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Plenty of Room at the Bottom?   William G. Eberhard, William T.
Wcislo  Problems Measuring Behavior  The idea that grade changes
are associated with differences in behavioral capabilities in
different species stems from an assumed correlation between
brain size and behavioral capabilities. Comparative studies have
often been confounded by the use of imprecise, difficult-to-
define behavioral metrics such as intelligence. And an important
question remains unanswered: How do we quantify and compare
behavior in biologically meaningful ways across different taxa?
The size of an animal’s behavioral repertoire has sometimes been
used as a quantitative measure of a species’ behavioral
complexity. This intuitively appealing idea suffers from several
problems. In a pioneering study relating behavior to head and
brain size in ants, Blaine Cole, now at the University of
Houston, highlighted some of them. Such a metric relies on
subjective decisions to distingu