Primary sexual traits, those structures and processes directly involved in reproduction, are some of the most diverse, specialized, and bizarre in the animal kingdom. Moreover, reproductive traits are often species-specific, suggesting that they evolved very rapidly. This diversity, long the province of taxonomists, has recently attracted broader interest from evolutionary biologists, especially those interested in sexual selection and the evolution of reproductive strategies.
Primary sexual characters were long assumed to be the product of natural selection, exclusively. A recent alternative suggests that sexual selection explains much of the diversity of "primary" sexual characters. A third approach to the evolution of reproductive interactions after copulation or insemination has been to consider the process one of sexual conflict. That is, the reproductive processes of a species may reflect, as does the mating system, evolution acting on males and on females, but in different directions.
In this volume, authors explore a wide variety of primary sexual characters and selective pressures that have shaped them, from natural selection for offspring survival to species-isolating mechanisms, sperm competition, cryptic female choice and sexual arms races. Exploring diverse reproductive adaptations from a theoretical and practical perspective, The Evolution of Primary Sexual Characters will provide an unparalleled overview of sexual diversity in many taxa and an introduction to the issues in sexual selection that are changing our view of sexual processes.

Beekeeping is a sixteen-billion-dollar-a-year business. But the invaluable honey bee now faces severe threats from diseases, mites, pesticides, and overwork, not to mention the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder, which causes seemingly healthy bees to abandon their hives en masse, never to return.
In The Quest for the Perfect Hive, entomologist Gene Kritsky offers a concise, beautifully illustrated history of beekeeping, tracing the evolution of hive design from ancient Egypt to the present. Not simply a descriptive account, the book suggests that beekeeping's long history may in fact contain clues to help beekeepers fight the decline in honey bee numbers. Kritsky guides us through the progression from early mud-based horizontal hives to the ascent of the simple straw skep (the inverted basket which has been in use for over 1,500 years), from hive design's Golden Age in Victorian England up through the present. He discusses what worked, what did not, and what we have forgotten about past hives that might help counter the menace to beekeeping today. Indeed, while we have sequenced the honey bee genome and advanced our knowledge of the insects themselves, we still keep our bees in hives that have changed little during the past century. If beekeeping is to survive, Kritsky argues, we must start inventing again. We must find the perfect hive for our times.
For thousands of years, the honey bee has been a vital part of human culture. The Quest for the Perfect Hive not only offers a colorful account of this long history, but also provides a guide for ensuring its continuation into the future.

Because of their vital role in the emergence of humanity, tools and their uses have been the focus of considerable worldwide study. This volume brings together international research on the use of tools among primates and both prehistoric and modern humans. The book represents leading work being done by specialists in anatomy, neurobiology, prehistory, ethnology, and primatology. Whether composed of stone, wood, or metal, tools are a prolongation of the arm that acquire precision through direction by the brain. The same movement, for example, may have been practiced by apes and humans, but the resulting action varies according to the extended use of the tool. It is therefore necessary, as the contributors here make clear, to understand the origin of tools, and also to describe the techniques involved in their manipulation, and the possible uses of unknown implements. Comparison of the techniques of chimpanzees with those of prehistoric and modern peoples has made it possible to appreciate the common aspects and to identify the differences. The transmission of ability has also been studied in the various relevant societies: chimpanzees in their natural habitat and in captivity, hunter-gatherers, and workmen in prehistoric and in modern times. In drawing together much valuable research, this work will be an important and timely resource for social and behavioral psychologists, anthropologists, paleontologists, and animal behaviorists.

A completely up-to-date introduction to the most common group of bees in Britain. Bees, for most people, mean honey or bumble bees, but in fact these social species make up only a small proportion of the species that live in Britain. Open your eyes to the so-called ‘solitary’ bees, and discover a wonderfully diverse population – miners, leafcutters, carpenters and masons – many of which can be found in your own back garden. Solitary bees come in a variety of colours and sizes, with some as large as bumblebees and some only a few millimetres long, and many are key pollinators for our crops and wildflowers. This comprehensive book will tell the story of how these bees live, reproduce and thrive: discover the numerous strategies used by male bees to find females and persuade them to mate; follow the females as they build their nests – or in the case of ‘cuckoo’ species, sneak into the nests of their neighbours – and watch as the new generation appears. Explore the interactions between flowering plants and their bee visitors, asking what the plants get from the relationship, as well as how the bees select the plants they visit, and the ingenuity required to extract pollen, nectar and other rewards. Finally, learn places where bees flourish and what can be done to encourage them and ensure they continue to pollinate our flowers and crops. Drawing on all the latest research as well as the authors’ own observations in the field, this timely New Naturalist gives a wonderful insight into the complicated lives of solitary bees, and the complexity of the behaviour and ecology of this remarkable group of insects.

Advances in the Study of Behavior, Volume 53 provides users with the latest insights in this ever-evolving field. New chapters in this release include Cooperative breeding in birds, Interactive singing in birds: What have we learned in the last 20 years? Pied babblers, Mate choice in frogs, Dogs, and Do hosts of avian brood parasites discriminate parasitic vs. predatory threats? A review.

A heartfelt hymn to the sea and an unforgettable introduction to one of the most gifted nature writers of the new generation The seas cover over two thirds of our planet and yet most of us live our lives on land, creatures of a different element, at once fascinated and terrified by the beauty and power of these great bodies of water. There are some, though, who go to sea, who get to know its many moods -- the tranquil and mirror-like, the raging and ripple-swept -- and who bring back with them their stories of wonder and warning. Hannah Stowe is one such sea-goer and one such storyteller. Drawing on her expertise as a marine biologist and sailor, and her experiences in the North Sea, the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the North Sea, the Celtic Sea, and the Caribbean, Move Like Water is an exploration of the human relationship with the sea, the powerful impression it has made on our culture, and the terrible damage we have inflicted upon its ecosystems. In shimmering, fluid prose, Stowe introduces us to five keystone marine creatures - the sperm whale, the humpback whale, the orca, the albatross and the firecrow - encouraging us to fall in love with the seas as she has, to appreciate their majesty and their vulnerability.

"Advances in the Study of Behavior" was initiated over 40 years ago to serve the increasing number of scientists engaged in the study of animal behavior. That number is still expanding. This volume makes another important "contribution to the development of the field" by presenting theoretical ideas and research to those studying animal behavior and to their colleagues in neighboring fields. "Advances in the Study of Behavior" is now available online at ScienceDirect full-text online from volume 30 onward.

The book presents new and stimulating approaches to the study of language evolution and considers their implications for future research. Leading scholars from linguistics, primatology, anthroplogy, and cognitive science consider how language evolution can be understood by means of inference from the study of linked or analogous phenomena in language, animal behaviour, genetics, neurology, culture, and biology. In their introduction the editors show how these approaches can be interrelated and deployed together through their use of comparable forms of inference and the similar conditions they place on the use of evidence. The Evolutionary Emergence of Language will interest everyone concerned with this intriguing and important subject, including those in linguistics, biology, anthropology, archaeology, neurology, and cognitive science.

"Advances in the Study of Behavior" was initiated over 40 years ago to serve the increasing number of scientists engaged in the study of animal behavior. That number is still expanding. This volume makes another important "contribution to the development of the field" by presenting theoretical ideas and research to those studying animal behavior and to their colleagues in neighboring fields. "Advances in the Study of Behavior" is now available online at ScienceDirect full-text online from volume 30 onward.
"Advances in the Study of Behavior" was initiated over 40 years ago to serve the increasing number of scientists engaged in the study of animal behaviorMakes another importantcontribution to the development of the fieldPresenting theoretical ideas and research to those studying animal behavior and to their colleagues in neighboring fields
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This is the perfect chance to immerse yourself in the uplifting sounds of a perfect country morning, from the comfort of your own home. At dawn, in our countryside, there is a pronounced peak in bird singing activity. This is especially noticeable for about an hour after the first light in temperate zone woodlands during spring and early summer. At this time, male birds defend their territories and attract females with their songs. The recordings on this CD are a selection of British woodland recordings, taken from the extensive collection of the wildlife section of the British Library sound archive.

"Advances in the Study of Behavior" was initiated over 40 years ago to serve the increasing number of scientists engaged in the study of animal behavior. That number is still expanding. This volume makes another important "contribution to the development of the field" by presenting theoretical ideas and research to those studying animal behavior and to their colleagues in neighboring fields. "Advances in the Study of Behavior" is now available online at ScienceDirect full-text online from volume 30 onward.

The past, present and future of the world's most popular and beloved pet, from a leading evolutionary biologist and great cat lover. Jonathan B. Losos unravels the secrets of the cat using all the tools of modern technology, from GPS tracking (you’ll be amazed where they roam) and genomics (what is your so-called Siamese cat, really?) to forensic archaeology. He tells the story of the cat’s domestication (if you can call it that) and gives us a cat's-eye view of the world today. Along the way we also meet their wild cousins, whose behaviours are eerily similar to even the sweetest of house cats. Drawing on his own research and life in his multi-cat household, Losos deciphers complex science and history and explores how selection, both natural and artificial, over the millennia has shaped the contemporary cat. Yet the cat, ever a predator, still seems to have only one paw out of the wild, and readily reverts to its feral ways as it occupies new habitats around the world. Looking ahead, this charming and intelligent book suggests what the future may hold for the special bond between Felis catus and Homo sapiens.

The principles of game theory apply to a wide range of topics in biology. This book presents the central concepts in evolutionary game theory and provides an authoritative and up-to-date account. The focus is on concepts that are important for biologists in their attempts to explain observations. This strong connection between concepts and applications is a recurrent theme throughout the book which incorporates recent and traditional ideas from animal psychology, neuroscience, and machine learning that provide a mechanistic basis for behaviours shown by players of a game. The approaches taken to modelling games often rest on idealized and unrealistic assumptions whose limitations and consequences are not always appreciated. The authors provide a novel reassessment of the field, highlighting how to overcome limitations and identifying future directions. Game Theory in Biology is an advanced textbook suitable for graduate level students as well as professional researchers (both empiricists and theoreticians) in the fields of behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology. It will also be of relevance to a broader interdisciplinary audience including psychologists and neuroscientists.

In this, the first of two ground-breaking volumes on the nature of language in the light of the way it evolved, James Hurford looks at how the world first came to have a meaning in the minds of animals and how in humans this meaning eventually came to be expressed as language. He reviews a mass of evidence to show how close some animals, especially primates and more especially apes, are to the brink of human language. Apes may not talk to us but they construct rich cognitive representations of the world around them, and here, he shows, are the evolutionary seeds of abstract thought - the means of referring to objects, the memory of events, even elements of the propositional thinking philosophers have hitherto reserved for humans. What then, he asks, is the evolutionary path between the non-speaking minds of apes and our own speaking minds? Why don't apes communicate the richness of their thoughts to each other? Why do humans alone have a unique disposition to reveal their thoughts in complex detail? Professor Hurford searches a wide range of evidence for the answers to these central questions, including degrees of trust, the role of hormones, the ability to read minds, and the willingness to cooperate.
Expressing himself congenially in consistently colloquial language the author builds up a vivid picture of how mind, language, and meaning evolved over millions of years. His book is a landmark contribution to the understanding of linguistic and thinking processes, and the fullest account yet published of the evolution of language and communication.
"A wonderful read - lucid, informative, and entertaining, while at the same time never talking down to the reader by sacrificingargumentation for the sake of 'simplicity'. Likely to be heralded as the major publication dealing with language evolution to date. Frederick J. Newmeyer, University of Washington

The Evolution of Social Wasps resolves one of evolution's most intriguing problems - the origin of insect sociality. It also challenges conceptual approaches that have dominated three decades of social behaviour research. Hunt's innovative model integrates life history, nutrition, development and ecology. His broad synthesis of empirical knowledge on social wasps should interest evolution biologists, behavioural ecologists, or entomologists alike.

Our understanding of the basic biology of owls is poor compared to that of other bird species. The Little Owl, Athene noctua, has become one of the best models for biological and conservation research, due to its commonness and the fact that it occupies nest-boxes very easily. In this unique book the authors synthesise the substantial literature, and detail current information regarding the Little Owl. They discuss its wide-ranging ecology, genetics and subspecies and population status by country. In addition, they outline a strategy and monitoring program for its conservation. The book features an outstanding bibliography of literature on the Little Owl, listing publications dated from 1769 to 2007, in many languages, including Russian, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Dutch. Whilst being an invaluable resource for academic researchers, its straightforward style holds undoubted appeal for amateurs and enthusiasts.

"Advances in the Study of Behavior" was initiated over 40 years ago to serve the increasing number of scientists engaged in the study of animal behavior. That number is still expanding. This thematic volume, "Vocal Communication in Birds and Mammals, "makes another important "contribution to the development of the field" by presenting theoretical ideas and research to those studying animal behavior and to their colleagues in neighboring fields.

More is known about the behavior, anatomy, and molecular biology of the laboratory rat than any other animal species. Although its natural history and psychological functions have been described previously in books, this is the first comprehensive description of its behavior. Both seasoned and beginning investigators will be amazed at the range and complexity of the species as described in the 43 chapters of this volume. The behavioral descriptions are closely tied to the laboratory methods from which they were derived, thus allowing investigators to correlate the behavior and methods and exploit them in their own research. This book is aimed at investigators in neuroscience who may not be familiar with rat behavior, but who wish to incorporate behavioral studies into their own research. Nevertheless, seasoned investigators will also find the book to be a handy reference for behavioral paradigms with which they may not be familiar. It is expected that as the genetic and molecular understanding of the rat develops, there will be an increasing need for knowledge about rat behavior. This book will serve as an indispensable resource for neuroscientists, psychologists, pharmacologists, geneticists, molecular biologists, zoologists, and their students and trainees.

The small, terrestrial eastern red-backed salamander is abundant on many forest floors of northeastern North America. Dr. Robert Jaeger and many of his graduate students spent over 50 years studying this species in New York and Virginia, using ecological techniques in forests and behavioral experiments in laboratory chambers in an attempt to understand how this species interacts with other species in the forest and the components of its intra- and intersexual social behaviors. The competitive and social behaviors of this species are unusually complex for an amphibian. This species is highly aggressive towards other similar-size species where they cohabit in forests, often leading to very little geographic overlap between the species. The authors examine the fascinating behavioral traits of this species including social monogamy, mutual mate guarding, sexual coercion, inter-species communication, and conflict resolution.

This volume brings together evidence that animal behaviour varies geograhically, and explores some of the richness in phenomena, interpretations, and problems which can arise in such studies. The authors summarize advances in the field to date, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches, and give a clear and balanced overview of this area.