This novel, transdisciplinary work explains how perturbations (defined as strong disturbances or deviations to a system) can affect the population dynamics of social animals, including ourselves. Social responses to perturbations, especially dispersal processes, can also generate non-linear population dynamics, including the potential appearance of tipping points and critical population transitions, which can in turn lead to catastrophic shifts and collapses. The book describes the links between social behaviour (mainly the use of social information and social copying), and non-linear population dynamics at different spatial scales (local dynamics and meta-population dynamics), and their ecological and evolutionary consequences. Examples from the natural world illustrate each of the main themes (prospecting, habitat suitability, collective dispersal, and cultural evolution). Human warfare and conflict, referred to in several chapters together with quantitative and qualitative examples, is also viewed as a form of perturbation and represents a paradigmatic example of the rationale behind this book. This applicability to our own species is particularly timely, given increased interest in both ecosystem change, human migration, and the global refugee crisis. Perturbation, Behavioural Feedbacks, and Population Dynamics in Social Animals will appeal to applied, theoretical, and evolutionary ecologists, particularly those working on the population and behavioural ecology of any social animal including humans. Its overlap with the study of complexity will also ensure its relevance and use to scientists from other disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, physics, computational science, economics, and mathematics.

This novel, transdisciplinary work explains how perturbations (defined as strong disturbances or deviations to a system) can affect the population dynamics of social animals, including ourselves. Social responses to perturbations, especially dispersal processes, can also generate non-linear population dynamics, including the potential appearance of tipping points and critical population transitions, which can in turn lead to catastrophic shifts and collapses. The book describes the links between social behaviour (mainly the use of social information and social copying), and non-linear population dynamics at different spatial scales (local dynamics and meta-population dynamics), and their ecological and evolutionary consequences. Examples from the natural world illustrate each of the main themes (prospecting, habitat suitability, collective dispersal, and cultural evolution). Human warfare and conflict, referred to in several chapters together with quantitative and qualitative examples, is also viewed as a form of perturbation and represents a paradigmatic example of the rationale behind this book. This applicability to our own species is particularly timely, given increased interest in both ecosystem change, human migration, and the global refugee crisis. Perturbation, Behavioural Feedbacks, and Population Dynamics in Social Animals will appeal to applied, theoretical, and evolutionary ecologists, particularly those working on the population and behavioural ecology of any social animal including humans. Its overlap with the study of complexity will also ensure its relevance and use to scientists from other disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, physics, computational science, economics, and mathematics.

What captivates learners and interests them in studying social psychology? In Case Studies for Teaching Social Psychology, Tom Heinzen and Wind Goodfriend use brief, entertaining case stories to further enhance the historical context, evolution of, and challenges to major theories within the field. By employing a mix of unique, contemporary research and hallmark studies to illustrate classic concepts, Heinzen and Goodfriend steer students to explore new, meaningful ways of thinking about and connecting with foundational course concepts. In turn, this approach facilitates engaged conversation and deeper critical thinking both in and outside of the classroom.

The seventh volume in the series “Ethology and Behavioral Ecology of Marine Mammals” describes aspects of the often-complex relationship between humans and marine mammals. From a primeval condition of occasional predators, during the last century humans have become a major factor negatively affecting the status of most marine mammals through over-hunting, habitat encroachment and environmental degradation. This has led to the extirpation of many marine mammal populations and even to the extinction of species. However, in parallel to this destructive drive, since antiquity humanity has been influenced by a strong fascination for marine mammals, which contributes today to an increased human appreciation of the natural world admixed with widespread concern for its degrading condition. The special status occupied by marine mammals in human imagination and affection stands in stark contrast with the current predicament of many populations still threatened by the doings of Homo sapiens: a condition emblematic of the relationship of humanity with nature, and key to understanding where humanity is heading.

This book demonstrates the application of network theory to the social organization of animals.

Life histories can be defined as the means by which individuals (or more precisely genotypes) vary their age- or stage-specific expenditures of reproductive effort in response to genetic, phenotypic, and environmental correlates of survival and fecundity. Life histories reflect the expression of traits most closely related to individual fitness, such as age and size at maturity, number and size of offspring, and the timing of the expression of those traits throughout an individual's life. In addition to addressing questions of fundamental importance to ecology and evolution, life-history research plays an integral role in species conservation and management. This accessible primer encompasses the basic concepts, theories, and applied elements of life history evolution, including patterns of trait variability, underlying mechanisms of plastic/evolutionary change, and the practical utility of life-history traits as metrics of species/population recovery, sustainable exploitation, and risk of extinction. Empirical examples are drawn from the entire spectrum of life. A Primer of Life Histories is designed for readers from a broad range of academic backgrounds and experience including graduate students and researchers of ecology and evolutionary biology. It will also be useful to a more applied audience of academic/government researchers in fields such as wildlife biology, conservation biology, fisheries science, and the environmental sciences.

Dr. Timothy Schowalter has succeeded in creating a unique, updated treatment of insect ecology. This revised and expanded text looks at how insects adapt to environmental conditions while maintaining the ability to substantially alter their environment. It covers a range of topics- from individual insects that respond to local changes in the environment and affect resource distribution, to entire insect communities that have the capacity to modify ecosystem conditions.Insect Ecology, Second Edition, synthesizes the latest research in the field and has been produced in full color throughout. It is ideal for students in both entomology and ecology-focused programs.NEW TO THIS EDITION:* New topics such as elemental defense by plants, chaotic models, molecular methods to measure disperson, food web relationships, and more* Expanded sections on plant defenses, insect learning, evolutionary tradeoffs, conservation biology and more* Includes more than 350 new references* More than 40 new full-color figures

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.

Zoo Animals: Behaviour, Management, and Welfare is the ideal resource for anyone needing a thorough grounding in this subject, whether as a student or as a zoo professional.

Why do organisms become extremely abundant one year and then seem to disappear a few years later? Why do population outbreaks in particular species happen more or less regularly in certain locations, but only irregularly (or never at all) in other locations? Complex population dynamics have fascinated biologists for decades. By bringing together mathematical models, statistical analyses, and field experiments, this book offers a comprehensive new synthesis of the theory of population oscillations. Peter Turchin first reviews the conceptual tools that ecologists use to investigate population oscillations, introducing population modeling and the statistical analysis of time series data. He then provides an in-depth discussion of several case studies--including the larch budmoth, southern pine beetle, red grouse, voles and lemmings, snowshoe hare, and ungulates--to develop a new analysis of the mechanisms that drive population oscillations in nature. Through such work, the author argues, ecologists can develop general laws of population dynamics that will help turn ecology into a truly quantitative and predictive science. Complex Population Dynamics integrates theoretical and empirical studies into a major new synthesis of current knowledge about population dynamics. It is also a pioneering work that sets the course for ecology's future as a predictive science.