Darwin famously described special difficulties in explaining social evolution in insects. More than a century later, the evolution of sociality - defined broadly as cooperative group living - remains one of the most intriguing problems in biology. Providing a unique perspective on the study of social evolution, this volume synthesizes the features of animal social life across the principle taxonomic groups in which sociality has evolved. The chapters explore sociality in a range of species...

Agriculture is the product of a complex mixture of behavioural, biophysical and market drivers. Understanding how these factors interact to produce crops and livestock for food has been the focus of economic investigation for many years. The advent of optimisation algorithms and the exponential growth in computing technology has allowed significant growth in mathematical modelling of the dynamics of agricultural systems. The complexity of approaches has grown in parallel with the availabil...

**The fully revised edition of Rupert Sheldrake's controversial science classic, from the author of the bestselling Dogs That Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2021!**After chemists crystallised a new chemical for the first time, it became easier and easier to crystallise in laboratories all over the world. After rats at Harvard first escaped from a new kind of water maze, successive generations learned quicker and quicker. Then rats in Melbo...

Now the subject of an Emmy Award–winning film the New York Times calls "spellbinding"How does life work? How does nature produce the right numbers of zebras and lions on the African savanna, or fish in the ocean? How do our bodies produce the right numbers of cells in our organs and bloodstream? In The Serengeti Rules, award-winning biologist and author Sean Carroll tells the stories of the pioneering scientists who sought the answers to such simp...

Integrating developments from psychology, ethology and neuroscience, this is an undergraduate introduction to cognitive processes across species. The authors merge classic studies and contemporary research to give students a full picture of the evolving field of comparative cognition. Engaging students in the discipline from its roots in animal learning and evolutionary biology through to current research, the chapters cover both controlled laboratory and comparative cross-species studies ...

The most commonly kept domestic animal in the developed world, the cat has been a part of human life for thousands of years. Cats have been both worshipped and persecuted over this long period - either loved or hated for their enigmatic self-reliance and the subject of numerous myths and fables. Highlighting startling discoveries made over the last ten years, this new edition features contributions from experts in a wide range of fields, providing authoritative accounts of the behaviour of...

Why do dogs behave in the ways that they do? Why did our ancestors tame wolves? How have we ended up with so many breeds of dog, and how can we understand their role in contemporary human society? Explore the answers to these questions and many more in this study of the domestic dog. Building on the strengths of the first edition, this much-anticipated update incorporates two decades of new evidence and discoveries on dog evolution, behavior, training, and human interaction. It includes se...

What role does playful behaviour and playful thought take in animal and human development? How does play relate to creativity and, in turn, to innovation? Unravelling the different meanings of 'play', this book focuses on non-aggressive playful play. The authors emphasise its significance for development and evolution, before examining the importance of playfulness in creativity. This discussion sheds new light on the links between creativity and innovation, distinguishing between the gene...

The annual Evolutionary Biology Meetings in Marseille aim to bring together leading scientists, promoting an exchange of state-of-the-art knowledge and the formation of inter-group collaborations. This book presents the most representative contributions to the 13th meeting, which was held in September 2009. It comprises 21 chapters, which are organized into the following three categories: • Evolutionary Biology Concepts • Genome/Molecular Evolution • Morphological Evolution/Speciation This...

No other single volume reference to the Jehol site and its fossils exists and nowhere is there such a collection of fine photos of the fossils concerned. This book has pieced together the most up-to-date information on the Jehol Biota, a place that has shown the world some of the most astonishing fossil finds including the first complete skeleton of Archaeopteryx in 1861, four-winged dinosaurs- many feathered ones, the first beaked bird, the first plants with flowers and fruits, and thousa...

Research institutions have or are planning to build, expand and renovate animal research facilities to keep up with the demands of biomedical research caused in part by growth in the use of genetically altered rodents and the upsurge of research in infectious diseases. Properly designed facilities greatly facilitate effective management and high-quality day-to-day animal care that is required to optimally support animal research and testing. There are multiple solutions to address the myri...

This book proposes a new way to think about evolution. The author carefully brings together evidence from diverse fields of science. In the process, he bridges the gaps between many different--and usually seen as conflicting--ideas to present one integrative theory named ONCE, which stands for Organic Nonoptimal Constrained Evolution. The author argues that evolution is mainly driven by the behavioral choices and persistence of organisms themselves, in a process in which Darwinian natural ...