Birds show bewildering diversity in their life histories, mating systems and risk of extinction. Why do albatrosses delay reproduction for the first 12 years of their life while zebra finches breed in their first year ? Why are fairy-wrens so sexually promiscuous while swans show lifelongmonogamy? Why are over a quarter of parrot species threatened with global extinction while woodpeckers and cuckoos remain secure? Some of these topics, such as delayed onset of breeding in seabirds, are classic problems in evolutionary ecology, while others have arisen in the last decade, such as genetic mating systems and extinction. Birds offer a unique opportunity for investigating these questions because they areexceptionally well-studied in the wild. By employing phylogenetic comparative methods and a database of up to 3,000 species, the authors identify the ecological and evolutionary basis of many of these intriguing questions. They also highlight remaining puzzles and identify a series of challenges forfuture investigation. This is the most comprehensive reappraisal of avian diversity since David Lack's classic "Ecological Adaptations for Breeding in Birds". It is also the most extensive application of modern comparative methods yet undertaken. This novel approach demonstrates how an evolutionary perspective canreveal the general ecological processes that underpin contemporary avian diversity on a global scale.

Cooperative breeders are species in which more than a pair of individuals assist in the production of young. Cooperative breeding is found in only a few hundred bird species world-wide, and understanding this often strikingly altruistic behaviour has remained an important challenge in behavioural ecology for over 30 years. This book highlights the theoretical, empirical and technical advances that have taken place in the field of cooperative breeding research since the publication of the seminal work Cooperative Breeding in Birds: Long-term Studies of Behavior and Ecology (1990, HB ISBN 0521 372984, PB ISBN 0521 378907). Organized conceptually, special attention is given to ways in which cooperative breeders have proved fertile subjects for testing modern advances to classic evolutionary problems including those of sexual selection, sex-ratio manipulation, life-history evolution, partitioning of reproduction and incest avoidance. It will be of interest to both students and researchers interested in behaviour and ecology.

"Why are male birds often so brightly colored? Why do some birds lay more eggs than others? Will bird species adapt to climate change? In How Birds Evolve, Douglas Futuyma invites readers into the amazing world of bird evolution to answer these and other questions. Futuyma's goal in this book is not to offer a comprehensive evolutionary history of birds, but to explore how the processes of evolution produced the distinctive features and behaviors we observe in birds today as well as their impressive diversity. Using one or two birds per chapters as a lens into broader questions, Futuyma explores how a bird's evolutionary history helps us understand the diversity of species and the bird tree of life and how natural selection explains most of the characteristics of birds from how populations adapt to sexual selection and birds' amazing social behavior. Futuyma concludes by discussing the future of birds, particularly patterns of extinction and whether they can adapt to a changing climate. Ultimately, Futuyman wants readers to see that evolutionary biology helps us to better understand birds, and that the reverse is also true: studies of birds have informed almost every aspect of evolutionary biology, from Darwin to today"--

Most people who have taken a biology course in the past 50 years are familiar with the work of David Lack, but few remember his name. Almost all general biology texts produced during that period have a figure showing the beak size differences among the finches of the Galapagos Islands from Lack's 1947 classic, Darwin's Finches. Lack's pioneering conclusions in Darwin's Finches mark the beginning of a new scientific discipline, evolutionary ecology. Tim Birkhead, in his acclaimed book, The Wisdom of Birds, calls Lack the 'hero of modern ornithology.' Who was this influential, yet relatively unknown man? The Life of David Lack, Father of Evolutionary Ecology provides an answer to that question based on Ted Anderson's personal interviews with colleagues, family members and former students as well as material in the extensive Lack Archive at Oxford University.

For centuries biologists have tried to understand the underpinnings of avian migration: where birds go and why, why some migrate and some do not, how they adapt to a changing environment, and how migratory systems evolve. Twenty-five years ago the answers to many of these questions were addressed by a collection of migration experts in Keast and Morton's classic work Migrant Birds in the Neotropics. In 1992, Hagan and Johnston published a follow-up book, Ecology and Conservation of Neotropical Migrant Landbirds. In Birds of Two Worlds Russell Greenberg and Peter Marra bring together the world's experts on avian migration to discuss its ecology and evolution. The contributors move the discussion of migration to a global stage, looking at all avian migration systems and delving deeper into the evolutionary foundations of migratory behavior. Readers interested in the biology, behavior, ecology, and evolution of birds have waited a decade to see a worthy successor to the earlier classics. Birds of Two Worlds will complete the trilogy and become indispensable for ornithologists, evolutionary biologists, serious birders, and public and academic libraries.

This text summarizes and synthesizes the literature on introduced bird ecology and evolution. It unravels the insights that the study of exotic birds brings to these research strands.

In a work that will interest researchers in ecology, genetics, botany, entomology, and parasitology, Warren Abrahamson and Arthur Weis present the results of more than twenty-five years of studying plant-insect interactions. Their study centers on the ecology and evolution of interactions among a host plant, the parasitic insect that attacks it, and the suite of insects and birds that are the natural enemies of the parasite. Because this system provides a model that can be subjected to experimental manipulations, it has allowed the authors to address specific theories and concepts that have guided biological research for more than two decades and to engage general problems in evolutionary biology. The specific subjects of research are the host plant goldenrod (Solidago), the parasitic insect Eurosta solidaginis (Diptera: Tephritidae) that induces a gall on the plant stem, and a number of natural enemies of the gallfly. By presenting their detailed empirical studies of the Solidago-Eurosta natural enemy system, the authors demonstrate the complexities of specialized enemy-victim interactions and, thereby, the complex interactive relationships among species more broadly. By utilizing a diverse array of field, laboratory, behavioral, genetic, chemical, and statistical techniques, Abrahamson and Weis present the most thorough study to date of a single system of interacting species. Their interest in the evolutionary ecology of plant-insect interactions leads them to insights on the evolution of species interactions in general. This major work will interest anyone involved in studying the ways in which interdependent species interact.