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Offers an unprecedented 'systems' focus and revealing insights into the confluence of personal curiosity and scientific inquiry. It will be an invaluable text for behavioural ecology courses and a helpful overview - and a preview of coming developments - for advanced researchers. The twenty-five chapters are divided into four sections: insects and arachnids, amphibians and reptiles, birds, and mammals.
Preface by Lee Alan Dugatkin xi Acknowledgments xxiii PART I Insect & Arachnid Model Systems 1. Golden Flies, Sunlit Meadows: A Tribute to the Yellow Dungfly by Geoff A. Parker 3 2. A Feeling and a Fondness for the Bees by Thomas D. Seeley 27 3. Peeling the Onion: Symbioses between Ants and Blue Butterflies by Naomi E. Pierce 41 4. In Search of Unified Theories in Sociobiology: Help from Social Wasps by Hudson Kern Reeve 57 5. Genetic Consequences of Sexual Selection in Stalk-Eyed Flies by Gerald S. Wilkinson 72 6. The Behavioral Ecology of Stridulatory Communication in Leaf-Cutting Ants by Bert Holldobler and Flavio Roces 92 7. Understanding the Evolution of Social Behavior in Colonial Web-Building Spiders by George W. Uetz 110 PART II Fish, Amphibian, & Reptile Model Systems 8. Variation and Selection in Swordtails by Michael J. Ryan and Gil G. Rosenthal 133 9. Learning from Lizards by Judy Stamps 149 10. Acoustic Communication in Frogs and Toads by H. Carl Gerhardt 169 11. Selection in Local Neighborhoods, the Social Environment, and Ecology of Alternative Strategies by Barry Sinervo 191 12. Synthesis: Environment, Mating Systems, and Life History Allocations in the Bluehead Wrasse by Robert R. Warner 227 13. The Economics of Sequential Mate Choice in Sticklebacks by Manfred Milinski 245 PART III Bird Model Systems 14. Conversing with a Bird: Studies of Mating and Parental Behavior in Red-Winged Blackbirds by David F. Westneat 265 15. The Evolution of Virtual Ecology by Alan C. Kamil and Alan B. Bond 288 16. Wood Ducks: A Model System for Investigating Conspecific Parasitism in Cavity-Nesting Birds by Paul W. Sherman 311 17. The Mexican Jay as a Model System for the Study of Large Group Size and Its Social Correlates in a Territorial Bird by Jerram L. Brown 338 18. Sexual Selection in the Barn Swallow by Anders Pape Moller 359 PART IV Mammal Model Systems 19. Cunning Coyotes: Tireless Tricksters, Protean Predators by Marc Bekoff 281 20. Bottlenose Dolphins: Social Relationships in a Big-Brained Aquatic Mammal by Richard C. Connor 408 21. Bonnet Macaques: Evolutionary Perspectives on Females' Lives by Joan B. Silk 433 22. Chimpanzee Hunters: Chaos or Cooperation in the Forest? by Christophe Boesch 453 23. Cooperative Hunting and Sociality in African Wild Dogs, Lycaon pictus by Scott Creel 466 24. Gorilla Socioecology: Conflict and Compromise between the Sexes by A. H. Harcourt 491 25. Cheetahs and Their Mating System by M. Caro and M. J. Kelly 512 Closing Thoughts by Lee Alan Dugatkin 533 Contributors 535 Index 539
Lee Alan Dugatkin is Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Louisville. He is the author of The Imitation Factor, Cheating Monkeys and Citizen Bees, and Cooperation Among Animals and the coeditor of Game Theory and Animal Behavior.
If the process of scientific inquiry can be described as a 'journey,' then [this book] is an indispensable travel guide... [It] delivers an excellent overview of the developments that have helped to transform behavioral ecology into what it is today and offers a tantalizing glimpse of what is yet to come. Behavioral ecologists would be hard pressed to find a better travel guide. Animal Behaviour
