Author: Nicholas B. Davies Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand ISBN: 9780198546757 Category : Literary Collections Languages : en Pages : 272
Book Description
At first sight just a small brown bird, the dunnock's unobtrusive appearance belies its extraordinary behaviour and mating patterns. In this book Nick Davies gives a full account of the mating systems of the dunnock or hedge sparrow, Prunella modularis, which include pairs, a male with twofemales, two males with one female, and several males with several females. Detailed observations, elegant field experiments, and DNA fingerprinting are combined to show how this variable social organization from selfish individuals competing to maximize their own reproductive success. Furtherexperiments reveal how the cuckoo may thwart the dunnock's parental efforts. David Quinn's exquisite drawings provide a visual summary of the birds' behaviour. All students of ecology, evolution, and animal behaviour will want to be familiar with this work, which addresses the wider issues of theinfluence of ecology on mating systems and the evolutionary significance of conflict within and between species.This is the third volume in the Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution, and the first in this series to tackly behavioural ecology. Nick Davies is a Lecturer in Zoology at the University of Cambridge and co-editor with J. R. Krebs of the leading text in the field, Behavioural ecology: anevolutionary approach.
Author: Nicholas B. Davies Publisher: ISBN: 9781383027532 Category : Dunnock Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
At first sight just a small brown bird, the dunnock's unobtrusive appearance belies its extraordinary behaviour and mating patterns. In this book Nick Davies gives a full account of the mating systems of the dunnock or hedge sparrow, Prunella modularis, which include pairs, a male with two females, two males with one female, and several males with several females. Detailed observations, elegant field experiments, and DNA fingerprinting are combined to show how this variable social organization from selfish individuals competing to maximize their own reproductive success. Further experiments reveal how the cuckoo may thwart the dunnock's parental efforts. David Quinn's exquisite drawings provide a visual summary of the birds' behaviour.
Author: Nicholas B. Davies Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 292
Book Description
At first sight just a small brown bird, the dunnock's unobtrusive appearance belies its extraordinary behavior and mating patterns. This book gives a full account of the mating systems of the dunnock or hedge sparrow, Prunella modularis, which include pairs, a male with two females, two males with one female, and several males with several females. Detailed observations, elegant field experiments, and DNA fingerprinting are combined to show how this variable social organization arises from selfish individuals competing to maximize their own reproductive success. Further experiments reveal how the cuckoo may thwart the dunnock's parental efforts. David Quinn's exquisite drawings provide a visual summary of the bird's behavior. All students of ecology, evolution, and animal behavior will want to be familiar with this work, which addresses the wider issues of the influence of ecology on mating systems and the evolutionary significance of conflict within and between species. This is the third volume in the Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution, and the first in this series to address behavioral ecology.
Author: Michael Taborsky Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108788637 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 446
Book Description
How can the stunning diversity of social systems and behaviours seen in nature be explained? Drawing on social evolution theory, experimental evidence and studies conducted in the field, this book outlines the fundamental principles of social evolution underlying this phenomenal richness.To succeed in the competition for resources, organisms may either 'race' to be quicker than others, 'fight' for privileged access, or 'share' their efforts and gains. The authors show how the ecology and intrinsic attributes of organisms select for each of these strategies, and how a handful of straightforward concepts explain the evolution of successful decision rules in behavioural interactions, whether among members of the same or different species. With a broad focus ranging from microorganisms to humans, this is the first book to provide students and researchers with a comprehensive account of the evolution of sociality by natural selection.
Author: Peter James Bramwell Slater Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521429238 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 364
Book Description
Some of the most exciting recent advances in animal behaviour have occurred at the interface between that subject and the study of evolution. This book, written by experts in this area, illustrates how the profound changes in our understanding of evolution have influenced behavioural research. Its chapters span both studies of how behaviour itself has evolved, dealing with topics such as comparative studies, the genetics of behaviour, speciation and the evolution of sociality and of intelligence, and also the adaptiveness which this evolution has brought about, with treatment of mating and fighting strategies, and theories of kinship and altruism.Behaviour and Evolution will be invaluable to senior undergraduate and graduate students of biology and psychology, especially those studying animal behaviour, behavioural ecology, sociobiology, evolution, ecology and environmental biology.
Author: Jacobus J. Boomsma Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0191063215 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 315
Book Description
Evolutionary change is usually incremental and continuous, but some increases in organizational complexity have been radical and divisive. Evolutionary biologists, who refer to such events as “major transitions”, have not always appreciated that these advances were novel forms of pairwise commitment that subjugated previously independent agents. Inclusive fitness theory convincingly explains cooperation and conflict in societies of animals and free-living cells, but to deserve its eminent status it should also capture how major transitions originated: from prokaryote cells to eukaryote cells, via differentiated multicellularity, to colonies with specialized queen and worker castes. As yet, no attempt has been made to apply inclusive fitness principles to the origins of these events. Domains and Major Transitions of Social Evolution develops the idea that major evolutionary transitions involved new levels of informational closure that moved beyond looser partnerships. Early neo-Darwinians understood this principle, but later social gradient thinking obscured the discontinuity of life's fundamental organizational transitions. The author argues that the major transitions required maximal kinship in simple ancestors - not conflict reduction in already elaborate societies. Reviewing more than a century of literature, he makes testable predictions, proposing that open societies and closed organisms require very different inclusive fitness explanations. It appears that only human ancestors lived in societies that were already complex before our major cultural transition occurred. We should therefore not impose the trajectory of our own social history on the rest of nature. This thought-provoking text is suitable for graduate-level students taking courses in evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology, organismal developmental biology, and evolutionary genetics, as well as professional researchers in these fields. It will also appeal to a broader, interdisciplinary audience, including the social sciences and humanities.
Author: John Cartwright Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 9780262531702 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 406
Book Description
The book covers fundamental issues such as the origins and function of sexual reproduction, mating behavior, human mate choice, patterns of violence in families, altruistic behavior, the evolution of brain size and the origins of language, the modular mind, and the relationship between genes and culture.
Author: Judith Korb Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3540759573 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 270
Book Description
The time is ripe to investigate similarities and differences in the course of social evolution in different animals. This book brings together renowned researchers working on sociality in different animals to deal with the key questions of sociobiology. For the first time, they compile the evidence for the importance of ecological factors in the evolution of social life, ranging from invertebrate to vertebrate social systems, and evaluate its importance versus that of relatedness.
Author: Jeffry A. Simpson Publisher: Psychology Press ISBN: 1134996802 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 505
Book Description
What a pity it would have been if biologists had refused to accept Darwin's theory of natural selection, which has been essential in helping biologists understand a wide range of phenomena in many animal species. These days, to study any animal species while refusing to consider the evolved adaptive significance of their behavior would be considered pure folly--unless, of course, the species is homo sapiens. Graduate students training to study this particular primate species may never take a single course in evolutionary theory, although they may take two undergraduate and up to four graduate courses in statistics. These methodologically sophisticated students then embark on a career studying human aggression, cooperation, mating behavior, family relationships, or altruism with little or no understanding of the general evolutionary forces and principles that shaped the behaviors they are investigating. This book hopes to redress that wrong. It is one of the first to apply evolutionary theories to mainstream problems in personality and social psychology that are relevant to a wide range of important social phenomena, many of which have been shaped and molded by natural selection during the course of human evolution. These phenomena include selective biases that people have concerning how and why a variety of activities occur. For example: * information exchanged during social encounters is initially perceived and interpreted; * people are romantically attracted to some potential mates but not others; * people often guard, protect, and work hard at maintaining their closest relationships; * people form shifting and highly complicated coalitions with kin and close friends; and * people terminate close, long-standing relationships. Evolutionary Social Psychology begins to disentangle the complex, interwoven patterns of interaction that define our social lives and relationships.
Author: Dustin R. Rubenstein Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108132634 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 479
Book Description
Darwin famously described special difficulties in explaining social evolution in insects. More than a century later, the evolution of sociality - defined broadly as cooperative group living - remains one of the most intriguing problems in biology. Providing a unique perspective on the study of social evolution, this volume synthesizes the features of animal social life across the principle taxonomic groups in which sociality has evolved. The chapters explore sociality in a range of species, from ants to primates, highlighting key natural and life history data and providing a comparative view across animal societies. In establishing a single framework for a common, trait-based approach towards social synthesis, this volume will enable graduate students and investigators new to the field to systematically compare taxonomic groups and reinvigorate comparative approaches to studying animal social evolution.
Author: Nicholas B. Davies
Author: Nicholas B. Davies
Author: Nicholas B. Davies
Author: Michael Taborsky
Author: Peter James Bramwell Slater
Author: Jacobus J. Boomsma
Author: John Cartwright
Author: Judith Korb
Author: Jeffry A. Simpson
Author: Dustin R. Rubenstein