A leading expert in animal behavior takes us into the wild to better understand and manage our fears.

Fear, honed by millions of years of natural selection, kept our ancestors alive. Whether by slithering away, curling up in a ball, or standing still in the presence of a predator, humans and other animals have evolved complex behaviors in order to survive the hazards the world presents. But, despite our evolutionary endurance, we still have much to learn about how to manage our response to danger.

For more than thirty years, Daniel Blumstein has been studying animals' fear responses. His observations lead to a firm conclusion: fear preserves security, but at great cost. A foraging flock of birds expends valuable energy by quickly taking flight when a raptor appears. And though the birds might successfully escape, they leave their food source behind. Giant clams protect their valuable tissue by retracting their mantles and closing their shells when a shadow passes overhead, but then they are unable to photosynthesize, losing the capacity to grow. Among humans, fear is often an understandable and justifiable response to sources of threat, but it can exact a high toll on health and productivity.

Delving into the evolutionary origins and ecological contexts of fear across species, The Nature of Fear considers what we can learn from our fellow animals--from successes and failures. By observing how animals leverage alarm to their advantage, we can develop new strategies for facing risks without panic.

Broadly, I am interested in the evolution of social and antipredator behavior and the ramifications mechanisms of behavior have for higher level ecological processes and for wildlife conservation. I have spent over a decade studying the evolution of complex communication and sociality and used the 14 species of marmots (Marmota-cat-sized sciurid rodents found throughout the northern hemisphere) as a model system.

Much of my marmot work now focuses on the yellow-bellied marmots of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (www.rmbl.org) which have been studied continuously since 1962.

A main theme in my research is integrating knowledge of animal behavior into conservation biology. Ultimately, I aim to illustrate, through examples, how knowledge of behavior should influence policy.

In addition to my more theoretical work, I've been actively engaged in using ecotourism as a form of community development and as a way to conserve natural resources. My theoretical research interests are particularly relevant to the applied work because ecotourism can adversely impact wildlife. Ultimately, it is the wildlife's perception of human impacts that matters.

Source: University of California Los Angeles - Ecology & Evolutionary Biology