The main theme of Sexual Selection and the Barn Swallow is that sexual selection is important and affects many aspects of animal life such as mating behaviour, parental care, host-parasite interactions, and migration strategies. Birds with extravagant feather ornaments are the standard example of sexual selection. Here the selective advantages of a long tail are investigated for a common bird, the barn swallow, in the context of sexual selection theory. This study constitutes a major empirical test of the theoretical predictions and will be of especial interest to students of behavioural and evolutionary ecology.

This is a critical survey of the physiological approach to learning, memory and intelligence in animals. Emphasis has been placed on the implications of physiological research for theories of the intelligence processes of animals.

Essays discuss migration, courtship, the care of young, camouflage, hunting techniques, and symbiotic relationships.

Beach-spawning fishes from exotic locations on most continents of the world provide spectacular examples of extreme adaptations during the most vulnerable life cycle stages. The beauty, intriguing biology, and importance of these charismatic fishes at the interface of marine and terrestrial ecosystems have inspired numerous scientific studies. Adaptations of behavior, physiology, development, and ecology are gathered together for the first time in this book. Beach-Spawning Fishes: Reproduction in an Endangered Ecosystem is a comprehensive guide to beach spawning, a charismatic animal behavior that is seen in a surprising number of teleost species. This unexpected form of reproduction provides a window into the ecology of coastal areas, the behaviors and physiology necessary for fishes and their eggs to adapt to terrestrial conditions, and the threats and challenges for conservation and management. Beach-spawning species include important forage fishes such as the capelin, exotic fishes such as the fugu puffer, and the spectacular midnight runs of the California grunion.

Wolves excitedly greet each other as members of the pack come together; a bumble bee uses its long tongue to reach the nectar at the base of a foxglove flower; a mongoose swiftly and deftly bites its prey to death; young cheetahs rest quietly together, very close to sleep. Now in full colour, this revised and updated edition of Manning and Dawkins' classic text provides a beautifully written introduction to the fundamentals of animal behaviour. Tinbergen's four questions of causation, evolution, development and function form the fundamental framework of the text, illustrated with fascinating examples of complex behavioural mechanisms. The authors provide accounts of all levels of behaviour from the nerve cell to that of the population. The strengths of An Introduction to Animal Behaviour as a textbook include its clear explanations and concise, readable text and the enthusiasm of the authors for their subject.

This book presents the discoveries made during nearly three decades of research on the parental shield bug, Parastrachia japonensis inhabiting Kyushu Island, Japan. P. japonensis has evolved a unique and fascinating life history, characterized by extreme behavioral and physiological adaptations that have culminated in a singularly dependent relationship with its lone host tree, Schoepfia jasminodora (Olacaceae), which is a generally scarce and unreliable resource. It is expected that the evolution of parental care behaviors in the strictly semelparous P. japonensis was more directly influenced by the benefit to females that arises from enhanced survivorship of current offspring, rather than any possible cost the females might incur in terms of reduced future reproductive success, because no future reproduction is possible. The authors explain how the different parental cares in this species enhance offspring survivorship in the context of the ecological conditions it has experienced over evolutionary time. The book begins with a recap of the earliest studies, the reports through 1991, and then introduces the many fascinating aspects of the life history, neurobiology, physiology and behavior of P. japonensis that have been newly discovered since, and those aspects that have been confirmed through experimentation over the past thirty years. This comprehensive review of information will be useful for comparative studies of parental care in other semelparous and iteroparous organisms experiencing both similar and different ecological constraints. The book will be of academic interest to undergraduate and graduate students of entomology, zoology, behavior, and behavioral ecology.

In this straight-forward, objective approach to the sociobiology debate, noted animal behaviorist John Alcock illuminates how sociobiologists study behavior in all species. He confronts the chief scientific and ideological objections head on, with a compelling analysis of case histories that involve such topics as sexual jealousy, beauty, gender difference, parent-offspring relations, and rape. In so doing, he shows that sociobiology provides the most satisfactory evolutionary analysis of social behavior today.

Why do birds often live in pairs and rear chicks together, whereas female mammals usually live in groups and rear their young without male help? Why do males sometimes live with a single mate when they are capable of fertilizing more than one female's eggs? Is male helping behavior important for monogamous partnerships? This book provides answers concerning the biological roots of social monogamy in animal groups as diverse as ungulates, carnivores, rodents, birds and primates (including humans) for students and researchers in behavioral ecology, evolutionary anthropology and zoology.

Unsere Sinne - Sehen, Hoeren, Riechen, Schmecken und Tasten - bestimmen wesentlich unser Leben. Alles was wir wissen, wurde uns von unseren Sinnen vermittelt. Aber wie funktionieren unsere Sinne und wie kommt das Wissen uber die Welt in unseren Kopf? Nach welchen Kriterien entscheidet unser Gehirn, was zu tun ist? In diesem Sachbuch wird allgemeinverstandlich dargelegt, wie hoch entwickelt die Sinnesorgane bei Tieren und Menschen sind. Oft erreichen Sinnesleistungen die Grenze des physikalisch Moeglichen. Das Buch erklart, wie Sinnesreize erfasst werden, wie sie in die Sprache des Nervensystems ubersetzt werden und wie unser Gehirn Sinnesinformation verarbeitet. Das Gehirn setzt dabei auf wohl bewahrte Strategien, die ein Ziel verfolgen: die UEberlebenschance des Organismus zu erhoehen. Deshalb wird in diesem Buch gezeigt, wie sehr die Sinnesleistungen durch die Evolution geformt und bestimmt wurden. Das Buch zeigt auch, dass viele Tiere ihre Umwelt vollkommen anders wahrnehmen als wir. Fur die Neuauflage haben die Autoren den Text durchgesehen und auf den aktuellen Stand gebracht.

Despite their diversity, amphibians and reptiles share many physiological traits, such as their dependence on external heat sources for body temperature regulation, that are of pivotal importance to their ability to cope with the environment. Considerable variation in physiological capabilities exists in these groups and often can be related to seasonal and geographic differences in environmental parameters. This book provides a comprehensive and integrative view of the interplay between physiology and behavior in amphibians and reptiles, leading to a better understanding of the subject. The book covers topics that have recently been in the spotlight for scientific research on the physiology, behavior, and conservation of amphibians and reptiles. It brings together recent information from a range of disciplines that address critical topics for understanding their biology. As these studies are scattered across articles in specialized journals, this book provides a single and expanded source summarizing such advancements. Amphibian and Reptile Adaptations to the Environment: Interplay Between Physiology and Behavior maintains a solid scientific basis for the biological topics covered. However, it presents the material in a clear and direct manner so that it is accessible even to non-biologists interested in the basic biology, behavior, and ecology of these animals as well as how these elements are connected to their conservation.

Infanticide is an extremely complex behavioral pattern that occurs throughout the animal kingdom and it must be considered not only in isolation but also from the viewpoint of an animal's care of its young. The concept of infanticide is considered in different mammals such as humans, primates, pinnipeds, lions, dwarf mongooses and prairie dogs and in non-mammals including insects and birds. This book also views the topic in different environmental conditions such as the natural habitat of an animal and animals kept in laboratory conditions.

Understanding the biology of the innumerable number of aquatic species on our planet is the focus of sustained research efforts. Environmental degradation, management or rehabilitation of wild stocks, and the forecasted climatic changes are fueling interest in the study of the ecology, feeding behavior, and nutrition of aquatic animals in their natural habitat. In parallel, the rapid expansion of aquaculture in many parts of the world has supported vigorous research programs on nutrition, and feeding of cultivated aquatic organisms. More than 250 aquatic species are cultivated on a commercial scale using a wide variety of production systems. This great diversity results in great opportunities and tremendous challenges. Topics covered in this book are as diverse as, feeding ecology of fish in their natural habitat, feeding behavior, digestive anatomy, biochemistry and physiology of different fish species at different life stages, the impact of diet on gastro-intestinal development and health, nutrition and disease resistance, and modeling conversion of food or feed inputs into biomass.

Can the structures that animals build--from the humble burrows of earthworms to towering termite mounds to the Great Barrier Reef--be said to live? However counterintuitive the idea might first seem, physiological ecologist Scott Turner demonstrates in this book that many animals construct and use structures to harness and control the flow of energy from their environment to their own advantage. Building on Richard Dawkins's classic, "The Extended Phenotype," Turner shows why drawing the boundary of an organism's physiology at the skin of the animal is arbitrary. Since the structures animals build undoubtedly do physiological work, capturing and channeling chemical and physical energy, Turner argues that such structures are more properly regarded not as frozen behaviors but as external organs of physiology and even extensions of the animal's phenotype. By challenging dearly held assumptions, a fascinating new view of the living world is opened to us, with implications for our understanding of physiology, the environment, and the remarkable structures animals build.

The second volume of the collected papers of W D Hamilton, each one introduced by an autobiographical essay. Hamilton is the most important theoretical biologist of the 20^th century and his papers, not especially numerous, have had, and continue to exert, an enormous influence. Many were originally published in obscure and inaccessible places. Volume 1 (OUP, still in print) was devoted mainly to selection for social behaviour, the first half of Hamilton's life's work; Volume 2 is on the other half, on sex and sexual selection, and it includes the 18 papers published between 1980 and 1991. Each paper is accompanied by a specially written introduction describing why the work was done, how the paper came to be written, and its eventual fate. The introductions, written in an accessible, non-technical style, include history, opinion, and excerpts from Hamilton's life.

The ability of species to migrate has interested ecologists for many years. Now that so many species and ecosystems face major environmental change, the ability of species to adapt to these changes by dispersing, migrating, or moving between different patches of habitat can be crucial to ensuring their survival. This book provides a timely and wide-ranging overview of the study of dispersal and incorporates much of the latest research. The causes, mechanisms, and consequences of dispersal at the individual, population, species and community levels are considered. The potential of new techniques and models for studying dispersal, drawn from molecular biology and demography, is also explored. Perspectives and insights are offered from the fields of evolution, conservation biology and genetics. Throughout the book, theoretical approaches are combined with empirical data, and care has been taken to include examples from as wide a range of species as possible.

Harriers are a world-wide group of birds of prey whose mating systems, population dynamics, and evolution are well-studied. This is the first book to synthesise and analyse the masses of data on the behavioural ecology of harriers. It offers an intriguing comparison of breeding systems among harriers in the northern and southern hemispheres, and includes a new phylogeny of the harriers, based on the most recent DNA findings. It is illustrated throughout with original line drawings of these impressive birds.

This impressive collection features Richard Herrnstein's most important and original contributions to the social and behavioral sciences--his papers on choice behavior in animals and humans and on his discovery and elucidation of a general principle of choice called the matching law. In recent years, the most popular theory of choice behavior has been rational choice theory. Developed and elaborated by economists over the past hundred years, it claims that individuals make choices in such a way as to maximize their well-being or utility under whatever constraints they face; that is, people make the best of their situations. Rational choice theory holds undisputed sway in economics, and has become an important explanatory framework in political science, sociology, and psychology. Nevertheless, its empirical support is thin. The matching law is perhaps the most important competing explanatory account of choice behavior. It views choice not as a single event or an internal process of the organism but as a rate of observable events over time. It states that instead of maximizing utility, the organism allocates its behavior over various activities in exact proportion to the value derived from each activity. It differs subtly but significantly from rational choice theory in its predictions of how people exert self-control, for example, how they decide whether to forgo immediate pleasures for larger but delayed rewards. It provides, through the primrose path hypothesis, a powerful explanation of alcohol and narcotic addiction. It can also be used to explain biological phenomena, such as genetic selection and foraging behavior, as well as economic decision making.

This volume presents an international group of researchers who model animal and human behavior--both simple and complex. The models presented focus on such subjects as the pattern of eating in meals and bouts, the energizing and shaping impact of reinforcers on behavior, transitive inferential reasoning, responding to a compound stimulus, avoidance and escape learning, recognition memory, category formation, generalization, the timing of adaptive responses, and chromosomes exchanging information. The chapters are united by a common interest in adaptive behavior--whether of human, animal, or artificial system--and clearly demonstrate the rich variety of ways in which this fascinating area of research can be approached.
In so doing, the book demonstrates the range of thought that qualifies as theorizing in the contemporary study of the mechanisms of adaptive behavior. It has two purposes: to bring together a very wide range of approaches in one place and to give authors space to explain how their ideas developed. Journal literature often presents fully-formed theories with no explanation of how an idea came to have the shape in which it is presented. In this volume, however, leaders in different fields provide background on the development of their ideas. Where once psychologists and a few zoologists had this field to themselves, now various types of computer scientists have added great energy to the mix.

Ever since Jane Goodall unlocked the mysteries of wild chimpanzees, and Dian Fossey lived among Mountain gorillas, the world has been captivated by primates and the people who study them. Here at last, is the riveting story of Birute Galdikas, a pioneering primatologist who has spent much of herlive studying orangutans.

In 1971, twenty-five-year-old Galdikas began living in the remote jungles of Indonesian Borneo, where she encountered menacing poachers, blood-sucking leeches and swarms of carnivorous insects. Determined to penetrate the world of the elusive "red ape" in the name of science and conservation, Galdikas embarked on a quest of more than twenty years to become the foremost chronicler of orangutan life. Her first task was to form a bond of trust with the animals, but her initial forays into their world were thwarted by skeptical and territorial orangutans like handsome Cara, who hurled dead branches at Galdikas from the tree canopy above. Eventually Galdikas became a surrogate member of the community, triumphantly claimed as "mother" by little Sugito, who clung to her fiercely, night and day, for months. Reflections of Eden is an exotic adventure, a history of vital scientific research, and the memoir of a remarkable woman.

This book is a personal history and apology, written by one of this century's most distinguished small mammal ecologists, for a life in science spent working on problems for which no final dramatic conclusion was reached. Included along the way are some important anedcotes and history about Charles Elton and the pioneering work at the Bureau of Animal Population at Oxford University, from which much of modern population ecology has grown, and insights on the philosophy and practice of science.

At first sight just a small brown bird, the dunnock's unobtrusive appearance belies its extraordinary behaviour and mating patterns. In this book Nick Davies gives a full account of the mating systems of the dunnock or hedge sparrow, Prunella modularis, which include pairs, a male with two females, two males with one female, and several males with several females. Detailed observations, elegant field experiments, and DNA fingerprinting are combined to show how this variable social organization from selfish individuals competing to maximize their own reproductive success. Further experiments reveal how the cuckoo may thwart the dunnock's parental efforts. David Quinn's exquisite drawings provide a visual summary of the birds' behaviour. All students of ecology, evolution, and animal behaviour will want to be familiar with this work, which addresses the wider issues of the influence of ecology on mating systems and the evolutionary significance of conflict within and between species. This is the third volume in the Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution, and the first in this series to tackly behavioural ecology. Nick Davies is a Lecturer in Zoology at the University of Cambridge and co-editor with J. R. Krebs of the leading text in the field, Behavioural ecology: an evolutionary approach.

First published in 1989. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Although commonly believed that males are more promiscuous than females, new research has revealed that female infidelity is a common occurrence throughout the animal kingdom. Female Infidelity and Paternal Uncertainty is the first book to address how males deal with the consequences of female infidelity and the strategies they have evolved to try to avoid the possibility of raising an offspring they unknowingly did not sire. Each chapter deals with a specific evolved strategy developed to aid males in either limiting opportunities for their mate to be unfaithful or to "correct" the by-products of infidelity should it occur. With sections including mate guarding, intra-vaginal tactics and paternity assessment, this book will appeal to researchers and graduate students in behavioral biology, evolutionary psychology, human sexuality, anthropology, sociology, reproductive health and medicine.

Kin Recognition in Protists and Other Microbes is the first volume dedicated entirely to the genetics, evolution and behavior of cells capable of discriminating and recognizing taxa (other species), clones (other cell lines) and kin (as per gradual genetic proximity). It covers the advent of microbial models in the field of kin recognition; the polymorphisms of green-beard genes in social amebas, yeast and soil bacteria; the potential that unicells have to learn phenotypic cues for recognition; the role of clonality and kinship in pathogenicity (dysentery, malaria, sleeping sickness and Chagas); the social and spatial structure of microbes and their biogeography; and the relevance of unicells' cooperation, sociality and cheating for our understanding of the origins of multicellularity. Offering over 200 figures and diagrams, this work will appeal to a broad audience, including researchers in academia, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and research undergraduates. Science writers and college educators will also find it informative and practical for teaching.