A detailed examination of the study of the behavior of animals includes discussions of aggression, genetics, social relationships, intelligence, communication, and instinct.

Covering every aspect of animal behaviour from adaptation to warning, this accessible A-Z also includes terms from the related fields of ecology, physiology and psychology. Clear and informative entries on topics such as communication, learning, and navigation are backed up by examples and illustrations where appropriate. The new edition adds 80 new entries, expands coverage of behavioural ecology, cognitive ethology, and evolutionary theory, and brings the text up to date with new theories and research. An essential source of reference for students of biology, psychology, and zoology, and fascinating reading for all those interested in animal behaviour.

The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies tackles the infamous "animal question" how can humans rethink and reconfigure their relationships with other animals? Over the course of five sections and thirty chapters, the contributors investigate issues and concepts central to understanding our current relationship with other animals and the potential for coexistence in an ecological community of living beings.

From the time of the cave dwellers, people have been fascinated by animal behavior. Until recently, though, philosophers, biologists and psychologists could only observe animals' physical traits and make assumptions about their behavior based on what was known about human behavior. Then, in 1973, a new science came of age: ethology, the science of animal behavior. This Companion, written by an international group of specialists, contains 200 entries covering a wide range of topics within this emerging science, including the diverse ways animals select their partners, bring up their young, organize their societies, and respond to the environment. It also includes a new, detailed subject and animal index which will enable readers to locate a wealth of information on both behavioral concepts and the behavior of particular animals. Carefully and clearly illustrated, and including a Foreword by the Nobel Laureate, Niko Tinbergen, The Companion to Animal Behavior is an authoritative reference for anyone interested in the animal kingdom.

This book introduces the reader to the power of observation before, and sometimes instead of, experimental manipulation in the study of animal behaviour. It starts with simple and easily accessible methods suitable for student projects, before going on to demonstrate the possibilities that now exist for far more sophisticated analyses of observational data. At a time when animal welfare considerations are attracting political as well as scientific debate, the potential for non-intrusive studies on animals is being increasingly recognized. Observation emerges as a valuable alternative approach, often yielding highly informative results in situations (such as on zoos, farms or for wild animals) where more invasive experimental techniques would be undesirable, unethical or just plain impossible. However, to justify its place alongside experimentation as a rigorous scientific method, observation needs to be just as disciplined and systematic and have just as much attention paid to project design in the way that observations are made and recorded. Observing Animal Behaviour takes the reader through all these stages: from the initial observations, to the formulation of hypotheses, and their subsequent testing with further systematic observations. Although designed principally as a companion text for advanced undergraduate and students taking courses in animal behaviour, this accessible text will be essential reading for anyone wanting to study animal behaviour using observational methods rather than experimentation, and assumes no previous knowledge of animals, statistics or scientific method. It will be of particular relevance and use to those professional researchers and consultants in the behavioural sciences who seek a compact but comprehensive introduction to the quantitative observation of animal behaviour.

This dictionary clearly and accurately defines more than 600 terms used in ethology, the science of animal behavior, in entries of one or two paragraphs. While there are several reference books dealing with ethology, the only real rival to this title is "The Oxford Companion to Animal Behavior", edited by David McFarland (Oxford Univ. Pr., 1982), which covers half as many terms in twice as many pages, has hundreds of illustrations, and an index to the animals mentioned in the text. Smaller libraries can get by with the Oxford reference while larger libraries and natural history collections should have both titles.-- Jonathan F. Husband, Framingham State Coll. Lib., Mass.

When a parasite invades an ant, does the ant behave like other ants? Maybe not-and if it doesn't, who, if anyone, benefits from the altered behaviors? The parasite? The ant? Parasites and the Behavior of Animals shows that parasite-induced behavioral alterations are more common than we might realize, and it places these alterations in an evolutionary and ecological context. Emphasizing eukaryotic parasites, the book examines the adaptive nature of behavioral changes associated with parasitism, exploring the effects of these changes on parasite transmission, parasite avoidance, and the fitness of both host and parasite. The behavioral changes and their effects are not always straightforward. To the extent that virulence, for instance, is linked to parasite transmission, the evolutionary interests of parasite and host will diverge, and the current winner of the contest to maximize reproductive rates may not be clear, or, for that matter, inevitable. Nonetheless, by affecting susceptibility, host/parasite lifespan and fecundity, and transmission itself, host behavior influences parameters that are basic to our comprehension of how parasites invade host populations, and fundamentally, how parasites evolve. Such an understanding is important for a wide range of scientists, from ecologists and parasitologists to evolutionary, conservation and behavioral biologists: The behavioral alterations that parasites induce can subtly and profoundly affect the distribution and abundance of animals.