Studying Individuality in Behavioral Ecology: Overcoming Epistemic Challenges

Abstract Behavioral ecologists have recently begun to study individuality, that is, individual differences and uniqueness in phenotypic traits and in ecological relations. However, individuality is an unusual object of research. Using an ethnographic case study of individuality research in behavioral ecology, we analyze concerns that behavioral ecologists express about their ability to study individuality. We argue that these concerns stem from two epistemic challenges: the variation-noise challenge and the generalization challenge. First, individuality is difficult to distinguish from noise, as standard practices lump variation between individuals together with noise. Second, individuality is difficult to capture in generalizations, as they typically involve ignoring idiosyncratic factors. We examine how these challenges shape research practices in behavioral ecology, leading to epistemic strategies for studying individuality via alternative approaches to measurement, experimentation, and generalization.