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Arid lands require that organisms inhabiting them be well-adapted to thrive or even just to survive. This book provides a review of the ecological adaptations - be they behavioural, physiological or morphological - of carnivores to arid environments. Following a general introduction into aridity and arid lands in Africa, the major carnivore families are presented. Ecological adaptations of carnivores in arid lands reveal the amplitude and resilience of the ecology of these animals. In setting up conservation measures, the nature and extent of such adaptations are important facets in determining the effective area and degree of heterogeneity required as habitat by a carnivore population so as to produce a viable unit

Human behavioral ecology (HBE) applies the principles of evolutionary theory and optimisation to the study of human behavioural and cultural diversity. Among other things, HBE attempts to explain variation in behaviour as adaptive solutions to the competing life-history demands of growth, development, reproduction, parental care, and mate acquisition. This book is a comprehensive introduction to the theoretical orientation and specific findings of HBE. It consolidates the insights of evolution and human behaviour into a single volume that reflects the current state and future of the field. It brings together leading scholars from across the evolutionary social sciences to provide a comprehensive and thought-provoking review of the state of the topic. Throughout, the authors explain the latest developments in theory and highlight critical debates in the literature, while also engaging readers with ethnographic insights and field-based studies that remain at the core of human behavioral ecology

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- CONTENTS -- Introduction -- Evolution & -- Ecology -- GLOSSARY -- Natural selection -- Making new species -- Counting species -- Profile: Daniel H. Janzen -- Habitats & -- niches -- Life history trade-offs -- Behavioural Ecology -- GLOSSARY -- Sexual selection -- Mating systems -- Costs of reproduction -- Defence & -- counter-defence -- Group living -- Kin selection -- Profile: William D. Hamilton -- Population Ecology -- GLOSSARY -- Population distributions -- Dispersal -- Limits to population growth -- Profile: Paul R. Ehrlich -- Cycling populations -- Metapopulations -- Eating . . . -- . . . And being eaten -- Parasites -- Competition -- Mutual benefits -- Communities & -- Landscapes -- GLOSSARY -- Energy flows -- Nutrient cycles -- Keystone species -- Indirect effects -- Disturbance & -- resilience -- Ecological succession -- Species-area relationship -- Island biogeography -- Profile: Robert H. MacArthur -- Biomes & -- Biodiversity -- GLOSSARY -- Global patterns of biodiversity -- Oceans -- Freshwaters -- Tundra & -- boreal forests -- Temperate forests & -- grasslands -- Tropical forests & -- savanna -- Profile: Wangari Maathai -- Deserts -- Applied Ecology -- GLOSSARY -- Valuing biodiversity -- Ecosystem services -- Soil ecology -- Pollination & -- society -- Biological control -- Vectors of disease -- Overharvesting -- Conservation biology -- Profile: Rachel Carson -- Ecology in a Changing World -- GLOSSARY -- The sixth mass extinction -- Climat echange -- Urban ecosystems -- Human-wildlife conflict -- Profile: Raman Sukumar -- Nature-deficit disorder -- Rewilding -- Appendices -- Resources -- Notes on contributors -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Z -- Acknowledgements.

Published in 2006, Chemical Ecology of Vertebrates was the first book to focus exclusively on the chemically-mediated interactions between vertebrates including fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, and other animals and plants. Reviewing research in three core areas - pheromones (where the interactions are between members of the same species), interspecific interactions involving allomones (where the sender benefits) and kairomones (where the receiver benefits), it pulls together information from widely scattered technical literature in many different disciplines into a coherent whole. Chapters on the environment, properties of odour signals, and production and release of chemosignals set the stage for discussion of more complex behavioural topics. While the main focus is ecological, dealing with behaviour and interactions in the field, it also covers chemoreception, orientation and navigation, the development of behaviour and the practical applications of chemosignals

This book provides expert evaluation of the use of video techniques in a wide range of behavioural and ecological research situations. Covering applied techniques both in the laboratory and the field, the latest results from leading expert researchers are given

ABSTRACT In a recent editorial, the Editors-in-Chief of Journal of Experimental Biology argued that consensus building, data sharing, and better integration across disciplines are needed to address the urgent scientific challenges posed by climate change.We agree and expand on the importance of cross-disciplinary integration and transparency to improve consensus building and advance climate change research in experimental biology. We investigated reproducible research practices in experimental biology through a review of open data and analysis code associated with empirical studies on three debated paradigms and for unrelated studies published in leading journals in comparative physiology and behavioural ecology over the last 10 years. Nineteen per cent of studies on the three paradigms had open data, and 3.2% had open code. Similarly, 12.1% of studies in the journals we examined had open data, and 3.1% had open code. Previous research indicates that only 50% of shared datasets are complete and re-usable, suggesting that fewer than 10% of studies in experimental biology have usable open data. Encouragingly, our results indicate that reproducible research practices are increasing over time, with data sharing rates in some journals reaching 75% in recent years. Rigorous empirical research in experimental biology is key to understanding the mechanisms by which climate change affects organisms, and ultimately promotes evidence-based conservation policy and practice. We argue that a greater adoption of open science practices, with a particular focus on FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-usable) data and code, represents a much-needed paradigm shift towards improved transparency, crossdisciplinary integration, and consensus building to maximize the contributions of experimental biologists in addressing the impacts of environmental change on living organisms. ; This project was supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. ...

Este artículo contiene 22 páginas, 11 figuras. ; Research on hypercycles focuses on cooperative interactions among replicating species, including the emergence of catalytic parasites and catalytic shortcircuits. Further interactions may be expected to arise in cooperative systems. For instance, molecular replicators are subject to mutational processes and ecological species to behavioural shifts due to environmental and ecological changes. Such changes could involve switches from cooperative to antagonistic interactions, in what we call a functional shift. In this article, we investigate a model for a two-member hypercycle model, considering that one species performs a functional shift. First, we introduce the model dynamics without functional shifts to illustrate the dynamics only considering obligate and facultative cooperation. Then, two more cases maintaining cross-catalysis are considered: (i) a model describing the dynamics of ribozymes where a fraction of the population of one replicator degrades the other molecular species while the other fraction still receives catalytic aid; and (ii) a system in which a given fraction of the population predates on the cooperating species while the rest of the population still receives aid. We have characterised the key bifurcation parameters determining extinction, survival, and coexistence of species. We show that predation, regardless of the fraction that benefits from it, does not significantly change dynamics with respect to the degradative case (i), thus conserving dynamics and bifurcations. Their biological significance is interpreted, and their potential implications for the dynamics of early replicators and ecological species are outlined ; E.F. has been funded by the Spanish Government grant PID2019-104851GB-I00 (MICINN/FEDER, UE) and the Catalan Government grant 2017-SGR-1374. D.O. was funded by the Spanish Government grant CGL2017-85210-P (MICIN/FEDER, UE). D.A. has been partially funded by the Spanish "Minis terio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades" under the project CRISIS (PGC2018-096577-B-I00) and the European Regional Development Fund. J.S. has been partially funded by the CERCA Programme of the "Generalitat de Catalunya", by "Agencia Estatal de Investigacíon" grant RTI2018-098322-B-I00, and the "Ramón y Cajal" contract RYC-2017-22243. ; Peer reviewed

Chemical ecology is the ecology of body odour. Every organism uses chemical information in intra- and inter-specific interactions. Animals emit chemicals to attract a mate or to prevent a competitor from mating with the partner they just mated with. Plants emit chemicals to recruit other organisms to take care of their sex life or to attract bodyguards to defend them against their enemies. Chemical cues mediate a whole gamut of interactions in plant and animal communities. Chemical cues are used to communicate, but can also be exploited in espionage or eavesdropping. To understand the ecology of chemical signalling in communities one needs to carry out manipulative experiments. Such experiments have been done throughout the last century. However, in recent years the degree of precision with which such experiments can be done has grown tremendously as a result of rapidly increasing knowledge at the molecular-genetic level. This opens exciting new avenues to chemical ecologists. The connection of molecular genetics to community ecology and ecosystem ecology provides novel tools to take up old questions that were often hard to answer. This book provides an overview of chemical ecology related to different ecosystems and an outlook at novel directions that can be taken in chemical ecology through a molecular-ecological or eco-genomic approach. The book addresses above- and belowground terrestrial systems as well as aquatic systems, and the organisms involved are micro- and macro-organisms, such as plants, arthropods and mammals. The scientific approach presented in this book is characteristic of modern biological research. The book will be useful for scientists and students interested in ecology in general as well as those working in the fields of molecular, chemical, behavioural, population or community ecology. Written for:Scientists and students interested in ecology in general as well as those working in molecular, chemical, behavioural, population or community ecology

This book explores the relationship between cultural strategies and their biological outcomes, combining for the first time an ecosystems approach with cultural anthropological, archaeological and evolutionary behavioural concepts. Beginning with resource use and food procurement behaviour, the text examines major subsistence modes, the circumstances and dynamics of large-scale subsistence change, the effect of social differentiation on resource use and the effects of subsistence behaviour on population development and regulation.

In this volume, editor Doug Fry brings together leading experts in human behavioural ecology, and evolutionary biology archeology, anthropology, and primatology to answer fundamental questions about conflict and human nature in an evolutionary context

Birds are renowned for their exceptional vision and the way that this enables them to survive and navigate the world in such a unique way. However, it is now recognised that avian behaviour is guided by information drawn from many different senses which are then used in integrated and complementary ways to answer the many different sensory challenges posed by specific environments and particular tasks. Understanding how sensory information is used by birds has important applications in conservation, such as providing vital insights into why birds are prone to collisions with structures like power lines and wind turbines, and why so many diving birds become entrapped in nets. A sensory ecology approach suggests how these problems can be mitigated. 'The Sensory Ecology of Birds' ranges widely across species, environments, and behaviours to present a synthesis that challenges previous assumptions about the information that controls the behaviour of birds. A bird may use a wide range and combination of sensory information that comes from sight, hearing, smell, mechanoreception, taste, and magnetoreception. It may also include specific refinements of senses, such as echolocation and remote touch from the bill. The book recognises that there are many complex and subtle trade-offs and complementarities of information between different types of sensory information. This accessible text will be of interest to a wide ornithological readership, from undergraduates to researchers as well as a broader audience of behavioural ecologists and evolutionary biologists.--

Students of evolutionary and behavioural ecology are often unfamiliar with mathematical techniques, though much of biology relies on mathematics. Evolutionary ideas are often complex, meaning that the logic of hypotheses proposed should not only be tested empirically but also mathematically. There are numerous different modelling tools used by ecologists, ranging from population genetic 'bookkeeping', to game theory and individual-based computer simulations. Due to the many different modelling options available, it is often difficult to know where to start. Hanna Kokko has designed this 2007 book to help with these decisions. Each method described is illustrated with one or two biologically interesting examples that have been chosen to help overcome fears of many biologists when faced with mathematical work, whilst also providing the programming code (Matlab) for each problem. Aimed primarily at students of evolutionary and behavioural ecology, this book will be of interest to any biologist interested in mathematical modelling

The ecology of paradigms conceptualises an alternative perspective on culture. The focus is on practice and understands culture as the paradigmatic reference of a community of practice. This looks at procedures of self‐observation and self‐description as well as on the routines of meaning creation and sense making. The perspective brought forward is radical by focussing primarily on communities of practice. And it is amplified by the modern proliferation of roles carried out and played by the individual calling in this sense for different paradigmatic references.This coexistence of different paradigmatic references holds for the individual as well as for the wider, even global scale. It acknowledges professions next to religions, next to youth and pop culture and next to administrative procedures. Ecology, the science of coexistence allows the synopsis of different cultures on a scale ranging from competition to symbiosis. The clash of civilisations happens at the same time as the coevolution of protestant ethics and capitalism. Based on the concept of ecology of paradigms, we can take a proactive stand and cease to submit reactively to traditions and catechisms. We may start to see possibilities and responsibilities, which come with our practices and their paradigmatic references. And finally, note that evolution correlates with symbiosis and not with competition. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.