Cricket Behavior and Neurobiology


Book Description

The world of crickets has long been a world of scientific adventure and human fascination. Because of their remarkable ways of communicating and because their nervous and endocrine systems are easily accessible to researchers, crickets can be studied and analyzed with great effectiveness. Starting in the 1960s, vastly improved behavioral and neurobiological techniques have brought them to the frontier of the new field of neuroethology. Here, in the most comprehensive book on crickets ever compiled, twenty-five leading scientists detail the present state of cricket research both at conceptual and at experimental levels. They tell about the manifold strategies crickets use in matching development with seasons and habitats, finding mates, and avoiding parasites and predators, and they describe the physiological mechanisms, especially the neuronal mechanisms, underlying cricket behavior. Their book is at once about communication, comparative physiology and anatomy, and environmental interaction. More than half of Cricket Behavior and Neurobiology is devoted to acoustic behavior and bioacoustics. It is intended for those interested in entomology, general and comparative physiology, biophysics, endocrinology, and chronobiology. It offers new information for behavioral physiologists and ecologists, bioacousticians, and especially neurobiologists concerned with behavior.




Advances in the Study of Behavior


Book Description

Advances in the Study of Behavior was initiated over 40 years ago to serve the increasing number of scientists engaged in the study of animal behavior. That number is still expanding. This volume makes another important "contribution to the development of the field" by presenting theoretical ideas and research to those studying animal behavior and to their colleagues in neighboring fields. Advances in the Study of Behavior is now available online at ScienceDirect full-text online from volume 30 onward.







Sex, Color, and Mate Choice in Guppies


Book Description

This book describes the sexual behavior of guppies and examines how mate choice by females leads to the evolution of the conspicuous colors and the courtship displays for which guppies are widely recognized. The author shows that female guppies prefer males with bright color patterns, especially those with orange spots, and that the mating preferences of females lead to sexual selection on both color patterns and courtship displays of males.




Acoustic Communication in Animals


Book Description

This book is the first volume of the bioacoustics series published by the Society for Bioacoustics. This volume provides an overview of the advances and recent topics in acoustic communication in various animals. Most animals produce vibrations and sounds by moving their body parts, including vocal organs. These sounds can be research targets of bioacoustics studies. How animals use these sounds, especially in inter-individual relationships, is the focus of this volume, “Acoustic Communication in Animals”. The authors’ expertise varies from molecular biology, neurobiology to psychology, and human brain imaging. Their research subjects range from invertebrates to humans. Despite the variety of topics, chapters are developed under the consideration of ethology and evolution. Readers will recognize the profundity of the topics in each chapter. In addition, the view and understanding of natural sound sequences produced by animals can vary among different cultures. Research from Japan and regions that have been underrepresented in previous literature can offer new ideas and unique perspectives in the study of bioacoustics. Readers can grasp the progress of this research field in a broad range of species in one book. The book presents multi- and interdisciplinary topics and appeals to researchers and students in fields including psychology, physiology, zoology, ethology, and neurosciences.




Animal Communication Networks


Book Description

Most animal communication has evolved and now takes place in the context of a communication network, i.e. several signallers and receivers within communication range of each other. This idea follows naturally from the observation that many signals travel further than the average spacing between animals. This is self evidently true for long-range signals, but at a high density the same is true for short-range signals (e.g. begging calls of nestling birds). This book provides a current summary of research on communication networks and appraises future prospects. It combines information from studies of several taxonomic groups (insects to people via fiddler crabs, fish, frogs, birds and mammals) and several signalling modalities (visual, acoustic and chemical signals). It also specifically addresses the many areas of interface between communication networks and other disciplines (from the evolution of human charitable behaviour to the psychophysics of signal perception, via social behaviour, physiology and mathematical models).




The Evolution of Insect Mating Systems


Book Description

Insects display a staggering diversity of mating and social behaviours. Studying these systems provides insights into a wide range of evolutionary and behavioural questions, such as the evolution of sex, sexual selection, sexual conflict, and parental care. This edited volume provides an authoritative update of the landmark book in the field, The Evolution of Insect Mating Systems (Thornhill and Alcock, 1983), which had such a huge impact in shaping adaptationist approaches to the study of animal behaviour and influencing the study of the evolution of reproductive behaviour far beyond the taxonomic remit of insects. This accessible new volume brings the empirical and conceptual scope of the original book fully up to date, incorporating the wealth of new knowledge and research of the last 30 years. It explores the evolution of complex forms of sex determination in insects, and the role of sexual selection in shaping the evolution of mating systems. Selection arising via male contest competition and female choice (both before and after copulation) are discussed, as are the roles of parasites and pathogens in mediating the strength of sexual selection, and the role that parental care plays in successful reproduction. The Evolution of Insect Mating Systems is suitable for both graduate students and researchers interested in insect mating systems or behaviour from an evolutionary, genetical, physiological, or ecological perspective. Due to its interdisciplinary and concept-driven approach, it will also be of relevance and use to a broad audience of evolutionary biologists.




Sound Communication in Insects


Book Description

Advances in Insect Physiology, Volume 61 highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters on a variety of timely topics, including Acoustic signaling in Orthoptera, Sound production in Drosophila melanogaster, and Communication by surface borne mechanical waves in insects. Provides the authority and expertise of leading contributors from an international board of authors Presents the latest release in the Advances in Insect Physiology series




Animal Signaling and Function


Book Description

The diversity of animal signals has been widely documented, and the generality of animal signals also tantalizingly suggests that there are common mechanisms that have selected for their origin. However, while much progress has been made on some fronts, we still lack a general theory about why the diversity of signaling structures exist. Our compilation will directly address this gap by focusing on an exciting new arena of sexual selection, namely using functional approaches to understand signaling. This approach is rooted in the idea that many signals are designed to transmit important functional imformation that is both important for issues of male quality (and hence male competition), and female choice. The increasing use of technology in sexual selection studies has enabled researchers to test whether signaling is either constrained by, or accurately transmits information about functional capacities. Further, in animals that fight vigorously, functional capacities such as endurance or strength may make the difference between winning and losing. This volume brings together a diverse collection of researchers who are actively investigating how function and signaling are related. These researchers use both a variety of methods and taxa to study animal signaling, and we believe that this integrative view is important to open up fresh vistas for why animal signals have evolved.