Download or read book Group Selection in Predator Prey Communities MPB 9 Volume 9 written by Michael E. Gilpin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many animals regulate their population density by patterns of behavior that would be easy to explain if the forces of natural selection acted to optimize group properties. But Darwinian selection acts on individuals, not groups, and most simple theories have shown group selection to be too slow ever to oppose individual selection successfully. In this book Michael Gilpin presents a model, based on predator-prey dynamics, wherein nonlinear effects are important, so that small advantages to the selfish individual are nonlinearly amplified into disaster for his group. The result is that group selection can be rapid and powerful. Of course many instances of apparent group selection can be explained by kin selection; in other cases, close examination reveals that seemingly altruistic behavior directly benefits the individual genotype as well as the group. The value of the monograph is that it provides a robust model in which group selection, pure and unadulterated, can be seen to work.

Download or read book Behavioural Mechanisms of Food Selection written by Roger N. Hughes and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 887 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Behavioural Mechanisms of Food Selection examines animals belonging to diverse trophic groups, from carnivores, herbivores, micro-algal grazers, to filter-feeders and detritus-feeders. In the past Optimal Foraging Theory has been applied to all these groups, but in different ways and in disci plines that rarely overlap. Here concepts and developments hitherto scattered in the literature are drawn together. This uniquely broad synthesis captures the state of the art in the study of diet selection and prescribes new objectives in theoretical development and research.

Download or read book The Chimpanzees of the Ta Forest written by Christophe Boesch and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The chimpanzees are the closest living evolutionary relatives to our own species, Homo sapiens. As such, they have long exerted a fascination over those with an interest in human evolution, and what makes humans unique. Chrisophe Boesch and Hedwige Boesch-Acherman undertook an incredible observational study of a group of wild chimpanzees of the Tai forest in Cote D'Ivoire, spending some fifteen years in the West African jungle with them. This fascinating book is the result of these years of painstaking research among the chimps. Chimpanzee behavior is documented here in all its impressive diversity and variety. Aggression, territoriality, social structure and relationships, reproductive strategies, hunting, tool use - each of these is given its own chapter, along with topics such as chimp intelligence, life histories, and demography. The authors take care to place their observations within the broader context of research in behavioral ecology, and to compare and contrast their findings with other important work on chimpanzee groups, such as that by Jane Goodall. The book concludes with a summary chapter relating the chimpanzee findings to our understanding of human evolution. Combining careful scientific observation with a store of entertaining anecdotes, this is a lively and readable book. It also succeeds in shedding light on some of the central questions around the evolutionary relationships between the primates, and in particular the affinity between chimpanzees and humans. 'This is a major contribution to the study of the great apes, and a significant addition to debates about human/ape evolution. It has all the makings of a classic monograph.

Download or read book Social Predation written by Guy Beauchamp and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2013-12-07 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic literature on predation dealt almost exclusively with solitary predators and their prey. Going back to Lotka-Volterra and optimal foraging theory, the theory about predation, including predator-prey population dynamics, was developed for solitary species. Various consequences of sociality for predators have been considered only recently. Similarly, while it was long recognized that prey species can benefit from living in groups, research on the adaptive value of sociality for prey species mostly emerged in the 1970s. The main theme of this book is the various ways that predators and prey may benefit from living in groups. The first part focusses on predators and explores how group membership influences predation success rate, from searching to subduing prey. The second part focusses on how prey in groups can detect and escape predators. The final section explores group size and composition and how individuals respond over evolutionary times to the challenges posed by chasing or being chased by animals in groups. This book will help the reader understand current issues in social predation theory and provide a synthesis of the literature across a broad range of animal taxa. - Includes the whole taxonomical range rather than limiting it to a select few - Features in-depth analysis that allows a better understanding of many subtleties surrounding the issues related to social predation - Presents both models and empirical results while covering the extensive predator and prey literature - Contains extensive illustrations and separate boxes that cover more technical features, i.e., to present models and review results

Download or read book Predator Ecology written by John P. DeLong and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Predator-prey interactions are ubiquitous, govern the flow of energy up trophic levels, and strongly influence the structure of ecological systems. They are typically quantified using the functional response - the relationship between a predator's foraging rate and the availability of food. As such, the functional response is central to how all ecological communities function - since all communities contain foragers - and a principal driver of the abundance, diversity, and dynamics of ecological communities. The functional response also reflects all the behaviors, traits, and strategies that predators use to hunt prey and that prey use to evade predation. It is thus both a clear reflection of past evolution, including predator-prey arms races, and a major force driving the future evolution of both predator and prey. Despite their importance, there have been remarkably few attempts to synthesize or even briefly review functional responses. This novel and accessible book fills this gap, clearly demonstrating their crucial role as the link between individuals, evolution, and community properties, representing a highly-integrated and measurable aspect of ecological function. It provides a clear entry point for students, a refresher for more advanced researchers, and a motivator for future research. Predator Ecology is an advanced textbook suitable for graduate students and researchers in ecology and evolutionary biology seeking a broad, up-to-date, and authoritative coverage of the field. It will also be of relevance and use to mathematical ecologists, wildlife biologists, and anyone interested in predator-prey interactions.

Download or read book Time in Ecology written by Eric Post and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecologists traditionally regard time as part of the background against which ecological interactions play out. In this book, Eric Post argues that time should be treated as a resource used by organisms for growth, maintenance, and offspring production. Post uses insights from phenology—the study of the timing of life-cycle events—to present a theoretical framework of time in ecology that casts long-standing observations in the field in an entirely new light. Combining conceptual models with field data, he demonstrates how phenological advances, delays, and stasis, documented in an array of taxa, can all be viewed as adaptive components of an organism’s strategic use of time. Post shows how the allocation of time by individual organisms to critical life history stages is not only a response to environmental cues but also an important driver of interactions at the population, species, and community levels. To demonstrate the applications of this exciting new conceptual framework, Time in Ecology uses meta-analyses of previous studies as well as Post’s original data on the phenological dynamics of plants, caribou, and muskoxen in Greenland.

Download or read book Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions MPB 49 written by A. Townsend Peterson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-20 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Terminology, conceptual overview, biogeography, modeling.

Download or read book Adaptive Diversification MPB 48 written by Michael Doebeli and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-21 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Adaptive biological diversification occurs when frequency-dependent selection generates advantages for rare phenotypes and induces a split of an ancestral lineage into multiple descendant lineages. Using adaptive dynamics theory, individual-based simulations, and partial differential equation models, this book illustrates that adaptive diversification due to frequency-dependent ecological interaction is a theoretically ubiquitous phenomenon"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Fish Ecology Evolution and Exploitation written by Ken H. Andersen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fish are one of the most important global food sources, supplying a significant share of the world’s protein consumption. From stocks of wild Alaskan salmon and North Sea cod to entire fish communities with myriad species, fisheries require careful management to ensure that stocks remain productive, and mathematical models are essential tools for doing so. Fish Ecology, Evolution, and Exploitation is an authoritative introduction to the modern size- and trait-based approach to fish populations and communities. Ken Andersen covers the theoretical foundations, mathematical formulations, and real-world applications of this powerful new modeling method, which is grounded in the latest ecological theory and population biology. He begins with fundamental assumptions on the level of individuals and goes on to cover population demography and fisheries impact assessments. He shows how size- and trait-based models shed new light on familiar fisheries concepts such as maximum sustainable yield and fisheries selectivity—insights that classic age-based theory can’t provide—and develops novel evolutionary impacts of fishing. Andersen extends the theory to entire fish communities and uses it to support the ecosystem approach to fisheries management, and forges critical links between trait-based methods and evolutionary ecology. Accessible to ecologists with a basic quantitative background, this incisive book unifies the thinking in ecology and fisheries science and is an indispensable reference for anyone seeking to apply size- and trait-based models to fish demography, fisheries impact assessments, and fish evolutionary ecology.

Download or read book Mechanistic Home Range Analysis MPB 43 written by Paul R. Moorcroft and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spatial patterns of movement are fundamental to the ecology of animal populations, influencing their social organization, mating systems, demography, and the spatial distribution of prey and competitors. However, our ability to understand the causes and consequences of animal home range patterns has been limited by the descriptive nature of the statistical models used to analyze them. In Mechanistic Home Range Analysis, Paul Moorcroft and Mark Lewis develop a radically new framework for studying animal home range patterns based on the analysis of correlated random work models for individual movement behavior. They use this framework to develop a series of mechanistic home range models for carnivore populations. The authors' analysis illustrates how, in contrast to traditional statistical home range models that merely describe pattern, mechanistic home range models can be used to discover the underlying ecological determinants of home range patterns observed in populations, make accurate predictions about how spatial distributions of home ranges will change following environmental or demographic disturbance, and analyze the functional significance of the movement strategies of individuals that give rise to observed patterns of space use. By providing researchers and graduate students of ecology and wildlife biology with a more illuminating way to analyze animal movement, Mechanistic Home Range Analysis will be an indispensable reference for years to come.

Download or read book Social Butterflies written by Henry S. Horn and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ecologist's investigation of the social lives of butterflies Throughout his career, Henry Horn took a unique approach to the study of butterflies. This book brings together his findings with recent advances in behavioral ecology to provide an incomparable look at the social lives of butterflies, illuminating for the first time the marvelously diverse range of butterfly behaviors across several species. Social Butterflies features in-depth studies of five sympatric species—the Plain Ringlet, the Eyed Brown, the Great Spangled Fritillary, the Viceroy, and the Pearly Eye—showing how their social interactions span much of the range of behaviors observed in vertebrates. Drawing on decades of his own keen observations in the field, Horn describes the natural history and behavioral peculiarities of each species and develops models to explain characteristic aspects of their behaviors. He then emphasizes key departures from these models to challenge the notion that butterflies are simply preconditioned to react to stimuli, showing how some make decisions by observing how other butterflies interact with the landscape and each other. Along the way, he sheds light on butterfly territoriality, mating tactics, vagrancy, feeding strategies, and more. Charting new directions for future research, Social Butterflies poses intriguing questions about the complex and sometimes mystifying social behaviors of these marvelous creatures, making it essential reading for lepidopterists, ecologists, and anyone interested in the social behaviors of invertebrate species.

Download or read book Introduction to Mathematical Modeling and Chaotic Dynamics written by Ranjit Kumar Upadhyay and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction to Mathematical Modeling and Chaotic Dynamics focuses on mathematical models in natural systems, particularly ecological systems. Most of the models presented are solved using MATLAB®. The book first covers the necessary mathematical preliminaries, including testing of stability. It then describes the modeling of systems from natural science, focusing on one- and two-dimensional continuous and discrete time models. Moving on to chaotic dynamics, the authors discuss ways to study chaos, types of chaos, and methods for detecting chaos. They also explore chaotic dynamics in single and multiple species systems. The text concludes with a brief discussion on models of mechanical systems and electronic circuits. Suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, this book provides a practical understanding of how the models are used in current natural science and engineering applications. Along with a variety of exercises and solved examples, the text presents all the fundamental concepts and mathematical skills needed to build models and perform analyses.

Download or read book Energetic Food Webs written by John C. Moore and published by Oxford Ecology and Evolution. This book was released on 2012-05-31 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In ecosystems with many species, food webs form highly complex networks of resource-consumer interactions. At the same time, the food web as itself needs sufficient resources to develop and survive. So in fact, food web ecology is about how natural resources form the basis of biological communities, in terms of species richness and abundances as well as how species are organised in communities on the basis of the resource availability and use. The central theme of this book is that patterns in the utilisation of energy result from the trophic interactions among species, and that these patterns form the basis of ecosystem stability. The authors integrate the latest work on community dynamics, ecosystem energetics, and stability, and in so doing attempt to dispel the categorisation of the field into the separate subdisciplines of population, community, and ecosystem ecology. Energetic Food Webs represents the first attempt to bridge the gap between the energetic and species approaches to ecology.

Download or read book Advances in Ecological Research written by and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 1987-04-14 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advances in Ecological Research, first published in 1962, is one of Academic Press's most successful and prestigious series. In 1999, the Institute for Scientific Information released figures showing that the serial has an Impact Factor of 9.6, with a half life of 10.0 years, placing it 1st in the highly competitive category of Ecology.The Editors have always striven to provide a wide range of top-quality papers on all aspects of ecology, such as animal/plant, physiology/population/community, landscape and ecosystem ecology. Eclectic volumes in the serial are supplemented by thematic volumes on such topics as Estuaries and Ancient Lakes.Now edited by Dr Hal Caswell, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Advances in Ecological Research continues to publish topical and important reviews, interpreting ecology as widely as in the past, to include all material that contributes to our understanding of the field.

Download or read book Mate Choice in Plants MPB 19 Volume 19 written by Nancy Burley and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book maintains that higher plants manifest some degree of sexual selection, and it begins to build a framework that unifies many features of plant reproduction previously considered unrelated. Reviewing evidence for sexual selection in plants, the authors discuss possible male-female interactions, concluding with an extensive set of hypotheses for testing. Mechanisms that could be employed in sexual selection in plants include various cellular mechanisms, such as both nuclear and cytoplasmic genetics, B chromosomes, and paternal contributions to the zygote, as well as abortion, double fertilization, delayed fertilization, and certain forms of polyembryony. This study compares the consequences of these processes for the evolution of mate choice in "gymnosperms" and angiosperms.

Download or read book Food Webs written by S. Pimm and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often the meanings of words are changed subtly for interesting reasons. The implication of the word 'community' has changed from including all the organisms in an area to only those species at a particular trophic level (and often a taxonomically restricted group), for example, 'bird-community'. If this observation is correct, its probable cause is the dramatic growth in our knowledge of the ecological patterns along trophic levels (I call these horizontal patterns) and the processes that generate them. This book deals with vertical patterns - those across trophic levels -and tries to compensate for their relative neglect. In cataloging a dozen vertical patterns I hope to convince the reader that species interactions across trophic levels are as patterned as those along trophic levels and demand explanations equally forcefully. But this is not the only objective. A limited number of processes shape the patterns of species interaction; to demonstrate their existence is an essential step in understanding why ecosystems are the way they are. To achieve these aims I must resort to both mathematical techniques to develop theories and statistical techniques to decide between rival hypotheses. The level of mathematics is likely to offend nearly everyone. Some will find any mathematics too much, while others will consider the material to be old, familiar ground and probably explained with a poor regard for rigour and generality.

Download or read book From Populations to Ecosystems written by Michel Loreau and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The major subdisciplines of ecology--population ecology, community ecology, ecosystem ecology, and evolutionary ecology--have diverged increasingly in recent decades. What is critically needed today is an integrated, real-world approach to ecology that reflects the interdependency of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. From Populations to Ecosystems proposes an innovative theoretical synthesis that will enable us to advance our fundamental understanding of ecological systems and help us to respond to today's emerging global ecological crisis. Michel Loreau begins by explaining how the principles of population dynamics and ecosystem functioning can be merged. He then addresses key issues in the study of biodiversity and ecosystems, such as functional complementarity, food webs, stability and complexity, material cycling, and metacommunities. Loreau describes the most recent theoretical advances that link the properties of individual populations to the aggregate properties of communities, and the properties of functional groups or trophic levels to the functioning of whole ecosystems, placing special emphasis on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Finally, he turns his attention to the controversial issue of the evolution of entire ecosystems and their properties, laying the theoretical foundations for a genuine evolutionary ecosystem ecology. From Populations to Ecosystems points the way to a much-needed synthesis in ecology, one that offers a fuller understanding of ecosystem processes in the natural world.