Abstract: We adopted a bibliometrical approach to evaluate the status of animal behavior research in China. We used the terms “animal behavior” and “ethology” as keywords to search and collect Chinese and English literature in animal behavior studies by Chinese researchers in the Science Citation Index and the China Academic Journal Network Publishing database. We performed quantitative analyses on the distributions of the years of publication, the author and authors’ affiliations, the journals, the research funds, times cited, study animals, the countries of the collaborators, research area, and fund types. The results indicated that animal behavior studies started late in China and that the growth of publications fluctuated in the past three decades. There has been a trend toward English-language and away from Chinese-language in recent years. The average number of citations per paper was 2.81. The distribution of organizations and researchers engaged in the field of animal behavior were scattered, but there were core research groups formed in China. Both Chinese and English publications were concentrated in several journals and a professional journal aimed at animal behavior was needed in China. Research funds had a wide array of sources with the National Natural Science Foundation of China as the main funding source. The percentage of publications which contained international collaborators in English was much more than that in Chinese. The main collaborating country was USA. Mammals were the most important focal animal, followed by birds in Chinese publications but insects in English publications. Reproductive behavior was a major field of study, and more research on activity rhythms, time budgets, observation recordings, and behavior echograms were reported in Chinese than in English. In general, the development of animal behavior publications in China followed a logistic growth pattern. Though the overall level of the research is still lower, we expect that animal behavior study has stepped into a new stage of development.

Key words: Animal Behavior, Bibliometric, Status

摘要： 采用文献计量学的方法，在《中国学术期刊网络出版总库》和《Science Citation Index》数据库中，以“动物行为”、“animal behavior”、“ethology”作为检索词，检索了中国学者在国内外期刊上发表的中英文文献，并对中国动物行为学领域发文的年代、期刊、研究单位、作者、被引频次、国际合作、基金项目、研究对象和领域等内容进行了定量分析。结果表明：中国动物行为学研究起步较晚，近三十多年来相关动物行为学文献在波动中增长，并在近几年有从中文向英文转移的趋势；平均每篇文献被引2.81次；作者和研究单位虽然分散，但已经形成了专门从事动物行为研究的核心作者群、研究机构群；国内外均存在动物行为学文献的主要期刊分布区，但国内迫切需要一种动物行为学的专业期刊；动物行为研究的基金来源广泛，其中国家自然科学基金占重要地位；有国外作者参与的英文文献比例远大于中文文献，主要合作国家是美国；中国动物行为研究对象主要为哺乳动物，鸟类是中文文献第二位研究对象而昆虫是英文文献的第二位研究对象；繁殖行为是中国动物行为主要研究领域，中文文献在行为观察记录和行为谱、活动节律和时间分配方面的比例远远大于英文文献。总体上看，中国动物行为学文献发展符合科学文献逻辑增长曲线;整体研究水平偏低，国际影响力有待提高；中国动物行为学已步入新的发展阶段。

关键词: 动物行为学, 文献计量学