In the last decade, research on the previously dormant field of camouflage has advanced rapidly, with numerous studies challenging traditional concepts, investigating previously untested theories and incorporating a greater appreciation of the visual and cognitive systems of the observer. Using studies of both real animals and artificial systems, this book synthesises the current state of play in camouflage research and understanding. It introduces the different types of camouflage and how they work, including background matching, disruptive coloration and obliterative shading. It also demonstrates the methodologies used to study them and discusses how camouflage relates to other subjects, particularly with regard to what it can tell us about visual perception. The mixture of primary research and reviews shows students and researchers where the field currently stands and where exciting and important problems remain to be solved, illustrating how the study of camouflage is likely to progress in the future.

The best alternative to chemical control is often seen as being biological control - the introduction of natural enemies in areas where foreign pests become abundant. However, biological control alone is not always sufficient to maintain pest populations under a tolerable level; and it is necessary to learn how to make it compatible with other methods of control, and in particular with chemicals, in integrated control programs. Data on these important aspects was collected and elaborated over a period of seven to eight years and synthesized in this volume, which was originally published in 1976. The data relates to five groups of species recognized as main agricultural pests over vast areas of developing countries. It shows how complex the interrelationships between microorganisms are how much research effort has to be invested in such disciplines as systematics, physiology, ethnology and ecology for their understanding.

The Atlantic salmon is one of the most prized and exploited species worldwide, being at the centre of a massive sports fishing industry and increasingly as the major farmed species in many countries worldwide.

"Atlantic Salmon Ecology" is a landmark publication, both scientifically important and visually attractive. Comprehensively covering all major aspects of the relationship of the Atlantic salmon with its environment, chapters include details of migration and dispersal, reproduction, habitat requirements, feeding, growth rates, competition, predation, parasitsm, population dynamics, effects of landscape use, hydro power development, climate change, and exploitation. The book closes with a summary and look at possible future research directions.

Backed by the Norwegian Research Council and with editors and contributors widely known and respected, "Atlantic Salmon Ecology" is an essential purchase for all those working with this species, including fisheries scientists and managers, fish biologists, ecologists, physiologists, environmental biologists and aquatic scientists, fish and wildlife department personnel and regulatory bodies. Libraries in all universities and research establishments where these subjects are studied and taught should have copies of this important publication.Comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of Atlantic SalmonAtlantic Salmon is one of the world's most commercially important speciesBacked by the Norwegian Research CouncilExperienced editor and internationally respected contributors

Ecological Methods by the late T.R. E. Southwood and revised over the years by P. A. Henderson has developed into a classic reference work for the field biologist. It provides a handbook of ecological methods and analytical techniques pertinent to the study of animals, with an emphasis on non-microscopic animals in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. It remains unique in the breadth of the methods presented and in the depth of the literature cited, stretching right back to the earliest days of ecological research. The universal availability of R as an open source package has radically changed the way ecologists analyse their data. In response, Southwood's classic text has been thoroughly revised to be more relevant and useful to a new generation of ecologists, making the vast resource of R packages more readily available to the wider ecological community. By focusing on the use of R for data analysis, supported by worked examples, the book is now more accessible than previous editions to students requiring support and ideas for their projects. Southwood's Ecological Methods provides a crucial resource for both graduate students and research scientists in applied ecology, wildlife ecology, fisheries, agriculture, conservation biology, and habitat ecology. It will also be useful to the many professional ecologists, wildlife biologists, conservation biologists and practitioners requiring an authoritative overview of ecological methodology.

This detailed 1983 study of the African buffalo is distinguished by the extraordinary first-hand data obtained by the author in ten years of study. During this time, Dr Mloszewski virtually lived with the herds, moving among the animals and becoming accepted by them as a companion in their wanderings. The result is a book written from a highly unusual viewpoint and containing unique data. The book discusses the ancestry, zoological classification, and biogeographical setting of the African buffalo and describes the interactions of buffaloes with other species. The individual and collective behavior of the buffalo in the wild, as directly observed by the author, is the central subject, covering herd movements, feeding activities, hierarchies and individuals and agnostic, reproductive and other behaviors.

The adaptation of herbivore behaviour to seasonal and locational variations in vegetation quantity and quality is inadequately modelled by conventional methods. Norman Owen-Smith innovatively links the principles of adaptive behaviour to their consequences for population dynamics and community ecology, through the application of a metaphysiological modelling approach. The main focus is on large mammalian herbivores occupying seasonally variable environments such as those characterised by African savannahs, but applications to temperate zone ungulates are also included. Issues of habitat suitability, species coexistence, and population stability or instability are similarly investigated. The modelling approach accommodates various sources of environmental variability, in space and time, in a simple conceptual way and has the potential to be applied to other consumer-resource systems. This text highlights the crucial importance of adaptive consumer responses to environmental variability and is aimed particularly at academic researchers and graduate students in the field of ecology.

This unique book synthesizes the ongoing long-term community ecology studies of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The studies have been conducted from deserts to rainforests as well as in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine habitats and provide valuable insight that can be obtained only through persistent, diligent, and year-after-year investigation.
Long-Term Studies of Vertebrate Communities is ideal for faculty, researchers, graduate students, and undergraduates in vertebrate biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology, including ecology, natural history, and systematics.
Key Features
* Provides unique perspectives of community stability and variation
* Details the influence of natural and other perturbations on community structure
* Includes synopses by well-known authors
* Presents results from a broad range of vertebrate taxa
* Studies were conducted at different latitudes and in different habitats

This book provides an update on the phylogeny, systematics and ecology of horses in South America based on data provided over the past three decades. The contemporary South American mammalian communities were shaped by the emergence of the Isthmus of Panama and by the profound climatic oscillations during the Pleistocene. Horses were a conspicuous group of immigrant mammals from North America that arrived in South America during the Pleistocene. This group is represented by 2 genera, Hippidion and Equus, which include small species (Hippidion devillei, H. saldiasi, E. andium and E. insulatus) and large forms (Equus neogeus and H. principale). Both groups arrived in South America via 2 different routes. One model designed to explain this migration indicates that the small forms used the Andes corridor, while larger horses used the eastern route and arrived through some coastal areas. Molecular dating (ancient DNA) suggests that the South American horses separated from the North American taxa (caballines and the New World stilt-legged horse) after 3.6 - 3.2 Ma, consistent with the final formation of the Panamanian Isthmus. Recent studies of stable isotopes in these horses indicate an extensive range of 13C values cover closed woodlands to C4 grasslands. This plasticity agrees with the hypothesis that generalist species and open biome specialist species from North America indicate a positive migration through South America.

Globally, more and more species are at risk of extinction as the environment and climate change. Many of these species require long-term management to persist - they are conservation-reliant. The magnitude of this challenge requires a rethinking of how conservation priorities are determined and a broader societal commitment to conservation. Choices need to be made about which species will be conserved, for how long, and by whom. This volume uses case studies and essays by conservation practitioners from throughout the world to explore what conservation reliance is and what it means for endangered-species management. Chapters consider threats to species and how they are addressed, legal frameworks for protecting endangered species, societal contexts and conflicts over conservation goals, and how including conservation reliance can strengthen methods for prioritizing species for conservation. The book concludes by discussing how shepherding nature requires an evaluation of societal values and ethics.

Many mammals, such as otters, live in close association with rivers and streams, feeding in them, or using them as a place of safety or means of escape from predators. The distinct adaptations that riparian mammals have evolved in order to live in these environments also handicap them for living elsewhere. These animals are therefore threatened by alterations to their environment. In recent years, our rivers have become highly polluted, and have been subject to bankside modifications for agriculture and forestry, enhanced or decreased water flow, and recreation. As a result, they have become less and less suitable for these highly specialized animals. This book looks at the habitat utilization, adaptation, feeding ecology, and conservation status of a range of riparian mammals. It gives insights into the problems facing these fascinating animals, and how they might be overcome.

Invasive species are among the greatest challenges to environmental sustainability and agricultural productivity in the world. One of the most promising approaches to managing invasive species is voluntary citizen stewardship. However, in order for control measures to be effective, private citizens often need to make sustained and sometimes burdensome commitments. Community-Based Control of Invasive Species is based on five years of research by leading scholars in natural resource and human behavioural sciences, which involved government and citizen groups in Australia and the United States. It examines questions including, 'how can citizens be engaged in voluntarily managing invasive species?', 'what communication strategies will ensure good motivation and coordination?' and 'how can governing bodies support citizens in their efforts?'. With chapters on institutional frameworks, changing governance, systems thinking, organisational learning, engagement, communication and behavioural change, this book will be a valuable reference for researchers and practitioners involved in natural resources management.

New or recently sterilized islands (for example through volcanic activity), provide ecologists with natural experiments in which to study colonization, development and establishment of new biological communities. Studies carried out on islands like this have provided answers to fundamental questions as to what general principles are involved in the ecology of communities and what processes underlie and maintain the basic structure of ecosystems. These studies are vital for conservation biology, especially when evolutionary processes need to be maintained in systems in order to maintain biodiversity. The major themes are how animal and plant communities establish, particularly on 'new land' or following extirpations by volcanic activity. This book comprises a broad review of island colonization, bringing together succession models and general principles, case studies with which Professor Ian Thornton was intimately involved, and a synthesis of ideas, concluding with a look to the future for similar studies.

Most large herbivores require some type of management within their habitats. Some populations of large herbivores are at the brink of extinction, some are under discussion for reintroduction, whilst others already occur in dense populations causing conflicts with other land use. Large herbivores are the major drivers for forming the shape and function of terrestrial ecosystems. This 2006 book addresses the scientifically based action plans to manage both the large herbivore populations and their habitats worldwide. It covers the processes by which large herbivores not only affect their environment (e.g. grazing) but are affected by it (e.g. nutrient cycling) and the management strategies required. Also discussed are new modeling techniques, which help assess integration processes in a landscape context, as well as assessing the consequences of new developments in the processes of conservation. This book will be essential reading for all involved in the management of both large herbivores and natural resources.

Ecology has long been shaped by ideas that stress the sharing of resources and the competition for those resources, and by the assumption that populations and communities typically exist under equilibrium conditions in habitats saturated with both individuals and species. However, much evidence contradicts these assumptions and it is likely that nonequilibrium is much more widespread than might be expected. This book is unique in focusing on nonequilibrium aspects of ecology, providing evidence for nonequilibrium and equilibrium in populations (and metapopulations), in extant communities and in ecological systems over evolutionary time, including nonequilibrium due to recent and present mass extinctions. The assumption that competition is of overriding importance is central to equilibrium ecology, and much space is devoted to its discussion. As communities of some taxa appear to be shaped more by competition than others, an attempt is made to find an explanation for these differences.

The theme of the book is the distribution and abundance of organisms in space and time. The core of the book lies in how local births and deaths are tied to emigration and immigration processes, and how environmental variability at different scales affects population dynamics with stochastic processes and spatial structure and shows how elementary analytical tools can be used to understand population fluctuations, synchrony, processes underlying range distributions and community structure and species coexistence. The book also shows how spatial population dynamics models can be used to understand life history evolution and aspects of evolutionary game theory. Although primarily based on analytical and numerical analyses of spatial population processes, data from several study systems are also dealt with.

Parasitology is an immensely important aspect of biological science. This manual presents fifty easy-to-follow laboratory exercises for student practical (lab) classes. All the exercises are tried and tested by the authors and are used in a wide variety of university undergraduate teaching departments. They range from relatively simple observational exercises, using local materials and requiring little in the way of equipment, to more technically demanding experiments in physiology and molecular parasitology. Each exercise includes a list of necessary equipment, consumables and sources of parasite material, instructions for staff and students, including aspects of safety, expected results, and some analysis provided by questions. In addition, the text also includes ideas for further exploration and information on similar exercises, as well as lists of selected further reading. This book should be an essential purchase for all teachers of parasitology at the university undergraduate level and for students taking laboratory practical classes in the subject.

How is the staggering biodiversity of the parasitoid insects maintained? This book, first published in 1994, explores patterns in host-parasitoid interactions, including parasitoid community richness, the importance of parasitoids as mortality factors, and their impact on host densities as determined by the outcomes of parasitoid introductions for biological control. It documents general patterns using data sets generated from the global literature and evaluates potential underlying biological, ecological and evolutionary mechanisms. A theme running throughout the book is the importance of host refuges as a major constraint on host-parasitoid interactions. Much can be learnt from the analysis of broad patterns; a few simple rules can go a long way in explaining the major components of these interactions. This book will be an invaluable resource for researchers interested in community ecology, population biology, entomology and biological control.

African mole-rats are a unique taxon of subterranean rodents that range in sociality from solitary-dwelling species through to two 'eusocial' species, the Damaraland Mole-Rat and the Naked Mole-Rat. The Naked Mole-Rat is arguably the closest that a mammal comes to behaving like social insects such as bees and termites, with large colonies and a behavioural and reproductive division of labour. As a family, the Bathyergidae represent a model system with which to study the evolution and maintenance of highly social cooperative breeding strategies. In this book, first published in 2000, Nigel Bennett and Chris Faulkes provide a synthesis of the knowledge of bathyergid systematics, ecology, reproductive biology, behaviour and genetics. With this, they explore the role of these factors in the evolution of sociality in the Bathyergidae in the context of both vertebrates and invertebrates. This will be an important new resource for anyone interested in the evolution of sociality, and in mole-rats in particular.

Here we report on a 25-year long-term sequence of measures to return a deteriorated recreational urban lake, Alte Donau in Vienna to acceptable water quality. Metropolitan waters require focused ecosystem management plans and intensive in-lake efforts. We explored physico-chemical conditions, food web from viruses to fish and water birds, the sediments, the littoral zone and the catchment, management and urban planning, and global warming. Several restoration techniques were tested and critically evaluated. The final management plan was based on bi-stable theory. During the recovery phase, numerous surplus adjustments had to be implemented to secure sustainable achievement.

The theme of the book is the distribution and abundance of organisms in space and time. The core of the book lies in how local births and deaths are tied to emigration and immigration processes, and how environmental variability at different scales affects population dynamics with stochastic processes and spatial structure and shows how elementary analytical tools can be used to understand population fluctuations, synchrony, processes underlying range distributions and community structure and species coexistence. The book also shows how spatial population dynamics models can be used to understand life history evolution and aspects of evolutionary game theory. Although primarily based on analytical and numerical analyses of spatial population processes, data from several study systems are also dealt with.

Infrastructure development in Africa and Asia is expanding at breakneck speed, largely in biodiversity-rich developing nations. The trend reflects governments' efforts to promote economic growth in response to increasing populations, rising consumption rates and persistent inequalities. Large-scale infrastructure development is regularly touted as a way to meet the growing demand for energy, transport and food - and as a key to poverty alleviation. In practice, however, road networks, hydropower dams and 'development corridors' tend to have adverse effects on local populations, natural habitats and biodiversity. Such projects typically weaken the capacity of ecosystems to maintain ecological functions on which wildlife and human communities depend, particularly in the face of climate change. This title is also available as Open Access via Cambridge Core.

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.

Along with reproduction, balancing energy expenditure with the limits of resource acquisition is essential for both a species and a population to survive. But energy is a limited resource, as we know well, so birds and mammals - the most energy-intensive fauna on the planet - must reduce energy expenditures to maintain this balance, some taking small steps, and others extreme measures. Here Brian K. McNab draws on his over sixty years in the field to provide a comprehensive account of the energetics of birds and mammals, one fully integrated with their natural history. McNab begins with an overview of thermal rates - much of our own energy is spent maintaining our 98.6[degrees]F temperature - and explains how the basal rate of metabolism drives energy use, especially in extreme environments. He then explores those variables that interact with the basal rate of metabolism, like body size and scale and environment, highlighting their influence on behavior, distribution, and even reproductive output. Successive chapters take up energy and population dynamics and evolution. A critical central theme that runs through the book is how the energetic needs of birds and mammals come up against rapid environmental change and how this is hastening the pace of extinction.

A rapidly growing interdisciplinary field, disease ecology merges key ideas from ecology, medicine, genetics, immunology, and epidemiology to study how hosts and pathogens interact in populations, communities, and entire ecosystems. Bringing together contributions from leading international experts on the ecology of diseases among invertebrate species, this book provides a comprehensive assessment of the current state of the field. Beginning with an introductory overview of general principles and methodologies, the book continues with in-depth discussions of a range of critical issues concerning invertebrate disease epidemiology, molecular biology, vectors, and pathogens. Topics covered in detail include: Methods for studying the ecology of invertebrate diseases and pathogens Invertebrate pathogen ecology and the ecology of pathogen groups Applied ecology of invertebrate pathogens Leveraging the ecology of invertebrate pathogens in microbial control Prevention and management of infectious diseases of aquatic invertebrates Ecology of Invertebrate Diseases is a necessary and long overdue addition to the world literature on this vitally important subject. This volume belongs on the reference shelves of all those involved in the environmental sciences, genetics, microbiology, marine biology, immunology, epidemiology, fisheries and wildlife science, and related disciplines.