As humanity exploits and reshapes the environment to accommodate for development and population growth demands, animals need to adapt to these human-induced rapid environmental changes and increased likelihood of human interactions, but also to deal with increased competition due to higher densities of conspecifics and heterospecifics in the ever-dwindling suitable habitats. And yet, certain species appear to adjust more successfully to these challenges than do others, finding ways to thrive amidst these anthropogenic changes. Examples of social cognitive abilities that allow animals to exploit this human-dominated world include individual recognition and communication, information gathering through individual and social learning and behavioural reading (in both conspecifics and heterospecifics, including humans), and flexibility in social behaviour. The aim of this Special Collection is to explore how animals adapt - or fail to adapt - to these changes across a wide range of species, approaches, and disciplines.

For more details, please read our submission guidelines. Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published. The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer-review process. The peer-review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.