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Behavioural research is shedding new light on the complex relationships between the proximate mechanisms involved in habitat selection and the selective pressures that may have contributed to the evolution of those mechanisms. Habitat selection by dispersers can be divided into three stages (search, settlement and residency); recent studies suggest that the adaptive significance of behaviour at each of these stages may differ from the assumptions of traditional habitat selection theory. For instance, dispersers may benefit from the presence of conspecifics or heterospecifics while searching for, settling in, or living in new habitats, and individuals may prefer to settle in post-dispersal habitats similar to their pre-dispersal habitats, because this behaviour reduces the costs of detecting or assessing suitable habitats (habitat cuing) or because experience in a pre-dispersal habitat improves performance if an animal settles in the same type of habitat after dispersing (habitat training). Dispersers have evolved a variety of proximate behavioural mechanisms to reduce search and settlement costs in natural environments, but if they currently rely on these processes, species living in areas modified by human activities may not exhibit ‘ideal’habitat selection behaviour. Insights from recent studies of habitat selection may help solve specific problems in conservation biology, and more generally, help biologists understand the intimate relationship between dispersal and habitat selection behaviour.