Why Ask "Why": The Importance of Evolutionary Biology in Wildlife Science

The kinds of questions we ask in wildlife biology are at least as important as the methods we use to get answers to questions in research. In this essay, I urge wildlife biologists to vigorously pursue why questions rather than how questions or descriptive studies that should serve only as a starting point for our investigations. Behavioral ecologists are currently involved in a debate over explanations for biological phenomena called levels of analysis : how many are there, what terms and definitions apply to each level, and the importance of clearly identifying which level an explanation emanates from given that there are correct explanations for the same phenomenon at each level