Evolutionary Behavioral Ecology Hardcover

David F. Westneat

Evolutionary Behavioral Ecology is intended to be used a text for graduate students and a sourcebook for professional scientists seeking an understanding of the evolutionary and ecological processes shaping behavior across a wide array of organisms and a diverse set of behaviors. Chapters are written by an array of leading experts in the field, providing a core foundation, a history of conceptual developments, and fresh insight into the controversies and themes shaping the continuing development of the field. Essays on adaptation, selection, fitness, genetics, plasticity, and phylogeny as they pertain to behavior place the field in the broader context of ecology and evolution. These concepts, along with a diversity of theoretical approaches are applied to the evolution of behavior in a many contexts, from individual decision-making of solitary animals through to complex social interactions. Chapters integrate conceptual and theoretical approaches with recent empirical advances to understand the evolution of behavior, from foraging, dealing with risk, predator avoidance, and an array of social behaviors, including fighting and cooperation with conspecifics and conflict and cooperation between the sexes. Chapters also emphasize integrative and novel approaches to behavior, including cognitive ecology, personality, conservation biology, the links between behavior and evolution, the evolution of human social behavior, and ways in which modern genetic analyses can augment the study of behavior.

9780195331936

English

Oxford University Press Inc

05-03-2010

664

David Westneat

Charles Fox

There is no denying that this volume will set behavioral ecology's research path for the near future. The book does an admirable job of highlighting new ideas and approaches that are shaping the future of behavioral ecology with discussions of powerful techniques as well as boundary-challenging ideas. The chapters in Evolutionary Behavioral Ecology are short, concise and to-the-point. The material is presented in an engaging and enthusiastic style - a quality that will certainly appeal to graduate students and other newcomers to the field. The presentation, format, and style are consistent and flow very well from one chapter to the next. Credit the editors with this achievement.--Integrative and Comparative Biology