| Citation | Distinguished for his contributions to the analysis of the evolutionary & ecological significance of behaviour, particularly in birds. His development of the marginal value model of foraging and of a Bayesian decision model for sampling an unknown environment have been important theoretical developments. However the strength of Kreb's [sic] approach lies in his testing theoretical concepts by field observation & elegant experimentation; in this way his work has made a major contribution to the understanding of territoriality, flocking, feeding strategies, vocal communication and spatial memory. From his studies on bird song he is responsible for key quantitative evidence on an association between intraspecific geographical variation in the structure of birds' song and the structure of their habitats & on variations in song repertoire & several indices of reproductive success and for the first field evidence that female mating preference may be influenced by paternal song heard in early life & that birds refer to their own repertoire of vocalisations in categorising others that they hear: the latter provides support for the 'neural templet' concept for bird song development. He has made comparable investigations in the other fields, in particular in the testing of the optimal diet model & other facets of foraging strategies theories. |