“These cats are like emissaries from the raw landscapes out West, probing the rest of the nation, showing us where patches of wildness remain, and bring a fuller dimension of wildness to them. It’s as if they’re testing to find out just what folks have in mind when they say they want to preserve natural settings. How natural? How toothy?” -- From the Foreword During a time when most wild animals are experiencing decline in the face of development and climate change, the intrepid mountain lion -- also known as a puma, a cougar, and by many other names – has experienced reinvigoration as well as expansion of territory. What makes this cat, the fourth carnivore in the food chain -- just ahead of humans – so resilient and resourceful? And what can conservationists and wild life managers learn from them about the web of biodiversity that is in desperate need of protection? Their story is fascinating for the lessons it can afford the protection of all species in times of dire challenge and decline. With hands-on experience in both the Rocky Mountains and the wilds of Patagonia in South America, wildlife manager Jim Williams tracks the path of the puma, and in doing so, challenges readers to consider humans’ role in this journey as well as what commitment to nature and conservation means in this day and age.

How dogs defied science and changed the way we think about animals What do dogs really think of us? What do dogs know and understand of the world? Do their emotions feel like our own? Do they love like we do? Driven by his own love of dogs, Charles Darwin was nagged by questions like these. To root out answers, his contemporaries toyed with dog sign language. To reveal clues, they made special puzzle boxes and elaborate sniff tests using old socks. Later, the same perennial questions about the minds of dogs drove Pavlov and Pasteur to unspeakable cruelty in their search for truth. These big names in science influenced leagues of psychologists and animal behaviourists, each building upon the ideas and received wisdom of previous generations but failing to see what was staring them in the face - that the very methods humans used to study dogs' minds were influencing the insights reflected back. To discover the impressive cognitive feats that dogs are capable of, a new approach was needed. Treated with love and compassion, dogs would open up their unique perspective on the world, and a new breed of scientists would be provided answers to life's biggest questions. Wonderdog is the story of those dogs - a historical account of how we came to know what dogs are capable of. It's a celebration of animal minds and the secrets they hold. And it's a love letter to science, through the good times and the bad.

The most commonly kept domestic animal in the developed world, the cat has been a part of human life for thousands of years. Cats have been both worshipped and persecuted over this long period - either loved or hated for their enigmatic self-reliance and the subject of numerous myths and fables. Highlighting startling discoveries made over the last ten years, this new edition features contributions from experts in a wide range of fields, providing authoritative accounts of the behaviour of cats and how they interact with people. Thoroughly revised and updated to include information on the basic features of cat development and social life, the history of their relations with humans, health and welfare problems, and the breeding of cats for sale and for show. It is intended for all those, whether specialist or general reader, who love or are simply intrigued by these fascinating animals.

Although there is extensive literature in the field of behavioral ecology that attempts to explain foraging of individuals, social foraging--the ways in which animals search and compete for food in groups--has been relatively neglected. This book redresses that situation by providing both a synthesis of the existing literature and a new theory of social foraging. Giraldeau and Caraco develop models informed by game theory that offer a new framework for analysis. "Social Foraging Theory" contains the most comprehensive theoretical approach to its subject, coupled with quantitative methods that will underpin future work in the field. The new models and approaches that are outlined here will encourage new research directions and applications.

To date, the analysis of social foraging has lacked unifying themes, clear recognition of the problems inherent in the study of social foraging, and consistent interaction between theory and experiments. This book identifies social foraging as an economic interaction between the actions of individuals and those of other foragers. This interdependence raises complex questions about the size of foraging groups, the diversity of resources used, and the propensity of group members to exploit each other or forage cooperatively. The models developed in the book will allow researchers to test their own approaches and predictions. Many years in development, Social Foraging Theory will interest researchers and graduate students in such areas as behavioral ecology, population ecology, evolutionary biology, and wildlife management.

Igor Aleksander is Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Imperial College, London. Well established as a skilled and provocative communicator, he addresses both the general reader and the consciousness studies specialist. Never one to dodge the big questions, Igor Aleksander tackles them head on in this latest book: Is there a 'real world' or is our awareness of one an illusion? Are animals conscious? Can machines be conscious? What is it to be unconscious? Does the 'science of consciousness' impinge on religious thought? How is consciousness affected by mental deterioration? Aleksander's technique is to refine the search for answers by the application of his five 'axioms' concerning consciousness, which he has already derived and set out in earlier work: Being a 'self' in an out-there world; Recalling and imagining being a 'self' in experienced or fictitious worlds; Attending to individually important things; Being able to decide what to do next; and having emotional feelings about things that are happening or being planned.

The past decade has seen a profound change in the scientific understanding of reproduction. The traditional view of reproduction as a joint venture undertaken by two individuals, aimed at replicating their common genome, is being challenged by a growing body of evidence showing that the evolutionary interests of interacting males and females diverge. This book demonstrates that, despite a shared genome, conflicts between interacting males and females are ubiquitous, and that selection in the two sexes is continuously pulling this genome in opposite directions. These conflicts drive the evolution of a great variety of those traits that distinguish the sexes and also contribute to the diversification of lineages. Goran Arnqvist and Locke Rowe present an array of evidence for sexual conflict throughout nature, and they set these conflicts into the well-established theoretical framework of sexual selection.

The recognition of conflict between the sexes is transforming our theories for the evolution of mating systems and the sexes themselves. Written by two top researchers in the field, "Sexual Conflict" is the first book to describe this transformation. It is a must read for all scholars and students interested in the evolutionary biology of reproduction."

This book explores the strikingly similar ways in which information is encoded in nonverbal man-made signals (e.g., traffic lights and tornado sirens) and animal-evolved signals (e.g., color patterns and vocalizations). The book also considers some coding principles for reducing certain unwanted redundancies and explains how desirable redundancies enhance communication reliability.

Jack Hailman believes this work pioneers several aspects of analyzing human and animal communication. The book is the first to survey man-made signals as a class. It is also the first to compare such human-devised systems with signaling in animals by showing the highly similar ways in which the two encode information. A third innovation is generalizing principles of quantitative information theory to apply to a broad range of signaling systems. Finally, another first is distinguishing among types of redundancy and their separation into unwanted and desirable categories.

This remarkably novel book will be of interest to a wide readership. Appealing not only to specialists in semiotics, animal behavior, psychology, and allied fields but also to general readers, it serves as an introduction to animal signaling and to an important class of human communication.

"Shuster and Wade place the study of animal mating systems and alternative mating strategies in a comprehensive theoretical framework. This framework is both elegantly simple and comprehensive. Most importantly they demonstrate with real life examples the utility of their approach and demonstrate that it can be tested empirically. It will serve as a benchmark for research in this area for many years to come."--Derek Roff, University of California, Riverside

"This ambitious and wide-ranging book offers new ways to look at sexual selection and its many consequences. Shuster and Wade have done the field a great service by challenging existing theory with respect to the evolution of mating systems and alternative mating strategies. Because they also provide the key predictions derived from their approach, they and others will be able to test their ideas even more fully in the years ahead. Let the fun begin. "--John Alcock, Arizona State University

"This important and original book addresses the issues that are attracting attention from a broad community studying the evolution of reproductive strategies. Its comprehensiveness and rigor give it the potential to influence a large field of research, and its personal perspective gives it the potential to redirect the field. The authors boldly challenge many current views of mating systems and alternative mating strategies. If they are correct, this book will likely become a landmark."--Mart Gross, University of Toronto

"This is an exceptional and thought provoking contribution to behavioral ecology. It uses excellent examples, slays some sacred cows, and is superbly written and often brilliant."--Barry Sinervo, University of California, Santa Cruz

This book features scientists from a broad spectrum of disciplines discussing recent data on aggression in laboratory animals with particular reference to possible implications for understanding human aggression. Chapters focus on the major current experimental issues in the study of aggression in humans and animals. The extensive discussions deal with specific problems of interpretation at the molecular level, as well as general issues relating to our understanding of human and animal aggression.

An Introduction to Hormones and Behavior explores the ways in which hormones modulate behavior and vice versa. The volume focuses on the key principles of the topic and features original readings from classic studies, as well as more recent research, to provide students with a holistic understanding of the interplay of hormones and behavior. The text begins with a chapter dedicated to endocrine principles and methods, then advances to discuss sexual differentiation, sex differences, and development. Later chapters address the distinctive characteristics and differences between male and female reproduction, as well as male and female parental behaviors. In the closing chapters, students learn about social behavior, stress, and how hormones influence human behavior. Each chapter features prewriting exercises, an introduction to provide context and background information, select readings, and critical thinking questions. The revised first edition includes two new readings, "Testosterone and Cortisol Release among Spanish Soccer Fans Watching the 2010 World Cup Final" and "Hormones and Sleep." An Introduction to Hormones and Behavior is an excellent resource for undergraduate and graduate courses in hormones and behavior, behavioral endocrinology, and physiological psychology.

The Trinidadian guppy ("Poecilia reticulata") is well known to biologists and home aquarium enthusiasts alike. Scientists have studied guppies for most of the twentieth century. Some of the most intensive recent research has been conducted by behavioral ecologists, who have found that the guppy mating system makes guppies especially useful in the study of sexual selection and mate choice. By observing guppy behavior in aquaria, researchers hope to obtain new insights into how selection operates in natural populations. Here Anne Houde summarizes and synthesizes the scientific work done to date, relates the empirical findings on guppies to current themes in sexual selection theory, and suggests new directions for future research.

This book describes the sexual behavior of guppies and examines how mate choice by females leads to the evolution of the conspicuous colors and the courtship displays for which guppies are widely recognized. The author shows that female guppies prefer males with bright color patterns, especially those with orange spots, and that the mating preferences of females lead to sexual selection on both color patterns and courtship displays of males. Houde's work addresses a number of areas that are of interest in sexual selection, including the remarkable degree of plasticity and evolutionary lability of sexual behavior in guppies, geographic variation in mating preferences, possible mechanisms for the evolution of female mating preferences, and the role of sexual selection in speciation. In conclusion, the author explores the implications of her findings for behavioral ecologists who study sexual selection in other species.

'Turn the pages to revel in the techno-tracking that is revealing the secrets of animal lives. This is science at its best, the art of understanding truth and beauty' Chris Packham Once tracking animals meant following footprints. Now satellites, drones, camera traps, cellphone networks, apps and accelerometers allow us to see the natural world as never before. For the first time, this book lets you follow the journeys of seals, sharks, elephants, bumble bees, owls and wolves all over the world. Open it, and go where the animals go. 'This is a special kind of detective story' New Scientist 'This book is beautiful as well as informative and inspiring. There is no doubt it will help in our fight to save wildlife and wild habitats' Dr Jane Goodall 'Beautiful and thrilling ... a joy to study cover to cover' E. O. Wilson