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Behavioral Mechanisms in Evolutionary Ecology

The first book-length exploration of behavioral mechanisms in evolutionary ecology, this ambitious volume illuminates long-standing questions about cause-and-effect relations between an animal’s behavior and its environment. By focusing on biological mechanisms—the sum of an animal’s cognitive, neural, developmental, and hormonal processes—leading researchers demonstrate how the integrated study of animal physiology, cognitive processes, and social interaction can yield an enriched understanding of behavior.

With studies of species ranging from insects to primates, the contributors examine how various animals identify and use environmental resources and deal with ecological constraints, as well as the roles of learning, communication, and cognitive aspects of social interaction in behavioral evolution. Taken together, the chapters demonstrate how the study of internal mechanistic foundations of behavior in relation to their ecological and evolutionary contexts and outcomes provides valuable insight into such behaviors as predation, mating, and dispersal.

Behavioral Mechanisms in Evolutionary Ecology shows how a mechanistic approach unites various levels of biological organization to provide a broader understanding of the biological bases of behavioral evolution.

480 pages | 6 x 9 | © 1994

Biological Sciences: Behavioral Biology, Evolutionary Biology

Psychology: Experimental, Comparative, and Physiological Psychology

Table of Contents

Contents
1 How to Think about Behavior: An Introduction, Leslie A. Real
Part I. Psychological and Cognitive Foundations
2 A Synthetic Approach to the Study of Animal Intelligence, Alan C. Kamil
3 Learning and Foraging: Individuals, Groups, and Populations, John R. Krebs and Alastair J. Inman
4 Spatial Cognition and Navigation in Insects, Fred C. Dyer
5 Information Processing and the Evolutionary Ecology of Cognitive Architecture, Leslie A. Real
6 Optimizing Learning and Its Effect on Evolutionary Change in Behavior, Daniel R. Papaj
Part II. Communication
7 Errors, Exaggeration, and Deception in Animal Communication, R. Haven Wiley
8 Mechanisms Underlying Sexual Selection, Michael J. Ryan
Part III. Neural, Developmental, and Genetic Processes
9 Critical Events in the Development of Bird Song: What Can Neurobiology Contribute to the Study of the Evolution of Behavior?, Arthur P. Arnold
10 The Nature and Nurture of Neo-phenotypes: A Case History, Meredith J. West, Andrew P. King, and Todd M. Freeberg
11 Constraints on Phenotypic Evolution, Stevan J. Arnold
12 Behavioral Constraints on the Evolutionary Expansion of Insect Diet: A Case History from Checkerspot Butterflies, Michael C. Singer
13 Individual Behavior and Higher-Order Species Interactions, Earl E. Werner
Part IV. Hormonal Processes
14 Hormones and Life Histories: An Integrative Approach, Ellen D. Ketterson and Val Nolan Jr.
15 Immunology and the Evolution of Behavior, Marlene Zuk
Part V. The Social Context of Behavior
16 The Evolution of Social Cognition in Primates, Robert M. Seyfarth and Dorothy L. Cheney
17 Lanchester’ Theory of Combat, Self-Organization, and the Evolution of Army Ants and Cellular Societies, Nigel R. Franks and Lucas W. Partridge
18 How Social Insect Colonies Respond to Variable Environments, Deborah M. Gordon
19 Chaos and Behavior: The Perspective of Nonlinear Dynamics, Blaine J. Cole

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