth Davis for her support in the development of these ideas, Rory Adams for his thoughtful comments around the topics in this document, Steve Porter for his commentary around shelter operations, Dr. Ellen Jefferson for her leadership and support of this work, and all of the staff, volunteers, and communities that continue to advance the state of the art in animal sheltering around the world. This work originally appeared in large part in a blog post from November of 2019. The original blog post can be found at: https://medium.com/@amparesearch/critical-problems-for-research-in-animal-sheltering-404395127b35 .