Studying Individuality in Behavioural Ecology: Overcoming Epistemic Challenges

Behavioural 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 behavioural ecology, we analyse concerns that behavioural ecologists express about their ability to study individuality. We argue that these concerns stem from two epistemic challenges: the variation-noise challenge and the generalisation 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 generalisations, as they typically involve ignoring idiosyncratic factors. We examine how these challenges shape research practices in behavioural ecology, leading to epistemic strategies for studying individuality via alternative approaches to measurement, experimentation, and generalisation.