Abstract
Animal ecology has undergone a period of profound methodological and conceptual renewal over the past decade,
driven by technological advances in biologging, remote sensing, molecular ecology, and computational modelling that
have fundamentally expanded the spatial, temporal, and biological scales at which ecological processes can be studied.
This review synthesises emerging trends in animal ecology research from 224 primary studies published 2015-2025,
identifying six major research frontiers: (i) movement ecology and the Animal Internet of Things (AioT), enabled by
miniaturised GPS-GSM and satellite telemetry tags; (ii) functional trait-based ecology, replacing species-identity with
trait-mediated mechanistic models of ecosystem function; (iii) landscape genomics, integrating population genetics with
spatial environmental data to identify adaptive variation and connectivity; (iv) animal microbiome ecology, examining how
gut and skin microbiomes mediate host fitness, immunity, and ecological interactions; (v) community ecology under
multiple stressors, developing multi-stressor frameworks that replace single-factor experimental designs; and (vi)
macroecological synthesis enabled by global biodiversity databases (GBIF, eBird, MoveBank) and machine learning. A
bibliometric analysis of 14,820 animal ecology publications (2015-2024) reveals the fastest-growing subfields and
identifies Europe's comparative research strengths and gaps. Cross-cutting themes -- open data practices,
reproducibility, and the integration of Indigenous and local ecological knowledge -- are assessed for their transformative
potential. A forward-looking agenda prioritises five research directions for the 2025-2035 decade in European animal
ecology.