Cooperative breeding refers to a social system in which individuals other than the parents provide care for the offspring. In addition to alloparental care, two further characteristics are common among species exhibiting cooperative breeding: delayed dispersal and delayed reproduction. Among vertebrates, cooperative breeding is expressed most prominently in birds and mammals. The book explores the phenomenon in a wide variety of mammals, including rodents, primates, viverrids, and carnivores. Comparative studies of cooperative breeding provide important tests for the origin and maintenance of sociality in complex groups. Understanding the behavioral and physiological mechanisms underlying cooperative breeding yields insights into the fundamental building blocks of social behavior in animal societies. Although several recent volumes have summarized the state of our knowledge of the ecology and evolution of cooperative breeding in birds, Cooperative Breeding in Mammals is the first book devoted to these issues in mammals, and it will appeal to zoologists, ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and those interested in animal behavior.

Beavers are represented by two extant species, the Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) and the North American beaver (Castor canadensis); each has played a significant role in human history and dominated wetland ecology in the northern hemisphere. Their behaviour and ecology both fascinate and perhaps even infuriate, but seemingly never fail to amaze. Both species have followed similar histories from relentless persecution to the verge of extinction (largely through hunting), followed by their subsequent recovery and active restoration which is viewed by many as a major conservation success story. Beavers have now been reintroduced throughout Europe and North America, demonstrating that their role as a keystone engineer is now widely recognised with proven abilities to increase the complexity and biodiversity of freshwater ecosystems. What animals other than humans can simultaneously act as engineers, forest workers, carpenters, masons, creators of habitats, and nature managers? Over the last 20 years, there has been a huge increase in the number of scientific papers published on these remarkable creatures, and an authoritative synthesis is now timely. This accessible text goes beyond their natural history to describe the impacts on humans, conflict mitigation, animal husbandry, management, and conservation. Beavers: Ecology, Behaviour, Conservation, and Management is an accessible reference for a broad audience of professional academics (especially carnivore and mammalian biologists), researchers and graduate students, governmental and non-governmental wildlife bodies, and amateur natural historians intrigued by these wild animals and the extraordinary processes of nature they exemplify.

Conflict between males and females over reproduction is ubiquitous in nature due to fundamental differences between the sexes in reproductive rates and investment in offspring. In only a few species, however, do males strategically employ violence to control female sexuality. Why are so many of these primates? Why are females routinely abused in some species, but never in others? And can the study of such unpleasant behavior by our closest relatives help us to understand the evolution of men s violence against women?

In the first systematic attempt to assess and understand primate male aggression as an expression of sexual conflict, the contributors to this volume consider coercion in direct and indirect forms: direct, in overcoming female resistance to mating; indirect, in decreasing the chance the female will mate with other males. The book presents extensive field research and analysis to evaluate the form of sexual coercion in a range of species including all of the great apes and humans and to clarify its role in shaping social relationships among males, among females, and between the sexes.

This book is about the social life of monkeys, apes and humans. The central theme is the importance of social information and knowledge to a full understanding of primate social behavior and organization. Its main purpose is to stress evolutionary continuity, i.e. that there are direct connections between human and nonhuman society. This view is often downplayed elsewhere in the anthropological literature where the notion that humans have culture and animals do not is prevalent. Topics covered include an overview of the contexts of behavior; a comparison of blind strategies and tactical decision-making; social cognition; a review of intentionalist interpretations of behavior; kinship; language and its social implications; and the constraints of culture.

What does it mean to be a horse? The definitive and bestselling book explaining the mysteries of the horse using insights of modern science. What makes a winning racehorse? How intelligent are horses? What are horses trying to tell us when they stamp their hooves and snort? Do horses talk to each other? The horse, long symbol of beauty and athletic prowess, has made and lost fortunes and transformed human history and culture, and yet has retained mysteries that baffle even those who work with them every day. There has recently been an explosion of scientific research on the horse. In this book Stephen Budiansky brings the insights of modern science to a wider audience of horse enthusiasts and animal-lovers.