Author: Alfred Tylor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Animal behavior
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Get Book Here

Book Description

Author: Judy Diamond
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674074203
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Get Book Here

Book Description
Color can attract mates, intimidate enemies, and distract predators. But it can also conceal animals from detection. It is an adaptation to the visual features of the environment but also to the perceptual and cognitive capabilities of other organisms. Judy Diamond and Alan Bond reveal factors at work in the evolution of concealing coloration.

Author: Simcha Lev-Yadun
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319420968
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 373

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents visual plant defenses (camouflage, mimicry and aposematism via coloration, morphology and even movement) against herbivores. It is mainly an ideological monograph, a manifesto representing my current understanding on defensive plant coloration and related issues. The book is not the final word in anything, but rather the beginning of many things. It aims to establish visual anti-herbivory defense as an integral organ of botany, or plant science as it is commonly called today. I think that like in animals, many types of plant coloration can be explained by selection associated with the sensory/cognitive systems of herbivores and predators to reduce herbivory. It is intended to intrigue and stimulate students of botany/plant science and plant/animal interactions for a very long time. This book is tailored to a readership of biologists and naturalists of all kinds and levels, and more specifically for botanists, ecologists, evolutionists and to those interested in plant/animal interactions. It is written from the point of view of a naturalist, ecologist and evolutionary biologist that I hold, considering natural selection as the main although not the only drive for evolution. According to this perspective, factors such as chance, founder effects, genetic drift and various stochastic processes that may and do influence characters found in specific genotypes, are not comparable in their power and influence to the common outcomes of natural selection, especially manifested when very many species belonging to different plant families, with very different and separate evolutionary histories, arrive at the same adaptation, something that characterizes many of the visual patterns and proposed adaptations described and discussed in this book. Many of the discussed visual defensive mechanisms are aimed at operating before the plants are damaged, i.e., to be their first line of defense. In this respect, I think that the name of the book by Ruxton et al. (2004) "Avoiding Attack" is an excellent phrase for the assembly of the best types of defensive tactics. While discussing anti-herbivory, I do remember, study and teach physiological/developmental aspects of some of the discussed coloration patterns, and I am fully aware of the simultaneous and diverse functions of many plant characters in addition to defense.

Author: Shuichi Kinoshita
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9812707832
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 367

Get Book Here

Book Description
Structural colorations originate from self-organized microstructures, which interact with light in a complex way to produce brilliant colors seen everywhere in nature. Research in this field is extremely new and has been rapidly growing in the last 10 years, because the elaborate structures created in nature can now be fabricated through various types of nanotechnologies. Indeed, a fundamental book covering this field from biological, physical, and engineering viewpoints has long been expected.Coloring in nature comes mostly from inherent colors of materials, though it sometimes has a purely physical origin such as diffraction or interference of light. The latter, called structural color or iridescence, has long been a problem of scientific interest. Recently, structural colors have attracted great interest because various photonic architectures, now developing in modern technologies, have been spontaneously created in the self-organization process and have been extensively used as one of the important visual functions. In this book, the fundamental optical properties underlying structural colors are explained, and these mysteries of nature are surveyed from the viewpoint of biological diversity and according to their sophisticated structures. The book proposes a general principle of structural colors based on the structural hierarchy and presents up-to-date applications.

Author: H. Martin Schaefer
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191620971
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book Here

Book Description
Communication is an essential factor underpinning the interactions between species and the structure of their communities. Plant-animal interactions are particularly diverse due to the complex nature of their mutualistic and antagonistic relationships. However the evolution of communication and the underlying mechanisms responsible remain poorly understood. Plant-Animal Communication is a timely summary of the latest research and ideas on the ecological and evolutionary foundations of communication between plants and animals, including discussions of fundamental concepts such as deception, reliability, and camouflage. It introduces how the sensory world of animals shapes the various modes of communication employed, laying out the basics of vision, scent, acoustic, and gustatory communication. Subsequent chapters discuss how plants communicate in these sensory modes to attract animals to facilitate seed dispersal, pollination, and carnivory, and how they communicate to defend themselves against herbivores. Potential avenues for productive theoretical and empirical research are clearly identified, and suggestions for novel empirical approaches to the study of communication in general are outlined.

Author: Martin Stevens
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198707894
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book Here

Book Description
Cuckoos lay eggs carefully matched to their host's own clutch.

Author: Lancelot Thomas Hogben
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Amphibians
Languages : en
Pages : 172

Get Book Here

Book Description

Author: Cath Ard
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
ISBN: 0711258759
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 66

Get Book Here

Book Description
Why are animals so amazingly colorful? Find out in this kaleidoscopic look at the technicolor world of animals. Meet animals of every color of the rainbow and find out why they are the colors and patterns they are. Discover the reason why some animals are stripy and others are spotty. Why do some creatures deliberately pop out while others strive to blend in? Why are some bright to warn off others while some only pretend to look toxic? Why are some male animals so much more flamboyant than their female counterparts? Why do some babies look so different from the grown-ups in their families? The animal kingdom is explored like never before in this richly detailed natural history book, bursting with life and color. This is a beautifully illustrated first look at the colorful and kaleidoscopic world of animals for young children.

Author: David Lee
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226471055
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 427

Get Book Here

Book Description
Though he didn’t realize it at the time, David Lee began this book twenty-five years ago as he was hiking in the mountains outside Kuala Lumpur. Surrounded by the wonders of the jungle, Lee found his attention drawn to one plant in particular, a species of fern whose electric blue leaves shimmered amidst the surrounding green. The evolutionary wonder of the fern’s extravagant beauty filled Lee with awe—and set him on a career-long journey to understand everything about plant colors. Nature’s Palette is the fully ripened fruit of that journey—a highly illustrated, immensely entertaining exploration of the science of plant color. Beginning with potent reminders of how deeply interwoven plant colors are with human life and culture—from the shifting hues that told early humans when fruits and vegetables were edible to the indigo dyes that signified royalty for later generations—Lee moves easily through details of pigments, the evolution of color perception, the nature of light, and dozens of other topics. Through a narrative peppered with anecdotes of a life spent pursuing botanical knowledge around the world, he reveals the profound ways that efforts to understand and exploit plant color have influenced every sphere of human life, from organic chemistry to Renaissance painting to the highly lucrative orchid trade. Lavishly illustrated and packed with remarkable details sure to delight gardeners and naturalists alike, Nature’s Palette will enchant anyone who’s ever wondered about red roses and blue violets—or green thumbs.

Author: František Baluška
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3540892303
Category : Science
Languages : fr
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
Our image of plants is changing dramatically away from passive entities merely subject to environmental forces and organisms that are designed solely for the accumulation of photosynthate. Plants are revealing themselves to be dynamic and highly sensitive organisms that actively and competitively forage for limited resources, both above and below ground, organisms that accurately gauge their circumstances, use sophisticated cost-benefit analysis, and take clear actions to mitigate and control diverse environmental threats. Moreover, plants are also capable of complex recognition of self and non-self and are territorial in behavior. They are as sophisticated in behavior as animals but their potential has been masked because it operates on time scales many orders of magnitude less than those of animals. Plants are sessile organisms. As such, the only alternative to a rapidly changing environment is rapid adaptation. This book will focus on all these new and exciting aspects of plant biology.