In October 1986, the first International Behavioral Ecology Meeting was held in Albany, NY, USA, organized by Jerram Brown, Thomas Caraco, Christopher Barkan and David Steadman. There were 22 invited speakers from 5 countries who spoke on a wide variety of topics relating behavioral ecology to ethology, population ecology and evolutionary biology. In addition, 115 poster papers were presented. It was attended by 370 participants and hugely successful. The organizers had recognized that behavioral ecology was a mature discipline in its own right. They wished to initiate the creation of a formal society that would facilitate communication through newsletters and regular future meetings and to lay the groundwork for a possible new journal that would be affordable to all members. In a general assembly, it was decided that 1) additional meetings would be held dedicated solely to the field of behavioural ecology, 2) a new, international society would be founded and 3) the feasibility of establishing a new journal would be explored. A six-member council was established to found the new society, consisting of Malte Andersson (nominating committee), Jerram Brown (treasurer), Mart Gross (meeting coordinator), Donald Kramer (chairman and newsletter editor), Geoffrey Parker and Larry Wolf (new journal coordinator and nominating committee). Via the newsletter, a tentative society name and constitution were developed and voted upon (July 1988), nominations for officers were received and voted upon (August 1988) and issues involving a new journal were discussed. 

By the next meeting in October 1988, the fledgling society had a name, a constitution and a set of 8 officers. Following an open discussion led by John Krebs, a vote was taken in Vancouver for the executive council to pursue the publication of a journal, with progress to be reported in the newsletter. The executive council then appointed a subcommittee of John Krebs, Linda Partridge and Randy Thornhill to undertake journal matters, including contacting possible publishers and negotiating with them. It was decided the journal should have two editors, one located in Europe and one in North America. A large list of possible candidates for the editorial board was drawn up from suggestions by the membership and whittled down to sixteen. The aim was for the board to cover as wide a range of subjects, taxonomic groups and geographical areas as possible. It was also intended that the journal reflect the full range of interests of members of the Society, covering all taxonomic groups, theory as well as empirical work and the links between behavioral ecology and neighboring disciplines. Eventually, Oxford University Press (US) was selected from seven interested publishers and Staffan Ulfstrand and Donald Kramer were named as founding coeditors in July 1989. The name Behavioral Ecology was chosen and a call for papers went out. Following an excellent response from members of the Society, the first issue of the journal appeared in August 1990. From then on, membership in the Society included subscription to the journal and numbers increased dramatically to rise above 1,000 in 1992, peaking at about 1,350 in 1998, and have stabilized at about 800 since 2004.