The current volume focuses on behavioral similarities and differences within individual animals, larger populations, and species as a whole. Research from ecological, social ontogenetic, physiological, and other perspectives is presented to explicate specific behaviors, as well as to provide a more profound understanding of how behavior work influences thought about evolutionary processes.

Mites are very small animals, characterized by wingless and eyeless bodies, in which sociality has been discovered. This book offers detailed descriptions of the diverse social systems and the social evolution of mites, ranging from genetic to ecological aspects. Through a broad spectrum of studies including traditional natural history, taxonomy, modern evolutionary and behavioral ecology, and theoretical models as well, the book addresses a number of important findings on plant mite evolution and species radiation, with the author succeeding in combining theoretical and practical approaches in behavioral ecology by proposing a new game theory. These findings reflect the complex evolutionary history of these taxa and also help to point out clearly what is known and what is not yet known to date. Mites have been considered a minor animal group, but the author shows that mites actually possess great diversity and therefore make unique materials for evolutionary and behavioral studies.

This book guides animal ecologists, biologists and wildlife and data managers through a step-by-step procedure to build their own advanced software platforms to manage and process wildlife tracking data. This unique, problem-solving-oriented guide focuses on how to extract the most from GPS animal tracking data, while preventing error propagation and optimizing analysis performance. Based on the open source PostgreSQL/PostGIS spatial database, the software platform will allow researchers and managers to integrate and harmonize GPS tracking data together with animal characteristics, environmental data sets, including remote-sensing time series, and other bio-logged data such as acceleration data. Moreover, the book shows how the powerful R statistical environment can be integrated into the software platform either connect the database with R, or embedding the same tools in the database through the PostgreSQL extension Pl/R. The client/server architecture allows users to remotely connect a number of software applications that can be used as a database front end, including GIS software and WebGIS. Each chapter offers a real-world data management and processing problem that is discussed in its biological context; solutions are proposed and exemplified through ad hoc SQL code, progressively exploring the potential of spatial database functions applied to the respective wildlife tracking case. Finally, wildlife tracking management issues are discussed in the increasingly widespread framework of collaborative science and data sharing. GPS animal telemetry data from a real study are used to demonstrate the proposed examples and is freely available online for readers of this volume. This book is also suitable for undergraduate and graduate students, if accompanied by the basics of databases.

Many endangered species of wild animals are managed in captivity through studbooks. In this book these data-rich resources are mined in innovative, integrated and statistically tested ways to maximise information gain for conservation practice - whether for captive or released/reintroduced or managed wild populations. This book is thus an important tool for all species managers, and for students and researchers in small population biology and wildlife conservation. The book's studbook analyses are grouped in three interrelated sections: natural history, demography and genetics. Statistical tests to determine the significance of results or to compare results between subgroups are undertaken throughout. Real studbooks of a variety of species, e.g. cranes, wolverines, blesbok, illustrate the practical applications and interpretations of the analyses and statistics. The "natural history" section presents analyses to determine baseline species information such as litter size, inter-birth interval, longevity and seasonality. "Demography" covers census(-style) analyses, age-class based life tables, comparative survival analyses and population projections. Solutions for dealing with small sample sizes are included.Inbreeding depression and unconscious selection form the main focus of the "genetics" section. Survival and life table analyses are used to assess inbreeding effects. Quantitative genetics methods are applied to natural history traits as a tool to monitor genetic variation. A fourth section on "conservation" shows how data from captive populations can be used where natural history data from wild populations are missing. A real example uses studbook data to inform Population Viability Analysis. The final section deals with issues related to incomplete and missing data and statistical topics. The purpose-written open-source software programs "Population Management Library (PML)" and "studbookR" used for analyses in the book, are available at www.princee.com.

Based on graph theory studies this book seeks to understand how tropical species interact with each other and how these interactions are affected by perturbations in some of the most species-rich habitats on earth. Due to the great diversity of species and interactions in the tropics, this book addresses a wide range of current and future issues with empirical examples and complete revisions on different types of ecological networks: from mutualisms to antagonisms. The goal of this publication is not to be only for researchers but also for undergraduates in different areas of knowledge, and also to serve as a reference text for graduate-level courses mainly in the life sciences.

This book develops and tests an ecological and evolutionary theory of the causes of human values the core beliefs that guide people s cognition and behavior and their variation across time and space around the world. We call this theory the parasite-stress theory of values or the parasite-stress theory of sociality. The evidence we present in our book indicates that both a wide span of human affairs and major aspects of human cultural diversity can be understood in light of variable parasite (infectious disease) stress and the range of value systems evoked by variable parasite stress. The same evidence supports the hypothesis that people have psychological adaptations that function to adopt values dependent upon local infectious-disease adversity. The authorshave identified key variables, variation in infectious disease adversity and in the core values it evokes, for understanding these topics and in novel and encompassing ways. Although the human species is the focus in the book, evidence presented in the book shows that the parasite-stress theory of sociality informs other topics in ecology and evolutionary biology such as variable family organization and speciation processes and biological diversity in general in non-human animals."

The international advanced research workshop funded by NATO and entitled "impact of pollutions on animal and animal products" was organized at Almaty (Kazakhstan) on 27-30 September 2007. Thirty-one scientists from 12 countries (Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Russia, France, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, Romania and Morocco) presented conferences at this meeting to share their experience and results. The programme included three main aspects: (i) generality on the pollution situation in Central Asia and former Soviet Union republics, (ii) the pollution area and pollution origin in Central Asia and Western countries in relation with animal health, and (iii) the relationships between soil contamination, plant contamination and animal products status. The present workshop contributed highly to the exchange between scientists giving the opportunity for researchers from Central Asia to access to new scientific approaches and methodologies, and for European scientists to assess the extent of the environmental problems in this part of the world. No doubt that these exchanges were the main success of the workshop marked by very stimulating discussions. Such meeting was also the opportunity to put on the first stone of a scientific network focused on the subject of the workshop. The importance of pollution in Central Asia in general and in Kazakhstan in p- ticular is a well-known feature and several references are available on the source and localization of pollution problems in those countries. The references are also abundant on the impact of the environmental failures on human health.

The social sciences share a mission to shed light on human nature and society. However, there is no widely accepted meta-theory; no foundation from which variables can be linked, causally sequenced, or ultimately explained. This book advances "life history evolution" as the missing meta-theory for the social sciences. Originally a biological theory for the variation between species, research on life history evolution now encompasses psychological and sociological variation within the human species that has long been the stock and trade of social scientific study. The eighteen chapters of this book review six disciplines, eighteen authors, and eighty-two volumes published between 1734 and 2015-re-reading the texts in the light of life history evolution.

Regional intercomparisons between ecosystems on different continents can be a powerful tool to better understand the ways in which ecosystems respond to global change. Large areas are often needed to characterize the causal mechanisms governing interactions between ecozones and their environments. Factors such as weather and climate patterns, land-ocean and land-atmosphere interactions all play important roles. As a result of the strong physical north-south symmetry between the western coasts of North and South America, the similarities in climate, coastal oceanography and physiography between these two regions have been extensively documented. High Latitude Rain Forests and Associated Ecosystems of the West Coast of the Americas presents current research on West Coast forest and river ecology, and compares ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest with those of South America.

This book is an attempt to compile and integrate the information documented by many botanists, both Egyptians and others, about the vegetation of Egypt. The ? rst treatise on the ? ora of Egypt, by Petrus Forsskal, was published in 1775. Records of the Egyptian ? ora made during the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt (1778-1801) were provided by A. R. Delile from 1809 to 1812 (Kassas, 1981). The early beginning of ecological studies of the vegetation of Egypt extended to the mid-nineteenth century. Two traditions may be recognized. The ? rst was general exploration and survey, for which one name is symbolic: Georges-Auguste Schweinfurth (1836-1925), a German scientist and explorer who lived in Egypt from 1863 to 1914. The second tradition was ecophysiological to explain the plant life in the dry desert. The work of G. Volkens (1887) remains a classic on xeroph- ism. These two traditions were maintained and expanded in further phases of e- logical development associated with the establishment of the Egyptian University in 1925 (now the University of Cairo). The ? rst professor of botany was the Swedish Gunnar Tackholm (1925-1929). He died young, and his wife Vivi Tackholm devoted her life to studying the ? ora of Egypt and gave leadership and inspiration to plant taxonomists and plant ecologists in Egypt for some 50 years. She died in 1978. The second professor of botany in Egypt was F. W.

The first accessible text on the topic of animals as environmental predictors, bringing together the literature from as far back as 18th century through to the present day. - Covers wider terrain than other titles in a relatively unexplored subject area. The text discusses climate change (highly topical) and how animals may be able to be used to predict future weather and climatic events. There is international potential as the climate challenge is global, and the examples span worldwide case studies. The sources used include myths, anecdotes, news articles and stories backed up by relevant scientific literature in international peer-reviewed journals. Each chapter starts with a short fictitious story to set the scene and anecdotes from indigenous cultures are especially interesting. The author draws on his vast expertise in biochemistry and cell biology. The science does not impede the less technical reader, due to the engaging mix of stories, anecdotes, personal observations and scientific underpinnings.

This book should be of interest to students of animal ecology; ecology.

Homing phenomena must be considered an important aspect of animal behaviour on account of their frequent occurrence, their survival value, and the variety of the mechanisms involved. Many species regularly rely on their ability to home or reach other familiar sites, but how they manage to do this is often uncertain. In many cases the goal is attained in the absence of any sensory contact, by mechanisms of indirect orientation whose complexity and sophistication have for a long time challenged the skill and patience of many researchers. A series of problems of increasing difficulty have to be overcome; researchers have to discover the nature of orienting cues, the sensory windows involved, the role of inherited and acquired information, and, eventually, how the central mechanisms process information and control motory responses. Naturally, this book emphasizes targets achieved rather than areas unexplored and mysteries unsolved. Even so, the reader will quickly realize that our knowledge of phenomena and mechanisms has progressed to different degrees in different animal groups, ranging from the mere description of homing behaviour to a satisfactory insight into some underlying mechanisms. In the last few dacades there have been promising developments in the study of animal homing, since new approaches have been tried out, and new species and groups have been investigated. Despite this, homing phenomena have not recently been the object of exhaustive reviews and there is a tendency for them to be neglected in general treatises on animal behaviour.

This book aims to assess, evaluate and critically analyze the methods that are currently available for a judicious pest management in durable food. It presents and analyzes a vast amount of methods that are already in use in "real world" industrial applications. After the phase-out of methyl bromide, but also the withdrawal of several insecticides and the continuously updated food safety regulations, there is a significant knowledge gap on the use of risk-reduced, ecologically-compatible control methods that can be used with success against stored-product insect species and related arthropods. The importance of integrated pest management (IPM) is growing, but the concept as practiced for stored products might differ from IPM as historically developed for field crops. This book discusses a wide variety of control strategies used for stored product management and describes some of the IPM components. The editors included chemical and non-chemical methods, as both are essential in IPM. They set the scene for more information regarding emerging issues in stored product protection, such as emerging, alien and invasive species as threats for global food security, as well as the importance of stored-product arthropods for human health. Finally, the analysis of the economics of stored product protection is presented, from theory to practice.

The aim of this first book is to introduce the readers of the series to why Cuatro Cienegas Basin (CCB) is so unique, starting with the reason why astrobiologists became interested in this oasis in the first place; namely, the high diversity and abundance of stromatolites and microbial mats in continental waters to be found in the desert oasis. As NASA has long since discovered, the basin may offer the best analog of early Earth. In essence, CCB is a time machine that can take us far back and forth in time. In the respective chapters, the contributing authors explain the extraordinary microbial diversity of Cuatro Cienegas Basin from various perspectives. In order to do so, they explain their journey as well as the different tools used to unravel the basin's mysteries, such as: Why are there so many species in a place without food? How has life there survived the enormity of tectonic shifts through the ages, maintaining its ancient marine heritage?

In this book, we document and evaluate the recovery of gray wolves (Canis lupus) in the Great Lakes region of the United States. The Great Lakes region is unique in that it was the only portion of the lower 48 states where wolves were never c- pletely extirpated. This region also contains the area where many of the first m- ern concepts of wolf conservation and research where developed. Early proponents of wolf conservation such as Aldo Leopold, Sigurd Olson, and Durward Allen lived and worked in the region. The longest ongoing research on wolf-prey relations (see Vucetich and Peterson, Chap. 3) and the first use of radio telemetry for studying wolves (see Mech, Chap. 2) occurred in the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes region is the first place in the United States where "Endangered" wolf populations recovered. All three states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan) developed ecologically and socially sound wolf conservation plans, and the federal government delisted the population of wolves in these states from the United States list of endangered and threatened species on March 12, 2007 (see Refsnider, Chap. 21). Wolf management reverted to the individual states at that time. Although this delisting has since been challenged, we believe that biological recovery of wolves has occurred and anticipate the delisting will be restored. This will be the first case of wolf conservation reverting from the federal government to the state conser- tion agencies in the United States.

Human impact on natural landscapes through urbanization and agricultural expansion are becoming more and more dramatic and are the cause of serious environmental problems. This volume examines the effect of landscape disturbance on plant and animal diversity in the five mediterranean-climate regions of the world. It begins with three introductory chapters broadly reviewing the issues of landscape degradation. Further contributions describe regional land use conflicts in each of the five regions. Landscape disturbance and plant diversity, and landscape disturbance and animal diversity are treated in separate chapters. Four contributions deal with demography and ecophysiology in vegetation succession following disturbance. The volume closes with a consideration of the future addressing aspects of environmental politics.

The book discusses planthopper pests of rice. These insects are one of the most destructive pests, threatening food security around the world. The historical development of the rice planthopper problem shows that they are secondary pests and single-discipline control tactics or strategies were not able to manage them, and instead caused frequent resurgences. This book not only presents new approaches to this persistent problem, but also new ecological methods, new perspectives on the effect of pesticide marketing, insights into developing resistant varieties and structural reforms in pest management. Integrating biological, ecological, economic and sociological aspects, it clearly presents the latest information on newly developed strategies for managing this pest. Dr. K. L. Heong is the principal scientist and insect ecologist at the International Rice Research Institute, Philippines. He has been researching rice planthoppers for more than 30 years. Dr. Heong is a fellow of the Third World Academy of Science and the Academy of Sciences, Malaysia. Professor Jia-an Cheng is an insect ecologist who has been studying rice planthoppers for about 50 years. He is a professor at Zhejiang University, China. Professor M.M. Escalada works at Visayas State University.

This is the first book to provide an accessible comprehensive introduction to wildlife population assessment methods. It uses a new approach that makes the full range of methods accessible in a way that has not previously been possible. Traditionally, newcomers to the field have had to face the daunting prospect of grasping new concepts for almost every one of the many methods. In contrast, this book uses a single conceptual (and statistical) framework for all the methods. This makes understanding the apparently different methods easier because each can be seen to be a special case of the general framework. The approach provides a natural bridge between simple methods and recently developed methods. It also links closed population methods quite naturally with open population methods. The book is accompanied by free software on the web, in the form of an R library, allowing readers to get some "hands-on" experience with the methods and how they perform in different contexts - without the considerable effort and expense required to do this in the real world. It also provides a tool for teaching the methods, including a means for teachers to generate examples and exercises customised to the needs of their students. As the first truly up-to-date and introductory text in the field, this book should become a standard reference for students and professionals in the fields of statistics, biology and ecology.

A decline in populations of Allegheny woodrats (Neotoma magister) was first noticed in the 1980s. Since that time, woodrats have become extirpated from at least two states and have declined dramatically in several others. Recent evidence suggests that the decline of this species may be proceeding further south to include states where woodrat populations were previously considered to be stable.

The Allegheny Woodrat: Ecology, Conservation, and Management of a Declining Species provides a comprehensive summary of research conducted over the past twenty-five years. The book integrates the results of this research into a comprehensive picture of the ecological requirements, conservation principles, and management strategies for this declining species. In addition, general principles learned from the study of woodrats are applied to the conservation and management of other declining species, including other species of Neotoma.

The editors and chapter authors are researchers from both academic settings and state management agencies, individuals who have contributed significantly to the study of Allegheny woodrats during the past two decades. The book will be of interest to ecologists, conservation biologists, wildlife professionals, and students.

This book explores why human beings share food with others using a humanistic anthropological approach. This book provides a comparative examination of distinct features and historical changes in food-sharing practices in various hunting-gathering societies, especially in the Inuit. The author considers human nature through various human food-sharing practices. Food sharing is a characteristic of human behavior and has been one of the central topics in anthropological studies of hunter-gatherers for a long time. While anthropologists have attempted to understand it in functional, historical, adaptational, social, cultural, psychological, or phenomenological perspective, they have failed to convincingly explain its origin, variation, existence or/and change. Recently, evolutionary ecology or behavioral ecology has dominated research of the topic. However, neither of them adequately considers social, cultural and historical factors in the analysis of human food-sharing practices. This book is an essential and fundamental study for every researcher interested in the relationship between human nature, society and culture.

Arid lands require that organisms inhabiting them be well-adapted to thrive or even just to survive. This book provides a review of the ecological adaptations - be they behavioural, physiological or morphological - of carnivores to arid environments. Following a general introduction into aridity and arid lands in Africa, the major carnivore families are presented. Ecological adaptations of carnivores in arid lands reveal the amplitude and resilience of the ecology of these animals. In setting up conservation measures, the nature and extent of such adaptations are important facets in determining the effective area and degree of heterogeneity required as habitat by a carnivore population so as to produce a viable unit.

One of the most striking and persistent ways humans dominate Earth is by changing land-cover as we settle a region. Much of our ecological understanding about this process comes from studies of birds, yet the existing literature is scattered, mostly decades old, and rarely synthesized or standardized. The twenty-seven contributions authored by leaders in the fields of avian and urban ecology present a unique summary of current research on birds in settled environments ranging from wildlands to exurban, rural to urban. Ecologists, land managers, wildlife managers, evolutionary ecologists, urban planners, landscape architects, and conservation biologists will find our information useful because we address the conservation and evolutionary implications of urban life from an ecological and planning perspective. Graduate students in these fields also will find the volume to be a useful summary and synthesis of current research, extant literature, and prescriptions for future work. All interested in human-driven land-cover changes will benefit from a perusal of this book because we present high altitude photographs of each study area.

Arthropods are invertebrates that constitute over 90% of the animal kingdom, and their bio-ecology is closely linked with global functioning and survival. Arthropods play an important role in maintaining the health of ecosystems, provide livelihoods and nutrition to human communities, and are important indicators of environmental change. Yet the population trends of several arthropods species show them to be in decline. Arthropods constitute a dominant group with 1.2 million species influencing earth's biodiversity. Among arthropods, insects are predominant, with ca. 1 million species and having evolved some 350 million years ago. Arthropods are closely associated with living and non-living entities alike, making the ecosystem services they provide crucially important. In order to be effective, plans for the conservation of arthropods and ecosystems should include a mixture of strategies like protecting key habitats and genomic studies to formulate relevant policies for in situ and ex situ conservation. This two-volume book focuses on capturing the essentials of arthropod inventories, biology, and conservation. Further, it seeks to identify the mechanisms by which arthropod populations can be sustained in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and by means of which certain problematic species be managed without producing harmful environmental side-effects. This edited compilation includes chapters contributed by over 80 biologists on a wide range of topics embracing the diversity, distribution, utility and conservation of arthropods and select groups of insect taxa. More importantly, it describes in detail the mechanisms of sustaining arthropod ecosystems, services and populations. It addresses the contribution of modern biological tools such as molecular and genetic techniques regulating gene expression, as well as conventional, indigenous practices in arthropod conservation. The contributors reiterate the importance of documenting and understanding the biology of arthropods from a holistic perspective before addressing conservation issues at large. This book offers a valuable resource for all zoologists, entomologists, ecologists, conservation biologists, policy makers, teachers and students interested in the conservation of biological resources.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, consist of 572 islands with a land area of 8,249 km2. Their topography is hilly and undulating, with elevations up to 732 m on the Andaman and up to 568 m on the Nicobar Islands. They are known for their rich biodiversity and a very high degree of endemicity in all taxa, especially in plants, reptiles, fishes and corals. Their habitats include bays, mangroves, moist deciduous forests and evergreen forests. Comprising 20 chapters each written by an expert or professional in his/her particular field this book offers new insights into the fascinating faunal communities of these islands and provides the fundamentals for their conservation and environmental management.