ARCTIC TERN MIGRATION

While Tinbergen's four questions (mechanism, ontogeny, adaptive value, and phylogeny) serve as a good framework for the study of animal behavior, modern science and new data asks us to reassess the advantages and disadvantages of his method of inquiry. As such, we chose to use Bateson and Laland's improvements, which offer a more nuanced approach. In their 2003 paper titled  ‘Tinbergen’s Four Questions: An appreciation and an update’, they praise Tinbergen for his stupendous contributions to the field of animal behavior, and also ask how we can update these to better fit the scientific understanding of today. For clarity and to decrease incorrect assumptions about certain terms, they replaced "adaptive value" with "current utility" and "phylogeny" with "evolution".