Reviews: Methods and Technology in Fish Biology and Fisheries published by Kluwer Academic Publishers is a book series dedicated to the publication of information on advanced, forward-looking methodologies, technologies, or perspectives in fish and is especially dedicated to relevant topics addressing global, fisheries. This series international concern in fish and fisheries. Humans continue to challenge our environments with new technologies and technological applications. The dynamic creativity of our own species often tends to place the greatest burden on our supporting ecosystems. This is especially true for aquatic networks of creeks, lakes, rivers and ocean environments. We also frequently use our conceptual powers to balance conflicting requirements and demands on nature and continue to develop new approaches and tools to provide sustainable resources as well as conserve what we hold most dear on local and global scales. This book series will provide a window into the developing dynamic among humans, aquatic ecosystems (both freshwater and marine), and the organisms that inhabit aquatic environments. There are many reasons to doubt the increasing social and economic value technology has gained over the last two centuries. Science and technology represent stages in human development. I agree with Ernst Mayer when he said in Toward a New Philosophy of Biology (1988) that "endeavors to solve all scientific problems by pure logic and refined measurements are unproductive, if not totally irrelevant.

The ocean teems with life that thrives under difficult situations in unusual environments. "The Extreme Life" of the Sea takes readers to the absolute limits of the ocean world--the fastest and deepest, the hottest and oldest creatures of the oceans. It dives into the icy Arctic and boiling hydrothermal vents--and exposes the eternal darkness of the deepest undersea trenches--to show how marine life thrives against the odds. This thrilling book brings to life the sea's most extreme species, and tells their stories as characters in the drama of the oceans. Coauthored by Stephen Palumbi, one of today's leading marine scientists, "The Extreme Life of the Sea" tells the unforgettable tales of some of the most marvelous life forms on Earth, and the challenges they overcome to survive. Modern science and a fluid narrative style give every reader a deep look at the lives of these species.

"The Extreme Life of the Sea" shows you the world's oldest living species. It describes how flying fish strain to escape their predators, how predatory deep-sea fish use red searchlights only they can see to find and attack food, and how, at the end of her life, a mother octopus dedicates herself to raising her batch of young. This wide-ranging and highly accessible book also shows how ocean adaptations can inspire innovative commercial products--such as fan blades modeled on the flippers of humpback whales--and how future extremes created by human changes to the oceans might push some of these amazing species over the edge.

This collection of articles is completely and explicitly devoted to the new field of comparative developmental evolutionary psychology--that is, to studies of primate abilities based on frameworks drawn from developmental psychology and evolutionary biology. These frameworks include Piagetian and neo-Piagetian models as well as psycholinguistic ones. The articles in this collection--originating in Japan, Spain, Italy, France, Canada, and the United States--represent a variety of backgrounds in human and nonhuman primate research. The authors focus on such areas as the nature of culture, intelligence, language, and imitation; the differences among species in mental abilities and developmental patterns; and the evolution of life histories and of mental abilities and their neurological bases.

How birds have evolved and adapted to survive winter Birds in Winter is the first book devoted to the ecology and behavior of birds during this most challenging season. Birds remaining in regions with cold weather must cope with much shorter days to find food and shelter even as they need to avoid predators and stay warm through the long nights, while migrants to the tropics must fit into very different ecosystems and communities of resident birds. Roger Pasquier explores how winter affects birds' lives all through the year, starting in late summer, when some begin caching food to retrieve months later and others form social groups lasting into the next spring. During winter some birds are already pairing up for the following breeding season, so health through the winter contributes to nesting success. Today, rapidly advancing technologies are enabling scientists to track individual birds through their daily and annual movements at home and across oceans and hemispheres, revealing new and unexpected information about their lives and interactions. But, as Birds in Winter shows, much is visible to any interested observer. Pasquier describes the season's distinct conservation challenges for birds that winter where they have bred and for migrants to distant regions. Finally, global warming is altering the nature of winter itself. Whether birds that have evolved over millennia to survive this season can now adjust to a rapidly changing climate is a problem all people who enjoy watching them must consider. Filled with elegant line drawings by artist and illustrator Margaret La Farge, Birds in Winter describes how winter influences the lives of birds from the poles to the equator.

Despite its remote and seemingly rigorous environment, the Antarctic is the world's most important habitat for seals, currently supporting more seals than all other parts of the world combined. As various national Antarctic programmes were established to study these animals, the need to standardize techniques became apparent. This book, arising from work by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (Group of Specialists on Seals), gives a detailed account of well-tried and, where possible, agreed methodologies, techniques, procedures and rationale for the collection and initial analysis of data on the biology and population ecology of Antarctic seals. This volume will not only help facilitate comparisons between different regions of Antarctica, but will also provide a guide for those studying seals in other parts of the world and those carrying out research on other large mammal species.

This book examines case studies of North American Quaternary mammalian evolution within the larger domain of modern evolutionary theory. It presents previously unpublished studies of a variety of taxa (xenarthrans, rodents, carnivores, ungulates) examined over several temporal scales, from a few thousand years during the Holocene to millions of years of late Pliocene and Pleistocene time. Different organizational levels are represented, from mosaic population variation, to a synopsis of Quaternary evolution of an entire order (Rodentia). In addition to specific case histories, the book includes purely theoretical and methodological contributions, for example, on the statistical recognition of stasis in the fossil record, new ways to calculate evolutionary rates, and the use of digital image analysis in the study of dental ontogeny. Perhaps the most important aspect of the studies reported in this book is that they span the time between the "ecological moment" and "deep time." Modern taxa can be traced back into the fossil record, and variation among extant taxa can be used as a control against which variation in the extinct ones can be understood.

RSPB Spotlight: Snakes is packed with eye-catching, informative colour photos, and features succinct, detailed text written by a knowledgeable naturalist. Snakes are superbly secretive reptiles, celebrated by many for their highly tuned senses and their complex and mysterious seasonal behaviours. Though some people may be fearful of them, these important reptiles play a crucial role in many habitats. And an encounter with any one of our native snake species is an experience worth cherishing. In Spotlight Snakes, Jules Howard takes readers on a journey through the ecology and lifestyle of Britain's three native snake species: the Barred Grass Snake, the Smooth Snake and our only venomous snake species, the Adder. As well as uncovering their unique hunting styles and courtship rituals, he delves into the myths and legends at the heart of humankind's widespread and sometimes troublesome fascination with these animals. He also charts the conservation challenges our native snakes face in the modern age and explores the solutions conservationists are employing to help these extraordinary predators remain a vital part of British ecosystems for generations to come. The Spotlight series introduces readers to the lives and behaviour of our favourite animals with eye-catching colour photographs and informative expert text.

The aim of this book is to give a general overview of the whole subject of bird migration. After a chapter describing the Earth's climate and ecosystem, the book is divided into three main sections. The first presents the life histories and migratory habits of nine different ecological categories of birds. The second section deals with the course and timing of the flight journeys, flight behavior, fuel economy, flocking, and the hazards from disorientation and predation. The final section covers the ways that birds navigate and shows that this process is still by no means fully understood.

The Asian elephant has had a unique cultural association with people. Unfortunately, elephants and people have also been in conflict, resulting in the decline in elephants throughout their former range in Southern Asia. This book provides an ecological analysis of elephant-human interaction and its implication for the conservation of elephants. The foraging habits of elephants and their impact on vegetation are considered, along with the interactions that occur between elephants and humans. The ecological data provide the basis for recommendations on elephant conservation and management, keeping in view the socio-economic imperatives of the Asian region. This first comprehensive account of Asian elephant ecology will be of particular interest to conservation biologists and mammalogists.

The rapid development of molecular biology and genetics has led to renewed interest in embryology, comparative embryology, and studies of the relations between ontogeny and phylogeny. In fact, genes have been identified which are involved in the formation of shapes and structures, and it is becoming apparent that their primary morphological expressions are conspicuously similar in different species. The primarily identical shapes do not become diversified until advanced individualization of embryos, and it is here that it is possible to employ the knowledge of comparative embryology, the branch of science engaged in the study of the development and differentiation of tridimensional structures in different animal groups. However, comparative embryology has been neglected during the past decades, as its development has appeared to have been completed. In our opinion, the decreased interest in comparative embryology has been caused by the fact that often the time factor was not or could not be respected. In fact, in the case of embryos of wild animals even their ontogenetic age and sometimes the duration of intrauterine development are unknown.

The chimpanzee of all other living species is our closest relation, with whom we last shared a common ancestor about five million years ago. These African apes make and use a rich and varied kit of tools, and of the primates they are the only consistent and habitual tool-users and tool-makers. Chimpanzees meet the criteria of a culture as originally defined for human beings by socio-cultural anthropologists. They show sex differences in using tools to obtain and to process a variety of plant and animal foods. The technological gap between chimpanzees and human societies that live by foraging (hunter-gatherers) is surprisingly narrow at least for food-getting. Different communities of wild chimpanzees have different tool-kits and not all of this regional and local variation can be explained by the demands of the physical and biotic environments in which they live. Some differences are likely to be customs based on socially derived and symbolically encoded traditions. This book describes and analyzes the tool-use of humankind's nearest living relation. It focuses on field studies of these apes across Africa, comparing their customs to see if they can justifiably be termed cultural. It makes direct comparisons with the material culture of human foraging peoples. The book evaluates the chimpanzee as an evolutionary model, showing that chimpanzee behavior helps us to infer the origins of technology in human prehistory.

The chimpanzee of all other living species is our closest relation, with whom we last shared a common ancestor about five million years ago. These African apes make and use a rich and varied kit of tools, and of the primates they are the only consistent and habitual tool-users and tool-makers. Chimpanzees meet the criteria of a culture as originally defined for human beings by socio-cultural anthropologists. They show sex differences in using tools to obtain and to process a variety of plant and animal foods. The technological gap between chimpanzees and human societies that live by foraging (hunter-gatherers) is surprisingly narrow at least for food-getting. Different communities of wild chimpanzees have different tool-kits and not all of this regional and local variation can be explained by the demands of the physical and biotic environments in which they live. Some differences are likely to be customs based on socially derived and symbolically encoded traditions. This book describes and analyzes the tool-use of humankind's nearest living relation. It focuses on field studies of these apes across Africa, comparing their customs to see if they can justifiably be termed cultural. It makes direct comparisons with the material culture of human foraging peoples. The book evaluates the chimpanzee as an evolutionary model, showing that chimpanzee behavior helps us to infer the origins of technology in human prehistory.

Referred to in the Bible, pictured on the wall-friezes of ancient Egyptian tombs, and a subject of fascination for generations of scientists, the tilapias (Cichlidae: Tilapiini) have featured in the diet and culture of humankind for thousands of years. The present century has seen their spread from Africa throughout the tropics and sub-tropics, largely for food and fisheries purposes. This book attempts to pull together our knowledge of this important group - their biology and fisheries and aquaculture - in a single volume, something that has not been done comprehensively for nearly two decades. A succession of chapters by acknowledged authorities covers evolution, phylogenetic relationships and biogeography, reproductive biology, mating systems and parental care, diet, feeding and digestive physiology, environmental physiology and energetics, the role of tilapias in ecosystems, population dynamics and management, genetics, seed production, nutrition, farming, economics and marketing. The book is aimed at biologists, fisheries scientists, aquaculturists, and all interested in aquatic ecology.

The two volumes of John Wiens' Ecology of Bird Communities, first published in 1992, are recognised as having applications and importance beyond the study of birds to the wider study of ecology in general. The books contain a detailed synthesis of our understanding of the patterns of organisation of bird communities and of the factors that may determine them, drawing from studies from all over the world. The author, however, does more than simply review findings in bird community ecology. By emphasizing how proper logic and methods have or have not been followed and how different viewpoints have developed historically and have led to controversy, he extends the scope of these books far beyond the study of birds. Volume 1 Foundations and Patterns explores why avian community ecologists ask the questions they do and what philosophical and methodological approaches they have used to answer such questions. Most of the book is devoted to a critical evaluation of what is known about the nature and organisation of bird communities.

The two volumes of John Wiens' Ecology of Bird Communities have applications and importance to the whole field of ecology. The books contain a detailed synthesis of our current understanding of the patterns of organisation of bird communities and of the factors that may determine them, drawing from studies from all over the world. By emphasizing how proper logic and methods have or have not been followed and how different viewpoints have developed historically and have led to controversy, the scope of these books are extended far beyond the study of birds. Processes and Variations discusses the way in which bird community patterns have been interpreted. This second volume examines how the complexity and variability of natural environments may influence efforts to discern and understand the nature of these communities. Graduate students and professionals in avian biology and ecology will find these volumes a valuable stimulus and guide to future field studies and theory development.

Arabia and the Middle East have an unusually rich herpetofauna, and this is exemplified by the region's snakes. There are almost 190 species, and this new field guide offers a way to identify them. Written by expert Damien Egan and illustrated with his brilliant digital imagery, the book consists of 87 plates, each containing two or three species, with the snakes illustrated along with comparison species and diagnostic features in detail, such as head and keel scales. A concise species text accompanies each plate, highlighting ID, ecology, habitat and prey, along with notes on venom. Introductory text covers the snakes of the region more widely, with a discussion on how and where to find them and how to study them safely. Ambitious in scope, this book will be of great interest to all herpetophiles living in or visiting this broad and diverse region.

Avian Medicine and Surgery in Practice is an invaluable quick reference resource for clinicians and a useful study guide for veterinary students. In this practical and beautifully illustrated book, early chapters cover physical examination, advice on interpreting diagnostic tests, and avian anatomy and physiology. Disorders affecting the different body regions and systems make up the majority of the book from the external-skin, feathers, eyes, legs and feet-to the internal including the gastrointestinal tract and the cardiovascular system. Further aspects of avian medicine discussed in the book include behavioural problems, incubation of eggs, paediatrics and surgery. Written by an expert with more than 30 years of clinical experience in avian medicine, the new edition is thoroughly revised with updated diseases, new and expanded clinical techniques, and over 100 new color illustrations. It also adds four important new chapters: Husbandry, Grooming and Nutrition, Diagnostic Imaging, Endoscopy, and Oncology as well as new sections on cardiovascular anatomy and neuroanatomy.

This book gives a concise account of the physiology and form of the fish circulatory system. The emphasis is primarily on function, but details of structure have been included. Following a revision of ideas on hemodynamics, attention is focused on the heart as the primary pump in the fish circulatory system. The fine structure and the electrical and ionic events of cardiac myocytes are described and the major events of the cardiac cycle are outlined. The structure of the peripheral vessels then follow and attention is devoted to the circulation in certain special areas such as the gills, the renal portal system, and the secondary blood system. There are also chapters devoted to the blood and the hemopoetic tissues and an account is given of the different types of retial systems that concentrate oxygen or heat in various parts of the body. Following a description of the autonomic nervous system, the circulatory responses to exercise and hypoxia are described. The book concludes with a discussion on the circulation of hagfish and how it illuminates our understanding of the functional and structural evolution of the circulatory system.

Teleost fishes account for nearly half of all known vertebrate species. They have representatives in virtually all aquatic systems and an enormous variety in the ways they live. Moreover, teleost fishes support subsistence and commercial fisheries and aquaculture systems throughout the world. The second edition of this highly respected book retains the aims and structure of the first edition, emphasizing the responses of individual fish to their environment and the consequences of these responses for the population and community to which the individuals belong. Fully updated and rewritten, this new edition of Ecology of Teleost Fishes offers a thorough and integrated approach to the area and is essential reading for all students of fish biology and ecology, fisheries science and aquaculture. Fish biologists, fisheries scientists, ecologists and researchers in fish population studies, genetics and aquaculture will also find this book to be an invaluable reference source.

Morphogeny of the nasal skull was investigated in 92 embryos of 13 species of Cetacea. Compared to the original nasal capsule of land mammals, the nasal structures of Cetacea show many weighty transformations. As a result, the nostrils are translocated from the tip of the snout to the vertex of the head. Several structures of the embryonic nasal skull remain preserved even in adult cetaceans. The translocation of the nostrils to the highest point of the surfacing body is among the most perfect adaptations of cetaceans to the aquatic life habits. The morphogeny of the nasal skull suggests that all cetaceans are of common origin and form a single monophyletic order. The hitherto usual division of this order into two suborders, Mysticeti and Odontoceti, appears to be unsubstantiated. Rather, at least three closely related superfamilies should be distinguished within the order Cetacea, viz., Balaenopteroidea, Physeteroidea, and Delphinoidea. The results are in a

Birds: ID Insights is ideal for birders of all levels. Its unique layout, comparing the plumages of similar pairs and groups of species, makes it perfect for identifying the more difficult birds found in Britain and other parts of north-west Europe. It has more images showing how to age birds than any comparable guide, and its handy compact size makes it practical for taking out into the field. The book is based on a long-running series of identification features in Bird Watching magazine. Author Dominic Couzens and artist David Nurney have spent years compiling the field notes and artworks for this series, and here their efforts are drawn together and made complete in a single volume that is easy to carry in the field and practical for birders to use. In addition they have expanded the species list from the magazine series and added many new birds, including the likes of Subalpine Warbler, Short-toed Lark, and Red-rumped Swallow. in total, the book covers more than 230 species, with easy-to-identify species such as Magpie and Kingfisher given minimal coverage so that the more difficult ID issues can be covered as fully as possible.

A marvelous journey into the world of bird evolution How Birds Evolve explores how evolution has shaped the distinctive characteristics and behaviors we observe in birds today. Douglas Futuyma describes how evolutionary science illuminates the wonders of birds, ranging over topics such as the meaning and origin of species, the evolutionary history of bird diversity, and the evolution of avian reproductive behaviors, plumage ornaments, and social behaviors. In this multifaceted book, Futuyma examines how birds evolved from nonavian dinosaurs and reveals what we can learn from the "family tree" of birds. He looks at the ways natural selection enables different forms of the same species to persist, and discusses how adaptation by natural selection accounts for the diverse life histories of birds and the rich variety of avian parenting styles, mating displays, and cooperative behaviors. He explains why some parts of the planet have so many more species than others, and asks what an evolutionary perspective brings to urgent questions about bird extinction and habitat destruction. Along the way, Futuyma provides an insider's perspective on how biologists practice evolutionary science, from studying the fossil record to comparing DNA sequences among and within species. A must-read for bird enthusiasts and curious naturalists, How Birds Evolve shows how evolutionary biology helps us better understand birds and their natural history, and how the study of birds has informed all aspects of evolutionary science since the time of Darwin.

This work is a brief review of the pre- and postnatal development in the North American opossum (Didelphis virginiana) presented in two volumes. Volume I summarizes gametes and fertilization, blastocyst formation and early organogenesis, fetal membranes and placentation, parturition and migration to the pouch, general postnatal growth and development, and histogenesis/organogenesis of the integument, musculoskeletal system, cardiovascular system, blood and blood forming organs, lymphatic organs, nervous system, eye, and ear. Volume II summarizes the histogenesis/organogenesis of the respiratory, digestive, urinary, male and female reproductive and classical endocrine systems.

1.1 Overview The precise knowledge of the three-dimensional (3-D) assembly of biological structures is still in its origin. As an example, a widely accepted concept and common belief of the structure of the airway network oflung is that of a regular, dichotomous branching pattern, also known as the trumpet model. This model, first introduced by Weibel in 1963, is often used in clinical and physiological applications. However, if this concept of dichotomy is used to model lung, a shape is obtained that is quite different from a real lung. As a matter of fact, many previous quantitative morphological and stereological investigations of lung did not concentrate on the spatial aspect of lung morphology but delivered data in a more statistical fashion. Accordingly, the functional behavior predicted by such a model becomes questionable and indeed, the morphometrically predicted lung capacity exceeds the physiological required capacity by a factor of 1.3 up to a factor of2. This problem has also been termed a paradox, as discussed by Weibel in 1983. In the rare cases where descriptive models of the mammalian bronchial tree exist, monopodial in small mammals, dichotomous in larger ones, the understanding of the historical and/or functional reasons for size-related changes in the general design is not explainable. This investigation is trying to overcome this gap by computer modeling and functional simulation.

Only five years ago, nobody in his right mind would have consid ered publishing a book on reeler as a model for brain develop ment. Although this interesting mutation has been with us for half a century, it is fair to say that, in spite of a wave of enthusiasm in the late sixties and early seventies, generated primarily by Sidman, Caviness and colleagues, studies of reeler mice fell pro gressively out of fashion during the next two decades. All that changed almost overnight when the cloning of the reeler gene, dubbed reelin, was reported in Tom Curran's laboratory in 1995. The fact that the same gene was identified at the same time independently by two other groups using positional cloning sug gested strongly that reelin was the right candidate. Although the key experiments of transgenic rescue have not been made (and perhaps will never be), the equation "reeler is reelin" has been established beyond reasonable doubt, as alterations of the reelin gene and/or its expression have been found in at least five alleles of reeler and in the mutation Shaking Rat Kawasaki (SRK), an ortholog of reeler."