Download or read book The Evolution of Culture in Animals written by John Tyler Bonner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1980 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Animals do have culture, maintains this delightfully illustrated and provocative book, which cites a number of fascinating instances of animal communication and learning. John Bonner traces the origins of culture back to the early biological evolution of animals and provides examples of five categories of behavior leading to nonhuman culture: physical dexterity, relations with other species, auditory communication within a species, geographic locations, and inventions or innovations. Defining culture as the transmission of information by behavioral rather than genetical means, he demonstrates the continuum between the traits we find in animals and those we often consider uniquely human.
Download or read book Populations Species and Evolution written by Ernst Mayr and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1970 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his extraordinary book, Mayr fully explored, synthesized, and evaluated man's knowledge about the nature of animal species and the part they play in the process of evolution. Now, in this long-awaited abridged edition, Mayr's definitive work is made available to the interested nonspecialist, the college student, and the general reader.
Download or read book The Behavior of Animals written by Johan J. Bolhuis and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-12-29 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Behavior of Animals An updated view of animal behavior studies, featuring global experts The Behavior of Animals, Second Edition provides a broad overview of the current state of animal behavior studies with contributions from international experts. This edition includes new chapters on hormones and behavior, individuality, and human evolution. All chapters have been thoroughly revised and updated, and are supported by color illustrations, informative callouts, and accessible presentation of technical information. Provides an introduction to the study of animal behavior Looks at an extensive scope of topics- from perception, motivation and emotion, biological rhythms, and animal learning to animal cognition, communication, mate choice, and individuality. Explores the evolution of animal behavior including a critical evaluation of the assumption that human beings can be studied as if they were any other animal species. Students will benefit from an updated textbook in which a variety of contributors provide their expertise and global perspective in specialized areas
Download or read book The San Francisco Bay Area Jobbank 1995 written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book My Thoughts on Biological Evolution written by Motoo Kimura and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-29 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, written by Motoo Kimura (1924–94), is a classic in evolutionary biology. In 1968, Kimura proposed the “neutral theory of molecular evolution”, which became the theoretical basis of modern evolutionary studies. After publishing his work in 1983 in the book “Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution”, Kimura wrote this book in 1988 for the general public. It was originally written in Japanese and is translated here for the first time. In the book, Kimura first summarizes the development of evolutionary theory since Lamarck and Darwin. He then shows how the search for mechanisms of evolution developed into population genetics and describes how the study of molecular evolution matured by taking in the fruits of molecular biology. Kimura proceeds to carefully explain his neutral evolution theory at the molecular level. Finally, he presents his view of the world from an evolutionary perspective. The book has long served as an in-depth introduction to evolutionary biology for students and young researchers in Japan. There has been remarkably rapid progress in the field of bioscience at the molecular level over the past 30 years. Nevertheless, the book remains an important contribution that laid the foundations for what followed in molecular evolutionary studies.
Download or read book Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science written by National Academy of Sciences and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1998-05-06 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today many school students are shielded from one of the most important concepts in modern science: evolution. In engaging and conversational style, Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science provides a well-structured framework for understanding and teaching evolution. Written for teachers, parents, and community officials as well as scientists and educators, this book describes how evolution reveals both the great diversity and similarity among the Earth's organisms; it explores how scientists approach the question of evolution; and it illustrates the nature of science as a way of knowing about the natural world. In addition, the book provides answers to frequently asked questions to help readers understand many of the issues and misconceptions about evolution. The book includes sample activities for teaching about evolution and the nature of science. For example, the book includes activities that investigate fossil footprints and population growth that teachers of science can use to introduce principles of evolution. Background information, materials, and step-by-step presentations are provided for each activity. In addition, this volume: Presents the evidence for evolution, including how evolution can be observed today. Explains the nature of science through a variety of examples. Describes how science differs from other human endeavors and why evolution is one of the best avenues for helping students understand this distinction. Answers frequently asked questions about evolution. Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science builds on the 1996 National Science Education Standards released by the National Research Councilâ€"and offers detailed guidance on how to evaluate and choose instructional materials that support the standards. Comprehensive and practical, this book brings one of today's educational challenges into focus in a balanced and reasoned discussion. It will be of special interest to teachers of science, school administrators, and interested members of the community.
Download or read book Key Transitions in Animal Evolution written by Rob Desalle and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2010-12-07 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tackling one of the most difficult and delicate of the evolutionary questions, this challenging book summarizes the more recent results in phylogenetics and developmental biology that address the evolution of key innovations in metazoans. Divided into three sections, the first considers the phylogenetic issues involving this area of the tree of lif
Download or read book Selection written by Graham Bell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book adopts a direct experimental approach to evolutionary questions, drawing predominantly from research on microbial systems. The focus is on processes and mechanisms, and incorporates insights from recent advances in whole-genome sequencing, bioinformatics, environmental genomics and developmental genetics.
Download or read book The Evolution of Primary Sexual Characters in Animals written by Janet Leonard and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-16 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Primary sexual traits, those structures and processes directly involved in reproduction, are some of the most diverse, specialized, and bizarre in the animal kingdom. Moreover, reproductive traits are often species-specific, suggesting that they evolved very rapidly. This diversity, long the province of taxonomists, has recently attracted broader interest from evolutionary biologists, especially those interested in sexual selection and the evolution of reproductive strategies. Primary sexual characters were long assumed to be the product of natural selection, exclusively. A recent alternative suggests that sexual selection explains much of the diversity of "primary" sexual characters. A third approach to the evolution of reproductive interactions after copulation or insemination has been to consider the process one of sexual conflict. That is, the reproductive processes of a species may reflect, as does the mating system, evolution acting on males and on females, but in different directions. In this volume, authors explore a wide variety of primary sexual characters and selective pressures that have shaped them, from natural selection for offspring survival to species-isolating mechanisms, sperm competition, cryptic female choice and sexual arms races. Exploring diverse reproductive adaptations from a theoretical and practical perspective, The Evolution of Primary Sexual Characters will provide an unparalleled overview of sexual diversity in many taxa and an introduction to the issues in sexual selection that are changing our view of sexual processes.
Download or read book Animal Cognition written by Mary C. Olmstead and published by Nova Science Publishers. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of animal cognition has undergone enormous growth in the last two decades. In the early part of the 20th century, the work was conducted primarily by psychologists who studied animal behavior in the laboratory as a model of human cognition. By the middle of the century, ethological studies of animal behavior in the natural environment revealed an amazing array of cognitive abilities in different species, worthy of study in their own right. In many cases, scientists in these two disciplines were investigating the same process (e.g., learning, navigation, communication) from very different perspectives. Psychologists tended to focus on developmental or mechanistic explanations, whereas ethologists and behavioral ecologists emphasised adaptive or functional ones. Eventually, it became clear that the two fields are complementary with a full description of any cognitive process, depending on both proximate and ultimate explanations. This text builds on the tradition of combining data from laboratory and field studies of animal behavior as a means of understanding the evolution and function of cognition. In keeping with contemporary terminology, cognition refers to a wide range of processes from modification of simple reflexes to abstract concept learning to social interactions to the expression of emotions, such as guilt. These are examined throughout the text in animal groups ranging from insects to great apes. A general theme across chapters is that the evolution of behavioral patterns is adaptive, thereby reflected in underlying neural structures. Many of the authors go on to examine the adaptive significance of a behavior in relation to a species ecological history in order to develop theories of cognitive evolution. These issues are becoming increasingly important in a world with rapidly changing environments to which all animals, including humans, must adjust. A primary goal of this volume is to introduce the exciting field of animal cognition to a new group of young scientists. The editor also hopes to encourage experienced researchers to expand their ideas of what constitutes animal cognition and how it can be studied in the future. From the editors own reading, one area of potential growth is the development of more formal models of cognition to guide quantitative predictions of behavior. Although no chapter focuses exclusively on humans, readers should have no difficulty extrapolating research findings and theories from other species to those of our own. Differences are clearly based on degree, not kind.
Download or read book Animals and Society written by Margo DeMello and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook provides a full overview of human-animal studies. It focuses on the conceptual construction of animals in American culture and the way in which it reinforces and perpetuates hierarchical human relationships rooted in racism, sexism, and class privilege.
Download or read book The Genesis of Animal Play written by Gordon M. Burghardt and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A scientist examines the origins and evolutionary significance of play in humans and animals.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies written by Linda Kalof and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies tackles the infamous "animal question" how can humans rethink and reconfigure their relationships with other animals? Over the course of five sections and thirty chapters, the contributors investigate issues and concepts central to understanding our current relationship with other animals and the potential for coexistence in an ecological community of living beings.
Download or read book Evolution Driven by Organismal Behavior written by Rui Diogo and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-03-08 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 selection is mainly a secondary--but still crucial--evolutionary player. Within ONCE, evolution is therefore generally made of mistakes and mismatches and trial-and-error situations, and is not a process where organisms engage in an incessant, suffocating struggle in which they can't thrive if they are not optimally adapted to their habitats and the external environment. Therefore, this unifying view incorporates a more comprehensive view of the diversity and complexity of life by stressing that organisms are not merely passive evolutionary players under the rule of external factors. This insightful and well-reasoned argument is based on numerous fascinating case studies from a wide range of organisms, including bacteria, plants, insects and diverse examples from the evolution of our own species. The book has an appeal to researchers, students, teachers, and those with an interest in the history and philosophy of science, as well as to the broader public, as it brings life back into biology by emphasizing that organisms, including humans, are the key active players in evolution and thus in the future of life on this wonderful planet.
Download or read book Studies in the Evolution of Animals written by Emanuel Bonavia and published by . This book was released on 2018-07-21 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Evolution s Rainbow written by Joan Roughgarden and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2013-09-14 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this innovative celebration of diversity and affirmation of individuality in animals and humans, Joan Roughgarden challenges accepted wisdom about gender identity and sexual orientation. A distinguished evolutionary biologist, Roughgarden takes on the medical establishment, the Bible, social science—and even Darwin himself. She leads the reader through a fascinating discussion of diversity in gender and sexuality among fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, including primates. Evolution's Rainbow explains how this diversity develops from the action of genes and hormones and how people come to differ from each other in all aspects of body and behavior. Roughgarden reconstructs primary science in light of feminist, gay, and transgender criticism and redefines our understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality. Witty, playful, and daring, this book will revolutionize our understanding of sexuality. Roughgarden argues that principal elements of Darwinian sexual selection theory are false and suggests a new theory that emphasizes social inclusion and control of access to resources and mating opportunity. She disputes a range of scientific and medical concepts, including Wilson's genetic determinism of behavior, evolutionary psychology, the existence of a gay gene, the role of parenting in determining gender identity, and Dawkins's "selfish gene" as the driver of natural selection. She dares social science to respect the agency and rationality of diverse people; shows that many cultures across the world and throughout history accommodate people we label today as lesbian, gay, and transgendered; and calls on the Christian religion to acknowledge the Bible's many passages endorsing diversity in gender and sexuality. Evolution's Rainbow concludes with bold recommendations for improving education in biology, psychology, and medicine; for democratizing genetic engineering and medical practice; and for building a public monument to affirm diversity as one of our nation's defining principles.
Download or read book The Evolution of Beauty written by Richard O. Prum and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature? Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum—reviving Darwin's own views—thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change. Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time. The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature's splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves.
