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Author: William Eberhard
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022653474X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 679
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Book Description
In this lavishly illustrated, first-ever book on how spider webs are built, function, and evolved, William Eberhard provides a comprehensive overview of spider functional morphology and behavior related to web building, and of the surprising physical agility and mental abilities of orb weavers. For instance, one spider spins more than three precisely spaced, morphologically complex spiral attachments per second for up to fifteen minutes at a time. Spiders even adjust the mechanical properties of their famously strong silken lines to different parts of their webs and different environments, and make dramatic modifications in orb designs to adapt to available spaces. This extensive adaptive flexibility, involving decisions influenced by up to sixteen different cues, is unexpected in such small, supposedly simple animals. As Eberhard reveals, the extraordinary diversity of webs includes ingenious solutions to gain access to prey in esoteric habitats, from blazing hot and shifting sand dunes (to capture ants) to the surfaces of tropical lakes (to capture water striders). Some webs are nets that are cast onto prey, while others form baskets into which the spider flicks prey. Some aerial webs are tramways used by spiders searching for chemical cues from their prey below, while others feature landing sites for flying insects and spiders where the spider then stalks its prey. In some webs, long trip lines are delicately sustained just above the ground by tiny rigid silk poles. Stemming from the author’s more than five decades observing spider webs, this book will be the definitive reference for years to come.
Author: William Eberhard
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022653474X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 679
Get Book Here
Book Description
In this lavishly illustrated, first-ever book on how spider webs are built, function, and evolved, William Eberhard provides a comprehensive overview of spider functional morphology and behavior related to web building, and of the surprising physical agility and mental abilities of orb weavers. For instance, one spider spins more than three precisely spaced, morphologically complex spiral attachments per second for up to fifteen minutes at a time. Spiders even adjust the mechanical properties of their famously strong silken lines to different parts of their webs and different environments, and make dramatic modifications in orb designs to adapt to available spaces. This extensive adaptive flexibility, involving decisions influenced by up to sixteen different cues, is unexpected in such small, supposedly simple animals. As Eberhard reveals, the extraordinary diversity of webs includes ingenious solutions to gain access to prey in esoteric habitats, from blazing hot and shifting sand dunes (to capture ants) to the surfaces of tropical lakes (to capture water striders). Some webs are nets that are cast onto prey, while others form baskets into which the spider flicks prey. Some aerial webs are tramways used by spiders searching for chemical cues from their prey below, while others feature landing sites for flying insects and spiders where the spider then stalks its prey. In some webs, long trip lines are delicately sustained just above the ground by tiny rigid silk poles. Stemming from the author’s more than five decades observing spider webs, this book will be the definitive reference for years to come.
Author: Owen Aldis
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 1483261115
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
Play Fighting considers the possible benefits of play for humans and animals. This book is divided into two main topics—animal play and human play. In these topics, this text specifically discusses the definition, evolution, and function of play; criteria of chasing and play fighting; function of laughter in human play; and spurious correlation between exploratory and playful species. The surplus energy and catharsis theories of play; vestibular stimulation acting as a reinforcer; function of mother-infant play; and properties of play-fear and serious-fear stimuli are also elaborated. This compilation likewise covers the puzzling blind spots of child psychology; play and child rearing; and play fear of "monsters. This publication is a good source for students and individuals interested in the survival value of play for animals and healthy development of children.
Author: Tom Isbell
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062216074
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
The Maze Runner meets The Hunger Games in this heart-pounding teen trilogy. This second book in the Prey series is a suspenseful story of courage, survival, and doing what's right, no matter how hard. Orphaned teens, soon to be hunted for sport, must fight for a better life. Riveting action, intense romance, and gripping emotion make this fast-paced adventure a standout. Fifteen escaped and found their way to freedom, but Book, Hope, and Cat can't settle into their new life knowing the rest of the Less Thans and Sisters are still imprisoned. Now the teens must retrace their steps to save the others and thwart the Republic's dark plans to destroy those deemed different, even as relationships are tested and the path back is filled with danger. With new enemies lurking, the group must put their fate into the hands of unexpected allies and must ask themselves how far they're willing to go to free their friends.
Author: Aaron M. Ellison
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198779844
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 563
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Book Description
Carnivorous plants have fascinated botanists, evolutionary biologists, ecologists, physiologists, developmental biologists, anatomists, horticulturalists, and the general public for centuries. Charles Darwin was the first scientist to demonstrate experimentally that some plants could actually attract, kill, digest, and absorb nutrients from insect prey; his book Insectivorous Plants (1875) remains a widely-cited classic. Since then, many movies and plays, short stories, novels, coffee-table picture books, and popular books on the cultivation of carnivorous plants have been produced. However, all of these widely read products depend on accurate scientific information, and most of them have repeated and recycled data from just three comprehensive, but now long out of date, scientific monographs. The field has evolved and changed dramatically in the nearly 30 years since the last of these books was published, and thousands of scientific papers on carnivorous plants have appeared in the academic journal literature. In response, Ellison and Adamec have assembled the world's leading experts to provide a truly modern synthesis. They examine every aspect of physiology, biochemistry, genomics, ecology, and evolution of these remarkable plants, culminating in a description of the serious threats they now face from over-collection, poaching, habitat loss, and climatic change which directly threaten their habitats and continued persistence in them.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fisheries
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
Author: Richard Johnston
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461323851
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372
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Book Description
It is not often that a century of scholarly activity breaks conveniently into halves, but ornithology of the first half of the 20th century is clearly different from that of the second half. The break actually can be marked in 1949, with the appearance of Meyer and Schuz's Ornithologie ais Biologische Wissenschaft. Prior to this, ornithologists had tended to speak mostly to other ornithologists, experiments (the testing of hy potheses) were uncommon, and a concern for birds as birds was the dominant thread in our thinking. Subsequent to 1949, ornithologists have tended to become ever more professional in their pursuits and to incorporate protocols of experimental biology into their work; more importantly perhaps, they have begun to show a concern for birds as agencies for the study of biology. Many of the most satisfying of recent ornithological studies have come from reductionist research ap proaches, and have been accomplished by specialists in such areas as biochemistry, ethology, genetics, and ecology. A great many studies routinely rely on statistical hypothesis testing, allowing us to come to conclusions unmarred by wishful thinking. Some of us are ready to tell the world that we are a "hard" science, and perhaps that time is not so very far off for most of us. Volume 2 examines several solid examples of late 20th-century ornithology.
Author: Glenn R. VanBlaricom
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642728456
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261
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Book Description
The impetus for this volume comes from two sources. The first is scientific: by virtue of a preference for certain large benthic invertebrates as food, sea otters have interesting and significant effects on the structure and dynamics of nearshore communities in the North Pacific. The second is political: be cause of the precarious status of the sea otter population in coastal California, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced, in June 1984, a proposal to establish a new population of sea otters at San Nicolas Island, off southern California. The proposal is based on the premise that risks of catastrophic losses of sea otters, due to large oil spills, are greatly reduced by distributing the population among two geographically separate locations. The federal laws of the U.S. require that USFWS publish an Environmental Impact Statement (ElS) regarding the proposed translocation of sea otters to San Nicolas Island. The EIS is intended to be an assessment of likely bio logical, social, and economic effects of the proposal. In final form, the EIS has an important role in the decision of federal management authority (in this case, the Secretary of the Interior of the U.S.) to accept or reject the proposal.
Author: John P. DeLong
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192895508
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177
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Book Description
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.
Author: Graeme D. Ruxton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191002631
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
Avoiding Attack discusses the diversity of mechanisms by which prey avoid predator attacks and explores how such defensive mechanisms have evolved through natural selection. It considers how potential prey avoid detection, how they make themselves unprofitable to attack, how they communicate this status, and how other species have exploited these signals. Using carefully selected examples of camouflage, mimicry, and warning signals drawn from a wide range of species and ecosystems, the authors summarise the latest research into these fascinating adaptations, developing mathematical models where appropriate and making recommendations for future study. This second edition has been extensively rewritten, particularly in the application of modern genetic research techniques which have transformed our recent understanding of adaptations in evolutionary genomics and phylogenetics. The book also employs a more integrated and systematic approach, ensuring that each chapter has a broader focus on the evolutionary and ecological consequences of anti-predator adaptation. The field has grown and developed considerably over the last decade with an explosion of new research literature, making this new edition timely.
Author: Wilfried Wolff
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642739539
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
Given the problems of the environment in relation to the ever-growing civi lization activities of man, it is not surprising that in recent years more and more related data have been collected, phenomena have been observed and concerns have been expressed. The ecological systems of man's environment react to the impact of these civilization activities. In fact, quite often these reactions occur as shocks and surprises. Acid rain and the related forest die backs are but one example. Ecological systems consist of many compo nents and their dynamics is thus complex. The study of complexity is the underlying theme for work at KFA Jiilich. A major part of this work concerns the physics of condensed matter, including polymers, spin glasses, surfaces and layers. Another part relates to micro electronics in the submicrometre range in its relation to the design of vector and parallel computers. Supercomputing characterizes this search for the understanding of complexity further. But equally the work on the chemistry of the atmosphere, radio agronomy, biotechnology and research on informa tion processing on the molecular level must also be mentioned. To make the picture complete, at KFA Jiilich work on reactor technology, fusion research and energy systems of course continues. These are complex systems too.
