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On the Move

How and Why Animals Travel in Groups

Getting from here to there may be simple for one individual. But as any parent, scout leader, or CEO knows, herding a whole troop in one direction is a lot more complicated. Who leads the group? Who decides where the group will travel, and using what information? How do they accomplish these tasks?

On the Move addresses these questions, examining the social, cognitive, and ecological processes that underlie patterns and strategies of group travel. Chapters discuss how factors such as group size, resource distribution and availability, the costs of travel, predation, social cohesion, and cognitive skills affect how individuals as well as social groups exploit their environment. Most chapters focus on field studies of a wide range of human and nonhuman primate groups, from squirrel monkeys to Turkana pastoralists, but chapters covering group travel in hyenas, birds, dolphins, and bees provide a broad taxonomic perspective and offer new insights into comparative questions, such as whether primates are unique in their ability to coordinate group-level activities.

822 pages | 96 line drawings, 40 tables, 4 maps | 6 x 9 | © 2000

Biological Sciences: Behavioral Biology

Cognitive Science: Human and Animal Cognition

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Unraveling the Complexities of Group Travel
Part One - Ecological Costs and Benefits
1. The Physiology and Energetics of Movement: Effects on Individuals and Groups by Karen Steudel
2. Determinants of Group Size in Primates: The Importance of Travel Costs by Colin A. Chapman and Lauren J. Chapman
3. A Critical Evaluation of the Influence of Predators on Primates: Effects on Group Travel by Sue Boinski, Adrian Treves, and Colin A. Chapman
4. Mixed-Up Species Association and Group Movement by Marina Cords
5. Territorial Defense and the Ecology of Group Movements in Small-Bodied Neotropical Primates by Carlos A. Peres
Part Two - Cognitive Abilities, Possibilities, and Constraints
6. Group Movement and Individual Cognition: Lessons from Social Insects by Fred C. Dyer
7. Spatial Movement Strategies: Theory, Evidence, and Challenges by Charles Janson
8. Primate Brain Evolution: Cognitive Demands of Foraging or of Social Life? by Robert A. Barton
9. Animal Movement as a Group-Level Adaptation by David Sloan Wilson
Part Three - Travel Decisions
10. Evidence for the Use of Spatial, Temporal, and Social Information by Primate Foragers by Paul A. Garber
11. Homing and Detour Behavior in Golden Lion Tamarin Social Groups by Charles R. Menzel and Benjamin B. Beck
12. Comparative Movement Patterns of Two Semiterrestrial Cercopithecine Primates: The Tana River Crested Mangabey and the Sulawesi Crested Black Macaque by Margaret F. Kinnaird and Timothy G. O’Brien
13. Mountain Gorilla Habitat Use Strategies and Group Movements by David P. Watts
14. Quo Vadis? Tactics of Food Search and Group Movement in Primates and Other Animals by Katharine Milton
Part Four - Social Processes
15. Social Manipulation Within and Between Troops Mediates Primate Group Movement by Sue Boinski
16. Grouping and Movement Patterns in Malagasy Primates by Peter M. Kappeler
17. How Monkeys Find Their Way: Leadership, Coordination, and Cognitive Maps of African Baboons by Richard W. Byrne
Part Five - Group Movement from a Wider Taxonomic Perspective
18. Birds of Many Feathers: The Formation and Structure of Mixed-Species Flocks of Forest Birds by Russell Greenberg
19. Keeping in Touch at Sea: Group Movement in Dolphins and Whales by Rachel Smolker
20. Group Travel in Social Carnivores by Kay E. Holekamp, Erin E. Boydston, and Laura Smale
21. Ecological Correlates of Home Range Variation in Primates: Implications for Hominid Evolution by William R. Leonard and Marcia L. Robertson
22. Patterns and Processes of Group Movement in Human Nomadic Populations: A Case Study of the Turkana of Northwestern Kenya by J. Terrence McCabe
Concluding Remarks
New Directions for Group Movement by Sue Boinski and Paul A. Garber
Appendix: Classification of Living Primates
Contributors
References
Subject Index
Species Index

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