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.

How do animals produce and process sounds for communication? How do their brains encode the large amounts of sensory information so rapidly and how do they use this to cope with their environment? These questions not only concern the evolution of sound communication systems but also aim to understand how arousal, motivation, emotion and behavioral contexts are vocally expressed and how important sound attributes are recognized and perceived. This book highlights auditory communication in several species from four perspectives: actual sound communication, audio-vocal adaptations, adaptations of sound processing and representation in higher auditory brain centers, and emotional and cognitive adaptations in signaling and processing. Broad in scope and geared towards graduate students and researchers within the fields of auditory communication and cognition, this book will appeal to auditory neurobiologists, speech, hearing and communication scientists and engineers, students of animal behavior and neuroethologists.

Recent progress in the field of wildlife disease ecology demonstrates that infectious disease plays a crucial role in the lives of wild animals. Parasites and pathogens should be especially important for social animals in which high contact among individuals increases the potential for disease spread. As one of the best studied mammalian groups, primates offer a unique opportunity to examine how complex behaviours (including social organization) influence the risk of acquiring infectious diseases, and the defences used by animals to avoid infection. This book explores the correlates of disease risk in primates, including not only social and mating behaviour but also diet, habitat use, life history, geography and phylogeny. The authors examine how a core set of host and parasite traits influence patterns of parasitism at three levels of biological organization: among individuals, among populations, and across species. A major goal is to synthesize, for the first time, four disparate areas of research: primate behavioural ecology, parasite biology, wildlife epidemiology, and the behavioural and immune defences employed by animals to counter infectious disease. Throughout, the authors provide an overview of the remarkable diversity of infectious agents found in wild primate populations. Additional chapters consider how knowledge of infectious diseases in wild primates can inform efforts focused on primate conservation and human health. More generally, this book identifies infectious disease as an important frontier in our understanding of primate behaviour and ecology. It highlights future challenges for testing the links between host and parasite traits, including hypotheses for the effects of disease on primate social and mating systems.

This innovative book challenges the perceived view, based largely on long observation of artificially-fed chimpanzees in Gombe and Mahale National Parks, Tanzania, of the typical social behaviour of chimpanzees as aggressive, dominance seeking, and fiercely territorial. In polar opposition, all reports from naturalistic (non-feeding) field studies are of non-aggressive chimpanzees living peacefully in non-hierarchical groups, on home ranges open to all. These reports have been ignored and downgraded by most of the scientific community. By utilising the data from these studies the author is able to construct a model of an egalitarian form of social organisation, based on a fluid role relationship of mutual dependence between many charismatic chimpanzees of both sexes and other more dependent members. This highly and necessarily positive mutual dependence system is characteristic of both (undisturbed) chimpanzees and (undisturbed) humans who live by the 'immediate-return' foraging system.

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.

Migration is a key process in the population dynamics of many insects, including some of the most damaging pests. Multidisciplinary research into the importance of migration, in recent decades, has produced many new insights. This book reviews current understanding of the ecological, behavioural, physiological and genetic bases of insect migration. The first part describes migration systems in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and America, with an emphasis on the role of regional weather and climate. The second part considers insects adaptation to migration; it covers: aerodynamics and energetics; the integration of migration in insect life cycles; environmental and genetic regulation of migratory potential; and the evolutionary implications of habitat heterogeneity and variability. The book then addresses the application of this knowledge to operational pest forecasting.

Kin recognition, or the ability to recognize one's genetic relations, is universal throughout the animal kingdom, from amebas to humans. This trait benefits the organism by helping to insure the survival of a specific gene group, and it is also an important factor in mate choice. Indeed, kin recognition is one of the fastest growing and most exciting areas of behavior. The study of kin recognition requires a multidisciplinary approach, and Dr. Hepper has brought together leading researchers from zoology, biology, psychology, and sociology to create a thought-provoking and critical analysis of our current knowledge of the phenomenon, with particular emphasis on the underlying processes involved and their significance for the evolution of social behavior. Together they attempt to answer the questions of how individuals recognize other individuals as kin, nonkin, or different classes of kin and why they respond differently to kin and nonkin.

This book presents a framework for development, optimization, and evaluation of behavioral, biobehavioral, and biomedical interventions. Behavioral, biobehavioral, and biomedical interventions are programs with the objective of improving and maintaining human health and well-being, broadly defined, in individuals, families, schools, organizations, or communities. These interventions may be aimed at, for example, preventing or treating disease, promoting physical and mental health, preventing violence, or improving academic achievement. This volume introduces the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST), pioneered at The Methodology Center at the Pennsylvania State University, as an alternative to the classical approach of relying solely on the randomized controlled trial (RCT). MOST borrows heavily from perspectives taken and approaches used in engineering, and also integrates concepts from statistics and behavioral science, including the RCT. As described in detail in this book, MOST consists of three phases: preparation, in which the conceptual model underlying the intervention is articulated; optimization, in which experimentation is used to gather the information necessary to identify the optimized intervention; and evaluation, in which the optimized intervention is evaluated in a standard RCT. Through numerous examples, the book demonstrates that MOST can be used to develop interventions that are more effective, efficient, economical, and scalable. Optimization of Behavioral, Biobehavioral, and Biomedical Interventions: The Multiphase Optimization Strategy is the first book to present a comprehensive introduction to MOST. It will be an essential resource for behavioral, biobehavioral, and biomedical scientists; statisticians, biostatisticians, and analysts working in epidemiology and public health; and graduate-level courses in development and evaluation of interventions.

Construction behaviour occurs across the entire spectrum of the animal kingdom and affects the survival of both builders and other organisms associated with them. Animal Architecture provides a comprehensive overview of the biology of animal building. The book recognizes three broad categories of built structure: homes, traps, and courtship displays. Even though some of these structures are complex and very large, the behaviour required to build them is generally simple and the anatomy for building unspecialized. Standardization of building materials helps to keep building repertoires simple, while self-organizing effects help create complexity. In a case-study approach to function, insects demonstrate how homes can remain operational while they grow, spiderwebs illustrate mechanical design, and the displays of bowerbirds raise the possibility of persuasion through design rather than just decoration. Studies of the costs to builders provide evidence of optimal designs and of trade-offs with other life history traits. As ecosystem engineers, the influence of builders is extensive and their effect is generally to enhance biodiversity through niche construction. Animal builders can therefore represent model species for the study of the emerging subject of environmental inheritance. Building, and in particular building with silk, has been demonstrated to have important evolutionary consequences. This book is intended for students and researchers in comparative animal biology, but will also be of relevance and use to the increasing numbers of architects and civil engineers interested in developing ideas from the animal kingdom.

Anthrozoology, the study of human-animal interactions (HAIs), has experienced substantial growth during the past 20 years and it is now timely to synthesise what we know from empirical evidence about our relationships with both domesticated and wild animals. Two principal points of focus have become apparent in much of this research. One is the realisation that the strength of these attachments not only has emotional benefits for people, but confers health benefits as well, such that a whole area has opened up of using companion animals for therapeutic purposes. The other is the recognition that the interactions we have with animals have consequences for their welfare too, and thus impact on their quality of life. Consequently we now study HAIs in all scenarios in which animals come into contact with humans, whether as pets/companions, farm livestock, laboratory animals, animals in zoos, or in the wild. This topical area of study is of growing importance for animals in animal management, animal handling, animal welfare and applied ethology courses, and also for people within psychology, anthropology and human geography at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. It will therefore be of interest to students, researchers, and animal managers across the whole spectrum of human-animal contact.

This book presents a series of review chapters on the various aspects of primate kinship and behavior, as a fundamental reference for students and professionals interested in primate behavior, ecology and evolution. The relatively new molecular data allow one to assess directly degrees of genetic relatedness and kinship relations between individuals, and a considerable body of data on intergroup variation, based on experimental studies in both free-ranging and captive groups has accumulated, allowing a rather full and satisfying reconsideration of this whole broad area of research. The book should be of considerable interest to students of social evolution and behavioral ecology.

Shaping Primate Evolution is an edited collection of state-of-the-art papers about how biological form is described in primate biology, and the consequences of form for function and behavior. The contributors are highly regarded internationally recognized scholars in the field of quantitative primate evolutionary morphology. Each chapter elaborates upon the analysis of the form-function-behavior triad in a unique and compelling way. This book is distinctive not only in the diversity of the topics discussed, but also in the range of levels of biological organization that are addressed from cellular morphometrics to the evolution of primate ecology. The book is dedicated to Charles E. Oxnard, whose influential pioneering work on innovative metric and analytic techniques has gone hand-in-hand with meticulous comparative functional analyses of primate anatomy. Through the marriage of theory with analytical applications, this volume will be an important reference work for all those interested in primate functional morphology.

Cooperative breeders are species in which more than a pair of individuals assist in the production of young. Cooperative breeding is found in only a few hundred bird species world-wide, and understanding this often strikingly altruistic behaviour has remained an important challenge in behavioural ecology for over 30 years. This book highlights the theoretical, empirical and technical advances that have taken place in the field of cooperative breeding research since the publication of the seminal work Cooperative Breeding in Birds: Long-term Studies of Behavior and Ecology (1990, HB ISBN 0521 372984, PB ISBN 0521 378907). Organized conceptually, special attention is given to ways in which cooperative breeders have proved fertile subjects for testing modern advances to classic evolutionary problems including those of sexual selection, sex-ratio manipulation, life-history evolution, partitioning of reproduction and incest avoidance. It will be of interest to both students and researchers interested in behaviour and ecology.

Unlike most other large mammals, the Soay sheep population of Hirta in the St. Kilda archipelago show persistent oscillations, sometimes increasing or declining by more than 60% in a year. This study explores the causes of these oscillations and their consequences for selection on genetic and phenotypic variation within the population, drawing on studies over the past twenty years of the life-histories and reproductive careers of many sheep. It will be essential reading for vertebrate ecologists, demographers, evolutionary biologists and behavioral ecologists.

A charismatic naturalist, bird-watcher, teacher, artist, photographer, film-maker, and winner of the Nobel Prize, Niko Tinbergen was a prominent and influential scientist. Jointly with Konrad Lorenz, he laid the foundation for a new science, the biological study of animal behaviour. 'Ethology', and his talent for devising behaviour-testing experiments, provided an outlet for Niko's enthusiasm for gulls and sticklebacks, snow-buntings and foxes, wasps and falcons, and even children. This first full-length biography of Niko Tinbergen, lavishly illustrated with many of Niko's own drawings, describes his background in Holland, a naturalists' paradise, and the beginnings of his investigations into the behaviour of birds, fish, and insects. Hans Kruuk also explores is Niko's relationship with his colleague and co-Nobelist Konrad Lorenz. These were two men full of contrasts: Niko a charming, self-effacing field man and experimenter; Konrad a flamboyant and egocentric German, always full of new ideas. Niko's Nature goes on to follow Niko's progress in Oxford after the Second World War, where he became the world authority on the behaviour of animals in the wild: his inspiring book The Study of Instinct remains an all-time classic. As a scientist Niko will always be known for the four fundamentally different ways in which he asked the question 'why does an animal do this?' These questions, about physiology, development, evolution, and function, became known as 'Tinbergen's four whys'. But Niko's successes came at a price - severe and devastating depressions that were to plague him throughout his career. In this fascinating and engaging story, Niko's long-time friend and student Hans Kruuk argues that his impact as a scientist and naturalist was in large part due to his skills as a communicator, photographer, and film-maker. Niko's Nature is an intimate and insightful portrait of an extraordinary figure.

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.

Reproduction is a fundamental feature of life, it is the way life persists across the ages. This book offers new, wider vistas on this fundamental biological phenomenon, exploring how it works through the whole tree of life. It explores facets such as asexual reproduction, parthenogenesis, sex determination and reproductive investment, with a taxonomic coverage extended over all the main groups - animals, plants including 'algae', fungi, protists and bacteria. It collates into one volume perspectives from varied disciplines - including zoology, botany, microbiology, genetics, cell biology, developmental biology, evolutionary biology, animal and plant physiology, and ethology - integrating information into a common language. Crucially, the book aims to identify the commonalties among reproductive phenomena, while demonstrating the diversity even amongst closely related taxa. Its integrated approach makes this a valuable reference book for students and researchers, as well as an effective entry point for deeper study on specific topics.

Minding Animals is concerned not only with the study of animal behaviour, but also with the innumerable ways in which humans interact with and intrude into the lives of our animal kin. The phrase "minding animals" is used in two ways. First, "minding animals" refers to caring for other animal beings, respecting them for who they are, appreciating their own world views, and wondering what and how they are feeling and why. The second meaning refers to the fact that many animals have very active and thoughtful minds. Throughout, the animals' point of view is stressed, based on the author's more than three decades of experience with a variety of animals. Minding Animals is a broad comparative, evolutionary, and ecological work that does not centre on nonhuman primates of one specific group of animals. It should be a very popular, even defining statement on animal rights, animal consciousness, and our sense of community with the rest of the species on our planet.

Hans Kruuk, a life-long naturalist, tells the fascinating story of carnivores and humans' intricate relationships with them. The book is illustrated with specially commissioned drawings, and deals not only with the wild beauty of carnivores and their conservation, but also with the topics of furs and medicine, man-eaters and sheep-killers. Kruuk explains in simple terms the role of carnivores in nature, how they impact human life, art and literature, and how we instinctively respond to them and why.

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) are the only two species of the genus Pan, and are humans' nearest relatives. This book is an extensive review of the most recent observations from field studies on the diversity of Pan social behavior, with contributions from many of the world's leading experts. A wide range of social behavior is discussed including tool use, hunting, reproductive strategies, conflict management, demographic variables and ecological constraints. In addition to interspecies behavioral diversity, this text describes exciting new research into variations between different populations of the same species.

Today's therapy dog handlers recognize the need to be teammates with their dogs, not just supervisors. Teaming with one's dog involves unobtrusively providing physical and emotional support as well as respectful guidance in what to do. Being a teammate requires attention to the handler's behavior, not just the dog's. This book reminds all handlers that being conscious of what they do with their dogs increases the effectiveness of therapy visits as well as providing a more rewarding experience for all involved.Written by a nationally famous practitioner with decades of real-world experience, the book introduces the "STEPs of Teamwork" and how those STEPs fit with a Therapy Dog's Bill of Rights. These general principles free handlers to apply them in their own way to their therapy dog's individual personality and work. As the author writes, "The book explores a way of being conscious of what you do with and to your therapy dog to support him in his work. It describes functional principles of behavior you can learn and use immediately, either together as a package or independently." Using an exciting new methodology, the author guides readers to deepen their relationship with their dogs by acting consciously and respectfully.

In most terrestrial and aquatic habitats, the vast majority of animals transmitting and receiving communicative signals are arthropods. This book presents the story of how this important group of animals use pheromones, sound, vibration, and light for sexual and social communication. Because of their small to minute body size most arthropods have problems sending and receiving acoustic and optical information, each of which have their own severe constraints. Because of these restraints they have developed chemical signaling which is not similarly limited by scale. Presenting the latest theoretical and experimental findings from studies of signaling, it suggests that close parallels between arthropods and vertebrates reflect a very limited number of solutions to problems in behavior that are available within the confines of physical laws.

This volume presents ecological consequences and evolutionary mechanisms that may be associated with behavioral alterations in parasitized hosts. Alterations may result from natural selection favoring the host or parasite, or there may be side effects of physiological changes associated with symbiosis. This book summarizes the literature in this area, showing that reports of alteration may frequently be consistent with more than one evolutionary explanation and that rigorous tests are needed before the phenomenon can be understood and placed in a predictive framework. Such understanding is important, because these behavioral alterations have been shown to have the potential to affect the distribution of animals in nature and their interactions with predators and competitors, and the alterations may have implications for vector biology.

Being a mom is a tough job-but imagine doing it in the jungle or out on the safari, faced by the ravages of the elements, a scarcity of resources and the threat of predators prowling at all times of the day and night. In Wild Moms, Dr. Carin Bondar takes readers on an enthralling tour of the animal kingdom as she explores the phenomenon of motherhood in the wild. A journey through motherhood for the animal kingdom-from the initial phases of gestation and pregnancy through breastfeeding and toddler-rearing and trying to parent a teenager through empty nest syndrome (which, in many of these cases, is quite literal!) to being a grandmother. In Wild Moms, Dr. Bondar answers a whole host of questions about the animal kingdom: How do moms in the animal kingdom cope with crying babies and potty training? How does breastfeeding work in the wild-particularly when a mother is nursing not one baby at a time, but a whole litter? If children with disabilities do not fit into Darwin's theory of evolution (I.e. Survival of the fittest), then why do we see mothers from various mammalian groups providing ongoing care to disabled offspring? Accessible and entertaining, Wild Moms is a celebration of moms everywhere-and a book guaranteed to make readers think about motherhood in an entirely new way.

This text unifies conceptual and empirical advances in evolutionary ecology and provides a volume that can be used as a primary textbook or supplementary reading in an advanced undergraduate or graduate course. The focus is on current concepts in evolutionary ecology and the empirical study of these concepts. Chapters are written by prominent biologists who have made significant contributions to this field and both synthesize the current state of knowledge and identify areas for future investigation. It is divided into five major sections: an overview of the major topics in evolutionary biology for ecologists, and sections on life histories, behaviour, co-evolution, and adaptation to athropogenic change.