Understanding Animal Behaviour

Description

This accessible introduction to animal behaviour provides an authoritative yet reader-friendly guide for the interested naturalist. It presents current knowledge about the way animals behave and will enable the reader to derive more pleasure from their observations of animals by gaining a deeper understanding of their behaviour. The concepts are presented in an easily appreciated way with which everyone can associate. In the first part of the book, the author explores how animals behave by considering the physical processes involved in the way animals perceive their environment and what determines how they respond to it. This is followed by the 'why' of animal behaviour in which the author examines many topics under the overall issue of expressing behaviour, and the evolutionary forces that have shaped – and continue to shape – the detailed form of more complex behaviours. Therefore questions such as why animals forage in the way they do and how that foraging pattern may be refined to optimal efficiency; why animals adopt a particular reproductive strategy and breeding behaviour and why some animals live as solitary individuals, while others live in groups and so on. The book is copiously illustrated throughout in support and interpretation of the text. While the pictures enhance understanding of the written text, the text also showcases the exquisite illustrations of wildlife artist Catherine Putman. Title Page Contents Preface Acknowledgements 1 Understanding animal behaviour 2 Behavioural reflexes 3 Linking responses and the co-ordinationof more complex behaviours 4 Receiving stimuli and analysingthe incoming information 5 Motivation and its capacity tomodify simple response patterns 6 ‘Unpredictable’ behaviours: redirectedand displacement activities 7 Learning and its effects on behaviour 8 Behaviour genetics and theevolution of behaviour 9 Adaptiveness of behaviour: optimising the returns 10 Social organisation and social behaviour 11 Reproductive behaviour andreproductive strategies 12 Mating behaviour and mate choice 13 Co–operative breeding andarguments about altruism 14 Territoriality and aggression 15 How animals navigate 16 ‘If we could talk to the animals…’ Index of keywords Index of species mentioned in the text