Through a selection of her stunning photographs, Alexandra Morton portrays life on the central British Columbia coast.She arrived in the area in 1984 as a whale researcher, and at first, she was absorbed in studying the orca and admiring the magnificent scenery. It is a coast with a long history: dolphins have pulsed in and out for 10,000 years; First Nations people have lived here for almost as long; European settlers arrived a scant century ago. As time passed, Morton began to observe the lives of other creatures that share the sea and land-humpback whales, bears, salmon, eagles, deer, and humans-and understand how they are all interconnected. As one example, "Bears drag salmon beneath the trees of the forest, feeding the giant plants that shade the river nursery, protect its banks and allow it to make more fish." In "Beyond the Whales," Alexandra explains what is going on beyond the beauty of the images: "One of the joys of watching a place for 20 years is being able to read the signs upon the sea-bubbles on the surface mean tons of herring below; three birds over an orca mean the whale has brought fish to the surface; shearwaters in Blackfish Sound mean autumn is here. The ocean feeds the rivers and the rivers feed the ocean."

"Rodent Societies "synthesizes and integrates the current state of knowledge about the social behavior of rodents, providing ecological and evolutionary contexts for understanding their societies and highlighting emerging conservation and management strategies to preserve them. It begins with a summary of the evolution, phylogeny, and biogeography of social and nonsocial rodents, providing a historical basis for comparative analyses. Subsequent sections focus on group-living rodents and characterize their reproductive behaviors, life histories and population ecology, genetics, neuroendocrine mechanisms, behavioral development, cognitive processes, communication mechanisms, cooperative and uncooperative behaviors, antipredator strategies, comparative socioecology, diseases, and conservation. Using the highly diverse and well-studied Rodentia as model systems to integrate a variety of research approaches and evolutionary theory into a unifying framework, "Rodent Societies "will appeal to a wide range of disciplines, both as a compendium of current research and as a stimulus for future collaborative and interdisciplinary investigations.

This book presents five chapters describing the characteristics and behaviors of Bubalus bubalis, or domestic water buffalo. Chapter One provides an update on recent developments in the approaches for estrus detection in buffalo. Chapter Two explains the pelvimetry of the female buffalo reproductive system and the biometry of the reproductive system of male and female buffaloes. Chapter Three assesses the effect of slow-release subcutaneous exogenous melatonin implant on hematological profiles, endocrinological profiles, biochemical profiles and antioxidant and oxidative stress profiles in anestrus buffalo cows during the summer season to improve reproductive efficiency. Chapter Four consists of a study of Andaman local buffaloes that may serve as the reference values in which alterations due to metabolic, nutrient deficiency, physiological and health status can be compared for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Lastly, Chapter Five focuses mainly on the impact of heat stress on buffalo's behavior, physiology, metabolism, and acclimatization.