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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Zoology & animal sciences > Animal behaviour
Exploring Animal Behavior in Laboratory and Field is designed to
provide a variety of exercises that engage students actively in all
phases of scientific investigation, from formulating research
questions through interpreting and presenting final results. It
attempts to share the collective teaching expertise and experience
of members of the Animal Behavior Society with all who are willing
to benefit from their wisdom. Four types of exercises are
presented: (1) traditional exercises in which students follow a
pre-determined protocol to test particular hypotheses explicitly
stated in the exercise, (2) traditional exercises that can easily
be adapted to inquiry-based approaches, (3) combined pedagogy
exercises that involve both traditional and inquiry approaches, and
(4) inquiry exercises in which students first brainstorm to
generate their own hypotheses, then design their own experiements
to test their hypotheses.
The question addressed by this volume is how human beings have evolved as creatures who can make and use more complex tools, communicate in more complex ways and engage in more complex forms of social life than any other species in the animal kingdom. Leading researchers from fields as diverse as biological and social anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, psychology, neurology and ethology have come together to present a unique interdisciplinary study of this central question in human evolution. The topics explored include the parallels between speech, manual gesture and other modes of communication; comparisons of the tool-using skills and imitative abilities of humans and non-human primates and the neurological links between the cognitive processes involved in language. This important volume will be essential reading for all those interested in human evolution, be they philosophers, humanists or scientists.
This book is about disease and death! An international team of experts has been gathered together from the very best names in Zoology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology to present a complete description of the evolution and ecology of all carnivorous organisms from whales and lions, down to virus and bacteria. This is the first volume to to give a complete description of all carnivorous organisms and the first synthesis of the population biology of this diverse group of organisms to tackle the following questions: How do natural enemies affect the distribution and abundance of their prey, and how have natural enemies functioned as agents of natural selection effecting the evolution of behaviour and morphology in their prey?
Some of the most exciting recent advances in animal behaviour have occurred at the interface between that subject and the study of evolution. This book, written by experts in this area, illustrates how the profound changes in our understanding of evolution have influenced behavioural research. Its chapters span both studies of how behaviour itself has evolved, dealing with topics such as comparative studies, the genetics of behaviour, speciation and the evolution of sociality and of intelligence, and also the adaptiveness which this evolution has brought about, with treatment of mating and fighting strategies, and theories of kinship and altruism. The Evolution of Behaviour should be valuable to senior undergraduate and graduate students of biology and psychology, especially those studying animal behaviour, behavioural ecology, sociobiology, evolution, ecology and environmental biology.
Some of the most exciting recent advances in animal behaviour have occurred at the interface between that subject and the study of evolution. This book, written by experts in this area, illustrates how the profound changes in our understanding of evolution have influenced behavioural research. Its chapters span both studies of how behaviour itself has evolved, dealing with topics such as comparative studies, the genetics of behaviour, speciation and the evolution of sociality and of intelligence, and also the adaptiveness which this evolution has brought about, with treatment of mating and fighting strategies, and theories of kinship and altruism. The Evolution of Behaviour should be valuable to senior undergraduate and graduate students of biology and psychology, especially those studying animal behaviour, behavioural ecology, sociobiology, evolution, ecology and environmental biology.
In most animals, from bees to bulls, mice to men, it is possible to see at a glance whether an individual is male or female. How and why these differences in appearance and behavior developed and the nature and extent of the differences between males and females is a complex subject. This book reviews the latest molecular, genetic, hormonal, anatomical, and behavioral data in a wide range of species in a series of lively and highly readable articles from the world's leading experts in this field. Unashamedly Darwinian, this book brings sexual selection up to date and discusses not only a dazzling array of differences between the sexes, but probes the mechanisms by which they are produced and the adaptive significance of the differences themselves. It should have a wide appeal, especially to undergraduates and graduates in the biological and medical sciences, and should help to bridge the gap between those who study genes and molecules in the laboratory and those who study the behavior of animals in the wild.
In most animals, from bees to bulls, mice to men, it is possible to see at a glance whether an individual is male or female. How and why these differences in appearance and behavior developed and the nature and extent of the differences between males and females is a complex subject. This book reviews the latest molecular, genetic, hormonal, anatomical, and behavioral data in a wide range of species in a series of lively and highly readable articles from the world's leading experts in this field. Unashamedly Darwinian, this book brings sexual selection up to date and discusses not only a dazzling array of differences between the sexes, but probes the mechanisms by which they are produced and the adaptive significance of the differences themselves. It should have a wide appeal, especially to undergraduates and graduates in the biological and medical sciences, and should help to bridge the gap between those who study genes and molecules in the laboratory and those who study the behavior of animals in the wild.
Sensation seeking is a trait describing the tendency to seek novel, varied, complex, and intense sensations and experiences and the willingness to take risks for the sake of such experience. The first sensation seeking scale (SSS) was developed in the early 1960s and since that time the instrument and the theory of the trait have evolved as a function of continuing research around the world. The author describes the research and theory on sensation seeking with emphasis on new findings since 1979. Researchers have found behavioral expressions of sensation seeking in various kinds of risk-taking behaviors such as driving habits, health, gambling, financial, alcohol and drug use, sexual behavior, and sports. The trait is also involved in vocational preferences and choices, job satisfaction, social, premarital and marital relationships, eating habits and food preferences, media and art preferences, humor, fantasy, creativity and social attitudes. The author here describes its modes of assessment, behavioral expressions, and genetic and psychobiological bases. This book presents the only available study of this fascinating topic and it will be sure to interest researchers and their students active in personality research.
Sensation seeking is a trait describing the tendency to seek novel, varied, complex, and intense sensations and experiences and the willingness to take risks for the sake of such experience. The first sensation seeking scale (SSS) was developed in the early 1960s and since that time the instrument and the theory of the trait have evolved as a function of continuing research around the world. The author describes the research and theory on sensation seeking with emphasis on new findings since 1979. Researchers have found behavioral expressions of sensation seeking in various kinds of risk-taking behaviors such as driving habits, health, gambling, financial, alcohol and drug use, sexual behavior, and sports. The trait is also involved in vocational preferences and choices, job satisfaction, social, premarital and marital relationships, eating habits and food preferences, media and art preferences, humor, fantasy, creativity and social attitudes. The author here describes its modes of assessment, behavioral expressions, and genetic and psychobiological bases. This book presents the only available study of this fascinating topic and it will be sure to interest researchers and their students active in personality research.
How does behaviour develop in humans and animals? What are the causal mechanisms governing this behaviour? These important questions are addressed in this book, first published in 1994. All the significant conceptual and empirical advances in this study of behavioural development are discussed in this volume by a wide range of scientists from different disciplines. A special feature of the approach taken here is that learning, as studied by experimental psychologists, is considered to be one process contributing to the development of the individual from conception to death. The development of the brain is also discussed in relation to behavioural processes. The book is dedicated to Jaap Kruijit, whose pioneering approach to the study of causal mechanisms of behavioural development has inspired many workers in this field. It will be an invaluable resource for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers in animal behaviour, psychology, and neuroscience.
Reviews: Methods and Technology in Fish Biology and Fisheries published by Kluwer Academic Publishers is a book series dedicated to the publication of information on advanced, forward-looking methodologies, technologies, or perspectives in fish and is especially dedicated to relevant topics addressing global, fisheries. This series international concern in fish and fisheries. Humans continue to challenge our environments with new technologies and technological applications. The dynamic creativity of our own species often tends to place the greatest burden on our supporting ecosystems. This is especially true for aquatic networks of creeks, lakes, rivers and ocean environments. We also frequently use our conceptual powers to balance conflicting requirements and demands on nature and continue to develop new approaches and tools to provide sustainable resources as well as conserve what we hold most dear on local and global scales. This book series will provide a window into the developing dynamic among humans, aquatic ecosystems (both freshwater and marine), and the organisms that inhabit aquatic environments. There are many reasons to doubt the increasing social and economic value technology has gained over the last two centuries. Science and technology represent stages in human development. I agree with Ernst Mayer when he said in Toward a New Philosophy of Biology (1988) that "endeavors to solve all scientific problems by pure logic and refined measurements are unproductive, if not totally irrelevant.
The chimpanzee of all other living species is our closest relation, with whom we last shared a common ancestor about five million years ago. These African apes make and use a rich and varied kit of tools, and of the primates they are the only consistent and habitual tool-users and tool-makers. Chimpanzees meet the criteria of a culture as originally defined for human beings by socio-cultural anthropologists. They show sex differences in using tools to obtain and to process a variety of plant and animal foods. The technological gap between chimpanzees and human societies that live by foraging (hunter-gatherers) is surprisingly narrow at least for food-getting. Different communities of wild chimpanzees have different tool-kits and not all of this regional and local variation can be explained by the demands of the physical and biotic environments in which they live. Some differences are likely to be customs based on socially derived and symbolically encoded traditions. This book describes and analyzes the tool-use of humankind's nearest living relation. It focuses on field studies of these apes across Africa, comparing their customs to see if they can justifiably be termed cultural. It makes direct comparisons with the material culture of human foraging peoples. The book evaluates the chimpanzee as an evolutionary model, showing that chimpanzee behavior helps us to infer the origins of technology in human prehistory.
We live in a world in which inconsistency is the rule rather than the exception, and this is particularly true for rewards and frustrations. In some cases, rewards and frustrative nonrewards appear randomly for what seems to be the same behavior; in others a sequence of rewards is suddenly followed by nonrewards, or large rewards by small rewards. Sometimes we are rewarded for responding quickly, other times for responding slowly. The important common factor in these and other cases is frustration, how we learn about it and how we respond to it. Without our awareness, our long-term dispositions are shaped from infancy and early childhood by such inconsistency of reward and by our reactions to discrepancy, and they are marked by changes in arousal, suppression, persistence, and regression. This book provides a basis in learning theory, and particularly in frustration theory, for a comprehension not only of the mechanisms controlling these dispositions, but also of their order of appearance in early development and, to a approximation at least, their neural underpinnings. The explanatory domain of frustration theory covers a area of experimental research that has evolved over some 40 years. Written by the originator of the theory, the book provides a integrated survey of the theory's history and the experimental particulars on which it is based, tracing its development and the experimental research it has stimulated and organized.
A problem every student of animal behaviour has to come to terms with is anthropomorphism, which means assuming that animals think or feel more or less as we do. Because of fierce criticism from behaviourists, explicit anthropomorphism is no longer scientifically respectable. John Kennedy's thesis is that anthropomorphism is not necessarily dead, but is lurking under different disguises. In fact, it still affects research, but is often unintended and therefore it goes unrecognized. He provides ample documentary evidence of the way researchers unconsciously slip into anthropomorphism. The book contains nineteen essays on behavioural concepts that have seldom been identified as anthropomorphic, but in fact bear that connotation and lead to mistakes. Some of these, such as search images in birds and the learning of grammatical language by apes, have been seen as errors after a time. A greater number, such as efference copy, goal-directedness, cognition, and suffering in animals, are still current though not yet regarded as erroneous. We can hardly hope to cure ourselves altogether of thinking anthropomorphically, and it can be very useful as a metaphor.
In this 1992 book, John Kennedy's point is that explicit anthropomorphism was well-nigh killed by fierce criticism from the radical Behaviourists, but that we have to recognize that today there is a new anthropomorphism which is much harder to avoid because it is unintended and largely unconscious. For that reason even those who if they were asked would firmly reject anthropomorphism nevertheless unwittingly slip into it from time to time. This book contains nineteen essays on behavioural concepts which have seldom been identified as anthropomorphic but in fact bear that connotation and lead to mistakes. Some of these, such as search images in birds and the learning of grammatical language by apes, have been seen through as errors after a time. A greater number, such as efference copy, goal-directedness, cognition and suffering in animals, are still current though not yet regarded as erroneous. The final chapter outlines things we can do to minimise the damage it does to the causal analysis of animal behaviour.
When and where did the ancestors of modern birds evolve? What enabled them to survive the meteoric impact that wiped out the dinosaurs? How did these early birds spread across the globe and give rise to the 10,600-plus species we recognise today from the largest ratites to the smallest hummingbirds? Based on the latest scientific discoveries and enriched by personal observations, The Ascent of Birds sets out to answer these fundamental questions. The Ascent of Birds is divided into self-contained chapters, or stories, that collectively encompass the evolution of modern birds from their origins in Gondwana, over 100 million years ago, to the present day. The stories are arranged in chronological order, from tinamous to tanagers, and describe the many dispersal and speciation events that underpin the world's 10,600-plus species. Although each chapter is spearheaded by a named bird and focuses on a specific evolutionary mechanism, the narrative will often explore the relevance of such events and processes to evolution in general. The book starts with The Tinamou's Story, which explains the presence of flightless birds in South America, Africa, and Australasia, and dispels the cherished role of continental drift as an explanation for their biogeography. It also introduces the concept of neoteny, an evolutionary trick that enabled dinosaurs to become birds and humans to conquer the planet. The Vegavis's Story explores the evidence for a Cretaceous origin of modern birds and why they were able to survive the asteroid collision that saw the demise not only of dinosaurs but of up to three-quarters of all species. The Duck's Story switches to sex: why have so few species retained the ancestral copulatory organ? Or, put another way, why do most birds exhibit the paradoxical phenomenon of penis loss, despite all species requiring internal fertilisation? The Hoatzin's Story reveals unexpected oceanic rafting from Africa to South America: a stranger-than-fiction means of dispersal that is now thought to account for the presence of other South American vertebrates, including geckos and monkeys. The latest theories underpinning speciation are also explored. The Manakin's Story, for example, reveals how South America's extraordinarily rich avifauna has been shaped by past geological, oceanographic and climatic changes, while The Storm-Petrel's Story examines how species can evolve from an ancestral population despite inhabiting the same geographical area. The thorny issue of what constitutes a species is discussed in The Albatross's Story, while The Penguin's Story explores the effects of environment on phenotype in the case of the Emperor penguin, the harshest on the planet. Recent genomic advances have given scientists novel approaches to explore the distant past and have revealed many unexpected journeys, including the unique overland dispersal of an early suboscine from Asia to South America (The Sapayoa's Story) and the blackbird's ancestral sweepstake dispersals across the Atlantic (The Thrush's Story). Additional vignettes update more familiar concepts that encourage speciation: sexual selection (The Bird-of-Paradise's Story); extended phenotypes (The Bowerbird's Story); hybridisation (The Sparrow's Story); and 'great speciators' (The White-eye's Story). Finally, the book explores the raft of recent publications that help explain the evolution of cognitive skills (The Crow's Story); plumage colouration (The Starling's Story); and birdsong (The Finch's Story)
The hunger for sodium has been used as a model system in which to study how the brain produces motivated behaviour. In this account of the field Jay Schulkin draws together information across a range of disciplines and topics, ranging from the ecology of salt ingestion to the sodium molecule and the action of various hormones. The phenomenon of sodium hunger was discovered by Curt Richter, the great American psychobiologist, over 50 years ago. Its study has been of interest for some time: to naturalists, psychologists, endocrinologists, physiologists and neuroscientists. This book offers a systematic account of the behaviour of the sodium hungry animal, the endocrine and physiological mechanisms that act to maintain sodium balance and then act on the brain to promote the search for and the ingestion of salt. Finally, the book provides a description of a neural network that orchestrates the behaviour of salt seeking and salt ingestion. Graduate students and research workers in psychology, physiology and neuroscience will find valuable information in this review.
An increasing number of people accept competitiveness as a basis for living. However, while competitiveness may have its place, cooperation is more important in many contexts, and interpersonal relationships are the most important elements in our lives. This is true not only of individuals, but also of groups and nations. In this book, prominent authors have come together to consider the nature of cooperation and prosocial behaviour at levels of social complexity ranging from the individual to the international. Successive sections cover key topics such as the relations between cooperation in animals and humans; the development of prosocial propensities in humans; aspects of the situation and of personality that increase the probability that individuals will behave prosocially; the relationships between trust, cooperation and commitment; and cooperation between groups and nations. Case studies illustrating the important issue of international cooperation are also included. The chapters are integrated by a series of useful editorials which emphasise that a full understanding of cooperation and prosocial behaviour requires us to move between different levels of social complexity.
A large part of the effort of the food industry is spent in attempting to understand the limitations of the type of food that animals can eat. An understanding of the factors that influence feeding behavior can then be used to produce foodstuffs that are more attractive to the animals in question, whether they be humans, cattle, dogs, or cats. This book examines both the texture of food and the adaptations of various animals (including fish, mammals, primates, and humans) to the type of food they commonly eat. Zoologists, material scientists, and food scientists are assembled to present for the first time an integrated overview of feeding by vertebrates. The mechanical properties of various foods are considered in conjunction with the mechanics of eating them and more subjective behavioral parameters such as acceptability and palatability. The book consequently will be of interest to food scientists, zoologists, and animal behavioralists.
What regularities lie behind the development and organization of behaviour in animals and humans? One theme emerging from this book is that ideas have to flow in both directions between the different levels of analysis - between the neural and behavioural levels and between the individual and the social group. Another theme is that it is not enough to identify the many factors operating in the development and integration of behaviour. The processes must also be studied directly. Bringing together work at different levels and studying behavioural dynamics require more knowledge and expertise than any one person can usually command. Links have to be made between different disciplines and specialists have to learn to work with others who speak with what at first seem to be mutually incomprehensible scientific languages. The book illustrates how this may be achieved. The themes of this book are strongly related to the approach of Robert Hinde, in whose honour the chapters were written.
The field of nonverbal communication is a strategic site for demonstrating the inextricable interrelationship between nature and culture in human behaviour. This book, originally published in 1997, aims to explode the misconception that "biology" is something that automatically precludes or excludes "culture". Instead, it points to the necessary grounding of our social and cultural capabilities in biological givens and elucidates how biological factors are systematically co-opted for cultural purposes. The book presents a complex picture of human communicative ability as simultaneously biologically and socioculturally influenced, with some capacities apparently more biologically hard-wired than others: face recognition, imitation, emotional communication, and the capacity for language. It also suggests that the dividing line between nonverbal and linguistic communication is becoming much less clear-cut. The contributing authors are leading researchers in a variety of fields, writing here for a general audience. The book is divided into sections dealing with, respectively, human universals, evolutionary and developmental aspects of nonverbal behaviour within a sociocultural context, and finally, the multifaceted relationships between nonverbal communication and culture.
Stacey and Koenig discuss the phenomenon of cooperative breeding among birds, an unusual kind of social behavior common to only a few hundred species worldwide, in which individuals other than the male-female pairs help to raise the young of a single nest or den. Because certain individuals aid in raising offspring which are not their own, cooperative breeding gives rise to some of the clearest examples of altruism among animals. This unique breeding behavior is of interest to evolutionary biologists and behavioral ecologists since such species exhibit some of the most unusual and bizarre social behavior observed anywhere in the animal kingdom. The studies are all long term and consequently the book summarizes some of the most extensive studies of the behavior of marked individuals ever undertaken. Graduate students and research workers in ornithology, sociobiology, behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology will find much of value in this book.
Stacey and Koenig discuss the phenomenon of cooperative breeding among birds, an unusual kind of social behavior common to only a few hundred species worldwide, in which individuals other than the male-female pairs help to raise the young of a single nest or den. Because certain individuals aid in raising offspring which are not their own, cooperative breeding gives rise to some of the clearest examples of altruism among animals. This unique breeding behavior is of interest to evolutionary biologists and behavioral ecologists since such species exhibit some of the most unusual and bizarre social behavior observed anywhere in the animal kingdom. The studies are all long term and consequently the book summarizes some of the most extensive studies of the behavior of marked individuals ever undertaken. Graduate students and research workers in ornithology, sociobiology, behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology will find much of value in this book.
This book, part of a series from The Open University in the United Kingdom, is about animal behaviour. The behaviour of animals, including humans, is very diverse and often very complex. Studying behaviour draws on the work of scientists from several disciplines, including ethologists, psychologists, physiologists and biochemists. The question that most of them are interested in answering is: why does an animal behave in the way it does? The possible answers - development, survival value, evolutionary history or cause-and-effect - are the themes that run through this introduction to behaviour and evolution.
There have been rapid and important advances in all behavioural sciences in recent years. These advances have in one sense been very diverse and specialised - sufficiently so for a scientist to quickly lose touch with the current concerns of even neighbouring researches: but in some cases the developments have seemed also to be fundamental and perhaps convergent, with implications across a range of disciplines. In either case there is a real, and increasing, need for scientists to communicate their discoveries and to a new generation of students in their own. Problems in the Behavioural Sciences is designed to meet this need. The books are by leading researchers, and deal with problems or topics that are attracting a special current interest. The central subject matter is psychology, but many of the issues will need to be pursued across existing (and fluid) boundaries between psychology and other behavioural sciences like physiology, pharmacology, sociology, ethology and linguistics. The central idea of this book is that biology, and particularly evolution, provides the best starting point for the study of emotion. In particular, it is argued that all the conventional properties of emotion such as expression, feeling, and motivation can be considered in a scientific manner, and useful conclusions drawn therefrom. The major part of the book involves the application of this central idea to a wide variety of the phenomena of emotion. The resultant review should be useful as an undergraduate text, and so explanations in the text are aimed at the non-specialist. At the same time, the specific conclusions drawn in the book should be of interest to all those who do research on emotion, and particularly those who need a solid framework on which to base interdisciplinary studies. Biology and Emotion differs from the majority of books in the field in that it does not present a specific theory of emotion. The material covered is therefore more general than is often the case, and has not been selected to support a particular point of view. It combines an organised, yet artheoretical, approach with coverage of both animal and human emotions. |
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