The first day of the 24th World Congress of the International Society for Human Ethology (ISHE) 2018, held at the Plaza San Francisco Hotel in Santiago de Chile, began with a large influx of visitors.

The opening ceremony was attended by the Director of the CICS, Carlos Rodríguez-Sickert, the researchers and DCCS professors, Tamas David-Barrett and Ana María Fernández, as well as numerous academics and audience coming from various countries.

After the ceremony, Sabine Tebbich launched her oral presentation “Behavioral innovations in animals and humans”. The researcher from the University of Vienna, presented a theoretical framework that describes the interactions between underlying mechanisms, fitness benefits, and evolutionary significance of innovations and illustrate it with animal and human examples.

Tebbich said that “these examples of animal innovation suggest, to some extent, that animals are akin to us in their ability to find novel solutions to problems”. She added that “behavioural innovations have played an important role in our own evolutionary trajectory as well as in that of other animals.”

In the following days, renowned researchers from Chile, China, United States, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, among other countries, will meet to share their research on the issue convened by Congress.