Australia's varied grasslands have suffered massive losses and changes since European settlement, and those changes continue under increasingly intensive human pressures for development and agricultural production. The values of native grasslands for conservation of endemic native biodiversity, both flora and fauna, have led to strong interests in the protection of remaining fragments, especially near urban centres, and documentation of the insects and other inhabitants of grasslands spanning tropical to cool temperate parts of the country. Attention to conservation of grassland insects in Australia is relatively recent, but it is increasingly apparent that grasslands harbour many localised and ecologically specialised endemic species. Their conservation necessarily advances from very incomplete documentation, and draws heavily on lessons from the far better-documented grasslands elsewhere, most notably in the northern hemisphere, and undertaken over far longer periods. From those cases, and the extensive background to grassland management to harmonise conservation with production and amenity values through honing use of processes such as grazing, mowing and fire, the needs and priorities for Australia can become clearer, together with needs for grassland restoration at a variety of scales. This book is a broad overview of conservation needs of grassland insects in Australia, drawing on the background provided elsewhere in the world on the responses to disturbances, and the ecological importance, of some key insect groups (notably Orthoptera, Hemiptera and Lepidoptera) to suggest how insect conservation in native, pastoral and urban grasslands may be advanced. The substantial references given for each chapter facilitate entry for non-entomologist grassland managers and stewards to appreciate the diversity and importance of Australia's grassland insects, their vulnerabilities to changes, and the possibilities for conserving them and the wider ecological roles in which they participate.

RSPB ID Spotlight Ladybirds is a reliable fold-out chart that presents illustrations of 27 of our most widespread and familiar ladybirds by renowned artist Richard Lewington. - Species are grouped by family and helpfully labelled to assist with identification - Artworks are shown side by side for quick comparison and easy reference at home or in the field, or the chart can be fixed to the wall as a beautiful poster - The reverse of the chart provides information on the habitats, behaviour, life cycles and diets of our ladybirds, as well as the conservation issues they are facing and how we can support them The ID Spotlight charts help wildlife enthusiasts identify and learn more about our most common species using accurate colour illustrations and informative, accessible text.

Tracking Animal Migration with Stable Isotopes, Second Edition, provides a complete introduction to new and powerful isotopic tools and applications that track animal migration, reviewing where isotope tracers fit in the modern toolbox of tracking methods. The book provides background information on a broad range of migration scenarios in terrestrial and aquatic systems and summarizes the most cutting-edge developments in the field that are revolutionizing the way migrant individuals and populations are assigned to their true origins. It allows undergraduates, graduate students and non-specialist scientists to adopt and apply isotopes to migration research, and also serves as a useful reference for scientists. The new edition thoroughly updates the information available to the reader on current applications of this technique and provides new tools for the isotopic assignment of individuals to origins, including geostatistical multi-isotope approaches and the ways in which researchers can combine isotopes with routine data in a Bayesian framework to provide best estimates of animal origins. Four new chapters include contributions on applications to the movements of terrestrial mammals, with particular emphasis on how aspects of animal physiology can influence stable isotope values.

Islands with large colonies of seabirds are found throughout the globe. Seabird islands provide nesting and roosting sites for birds that forage at sea, deposit marine nutrients on land, and physically alter these islands. Habitats for numerous endemic and endangered animal and plant species, seabird islands are therefore biodiversity hotspots with high priority for conservation.
Successful campaigns to eradicate predators (e.g., rats and cats) from seabird islands have been conducted worldwide. However, removal of predators will not necessarily lead to natural recovery of seabirds or other native species. Restoration of island ecosystems requires social acceptance of eradications, knowledge of how island food webs function, and a long-term commitment to measuring and assisting the recovery process.
This book, written collaboratively by and for ecologists and resource managers, provides the first large-scale cross-system compilation, comparison, and synthesis of the ecology of seabird island systems. Offering a new conceptual framework into which to fit the impacts of seabirds on island ecology, this is an essential resource for academics and resource managers alike.

RSPB ID Spotlight Birds of Farmland and Open Countryside is a reliable fold-out chart that presents illustrations of 57 of the UK's most familiar birds of farmland and open countryside by renowned artist Stephen Message. - Species are grouped by family and helpfully labelled to assist with identification - Artworks are shown side-by-side for quick comparison and easy reference at home or in the field, or the chart can be fixed to the wall as a beautiful poster - The reverse of the chart provides information on the habitats, behaviour, life cycles and diets of our birds commonly found on farmland and in open countryside, as well as the conservation issues they are facing and how the RSPB is working to support them The ID Spotlight charts help wildlife enthusiasts identify and learn more about our most common species using accurate colour illustrations and informative, accessible text.

More is known about the behavior, anatomy, and molecular biology of the laboratory rat than any other animal species. Although its natural history and psychological functions have been described previously in books, this is the first comprehensive description of its behavior. Both seasoned and beginning investigators will be amazed at the range and complexity of the species as described in the 43 chapters of this volume. The behavioral descriptions are closely tied to the laboratory methods from which they were derived, thus allowing investigators to correlate the behavior and methods and exploit them in their own research. This book is aimed at investigators in neuroscience who may not be familiar with rat behavior, but who wish to incorporate behavioral studies into their own research. Nevertheless, seasoned investigators will also find the book to be a handy reference for behavioral paradigms with which they may not be familiar. It is expected that as the genetic and molecular understanding of the rat develops, there will be an increasing need for knowledge about rat behavior. This book will serve as an indispensable resource for neuroscientists, psychologists, pharmacologists, geneticists, molecular biologists, zoologists, and their students and trainees.

This volume is devoted to the memory of the eminent carcinologist Professor Ruiyu Liu (1922-2012) of the Institute of Oceanology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, China. Since 1949, Professor Liu had devoted his life to studying taxonomy, systematics, ecology, zoogeography and aquaculture and published a total of more than 210 papers and monographs. He described two new genera, fifty-two new species and one new subspecies, including not only crustaceans but also cnidarians, polychaetes and molluscs. In this volume forty of his friends and colleagues put together sixteen papers to honour Professor Liu, and named after him three new genera and eleven new species. First published as a Special Issue of Crustaceana 93(11-12): 1233-1546.

Professor Linda M. Fedigan, Member of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, has made major contributions to our understanding of the behavioural ecology of primates. Furthermore, Linda Fedigan pioneered and continues to advance scholarship on the role of women in science, as well as actively promoting the inclusion of women in the academy. A symposium in honour of her career was held in Banff (Alberta, Canada) in December 2016, during which former and current students and collaborators, as well as scientists with similar research interests, presented and discussed their work and their connections to Linda Fedigan. These presentations and discussions are here presented as chapters in this festschrift. The original works presented in this book are organized around four major research areas that have been greatly advanced and influenced by Linda Fedigan: Primate life histories Sex roles, gender, and science Primate-environment interactions Primate adaptation to changing environments

With some 480 currently known fresh- and brackish-water fish species, Suriname has a rich inland fish fauna that is related to the most diverse freshwater fish fauna on planet Earth, i.e. that of the Amazon River. Interest in the freshwater fishes of Suriname by naturalists and scientists extends back over more than two centuries. Suriname is undoubtedly the site of origin of the oldest extant preserved specimens of South American fishes and 19 Surinamese fish species were described and figured by Linnaeus. Building on ichthyological studies initiated in the 1960s by the Brokopondo Project, this book provides an introduction to the freshwater fish fauna of Suriname, including identification keys, photographs of the species and descriptions of their habitats, that should be especially useful to decision makers, conservation biologists, aquarium hobbyists and eco-tourists.

This book presents the spatial and temporal dynamics of land use and land cover in the central Tibetan Plateau during the last two decades, based on various types of satellite data, long-term field investigation and GIS techniques. Further, it demonstrates how remote sensing can be used to map and characterize land use, land cover and their dynamic processes in mountainous regions, and to monitor and model relevant biophysical parameters. The Tibetan Plateau, the highest and largest plateau on the Earth and well known as "the roof of the world," is a huge mountainous area on the Eurasian continent and covers millions of square kilometers, with an average elevation of over 4000 m. After providing an overview of the background and an introduction to land use and land cover change, the book analyzes the current land use status, dynamic changes and spatial distribution patterns of different land-use types in the study area, using various types of remotely sensed data, digital elevation models and GIS spatial analysis methods to do so. In turn, it discusses the main driving forces, based on the main physical environment variables and socioeconomic data, and provides a future scenario analysis of land use change using a Markov chain model. Given its scope, it provides a valuable reference guide for researchers, scientists and graduate students working on environmental change in mountainous regions around the globe, and for practitioners working at government and non-government agencies.