The evolution of avian breeding systems

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Gisela Kaplan & Lesley J. Rogers

Describes the remarkable world of birds and their multitude of behaviours.Why do pigeons bob their heads when they walk? Can talking parrots understand what they say? What do birds learn and remember?Birds is an unusual collection of curious facts about our feathered friends. It describes the fascinating behaviours and physiology of birds of all shapes and sizes - from the birds in our cities to the wild birds in rainforests and at sea shores, in deserts and plains. You'll learn how birds evolved and why some came to be flightless. You'll read of the wide diversity in bird courtship rituals and territorial displays. You'll discover the art of nest building and why some birds have such well-developed senses and memory. In short, Birds explains why these creatures do the things that they do, so you can more fully enjoy and understand the birds you see every day.Gisela Kaplan and Lesley Rogers, two leading researchers in animal behaviour, cover the latest findings in bird behaviour and tell stories of their personal encounters with birds throughout the world, collected in more than twenty years of research. Supplemented with arresting photographs, this is a marvellous companion for the curious birdwatcher, the serious student of biology and for any nature or bird lover.

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Cristina Kessler

Miss B. takes her students on a field trip to Great Pond Bay on St. Croix to wait for a little bird, a whimbrel named Hope, and teach them about the amazing journey Hope makes each year and the importance of protecting her habitats. Includes readers' guide, fun facts, and more.

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Marie Elisabeth Herberstein

"Spiders are often underestimated as suitable behavioural models because of the general belief that due to their small brains, their behaviour is innate and mostly invariable. Challenging this assumption, this fascinating book shows that rather than having a limited behavioural repertoire, spiders show surprising cognitive abilities, changing their behaviour to suit their situational needs. The team of authors unravels the considerable intra-specific as well as intra-individual variability and plasticity in different behaviours ranging from foraging and web building to communication and courtship. An introductory chapter on spider biology, systematics and evolution provides the reader with the necessary background information to understand the discussed behaviours and helps to place them into an evolutionary context. Highlighting an under-explored area of behaviour, this book will provide new ideas for behavioural researchers and students unfamiliar with spiders as well as a valuable resource for those already working in this intriguing field."--Publisher's description.

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Nancy G. Solomon, Jeffrey A. French

Cooperative breeding refers to a social system in which individuals other than the parents provide care for the offspring. In addition to alloparental care, two further characteristics are common among species exhibiting cooperative breeding: delayed dispersal and delayed reproduction. Among vertebrates, cooperative breeding is expressed most prominently in birds and mammals. The book explores the phenomenon in a wide variety of mammals, including rodents, primates, viverrids, and carnivores. Comparative studies of cooperative breeding provide important tests for the origin and maintenance of sociality in complex groups. Understanding the behavioral and physiological mechanisms underlying cooperative breeding yields insights into the fundamental building blocks of social behavior in animal societies. . Although several recent volumes have summarized the state of our knowledge of the ecology and evolution of cooperative breeding in birds, Cooperative Breeding in Mammals is the first book devoted to these issues in mammals, and it will appeal to zoologists, ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and those interested in animal behavior.