Abstract
The science of sensory ecology formally emerged in the book of Ali (1978)ALI MA. 1978. Sensory Ecology. Review and Perspectives. New York: Plenum Press, 597 p., when behavioral ecology was gaining popularity. Until 2020, three main books were written on the subject, in 1992 (Dusenbery 1992DUSENBERY DB. 1992. Sensory Ecology. New York: W.H. Freeman, 558 p.), 2001 (Barth & Schmid 2001BARTH FG & SCHMID A. 2001. Ecology of sensing. Berlin-Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 341 p.) and 2013 (Stevens 2013STEVENS M. 2013. Sensory ecology, behaviour and evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 247 p.). The definitions of sensory ecology provided by Ali emphasize adaptation, optimality and fitness. These are main concepts of behavioral ecology but the last two are not necessarily fundamentals of sensory ecology. Here I looked at the evolution of the concept of sensory ecology and tried to understand whether there is evidence that the definitions given in 1978 had been influenced by behavioral ecology. I have counted the appearances of these three words (adapt*, optim* and fitness) in these books, divided by the number of words in each book, and compared the numbers to the definitions of sensory ecology given. Authors in Ali´s book often use adaptation but seldom deal with optimality or fitness. I suggest that the appearance of these keywords of behavioral ecology in the definitions of sensory ecology in Ali´s book was maybe a necessity to fit in the paradigms of that time. Sensory ecology was actually mechanistic in 1978 and 1992. Sensory ecology is now both mechanistic and evolutionary.
Key words
historical context; behavioral ecology; ethology; mechanism; proximal
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