San Antonio College Library

Why are most animal signals reliable? This is the central problem for evolutionary biologists interested in signals. The authors disentangle the complex and often confusing terminology that characterises the subject, and then challenge the widely held assumption that there is only one correct explanation for signal reliability. They argue that the reliability of signals is maintained in several ways, relevant in different circumstances, and that biologists...

Despite the depiction of nature as "red in tooth and claw," cooperation is actually a widespread attribute in the animal kingdom. It's the modern-day evolutionary biologists and behavioral ecologists who are embroiled in debate over why animals cooperate. Various types of cooperative behaviors have been documented in everything from insects to primates, and in every imaginable ecological scenario. Among such behaviors, the four discussed in this book...

"The book is designed to be advanced and up-to-date, but at the same time accessible to readers whatever their scientific background. For students of ecology, evolution and behaviour, it gives an introduction to the rapid progress in our understanding of olfaction at the molecular and neurological level. In addition, it offers chemists, molecular biologists and neurobiologists an insight into the ecological, evolutionary and behavioural context of...

In this first comprehensive synthesis of the literature on food hoarding in animals, Stephen B. Vander Wall discusses how animals store food, how they use food and how this use affects individual fitness, why and how food hoarding evolved, how cached food is lost, mechanisms for protecting and recovering cached food, physiological and behavioral factors that influence hoarding, and the impact that hoarding animals have on plant populations and plant...

Behaviour is shaped by both genetics and experience-nature and nurture. This book synthesizes research from behavioural genetics and animal and veterinary science, bridging the gap between these fields. The objective is to show that principles of behavioural genetics have practical applications to agricultural and companion animals. The continuing domestication of animals is a complex process whose myriad impacts on animal behaviour are often under-appreciated....

The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of Ants present a lavishly detailed account of the extraordinary lives of social insects that draws on more than two decades of research and offers insight into how bees, termites, and other insect societies thrive in systems of altruistic cooperation, complex communication, and labor division.

Donald R. Griffin takes us on a guided tour of the recent explosion of scientific research on animal mentality. With this new edition of his classic book, which he has completely revised and updated, Griffin moves beyond considerations of animal cognition to argue that scientists can and should investigate questions of animal consciousness. Using examples from studies of species ranging from chimpanzees and dolphins to birds and honeybees, he demonstrates...

Presents a scientific chronicle of Jane Goodall's career and documents the Gombe chimpanzees social behavior over the last 26 years.