Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior

Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior, Third Edition, is a unique curated collection of punchy essays on all aspects of animal behavior, written by experts and carefully edited for readability and accessibility. Animal behavior is usually defined as what animals do, i.e. their movements. We can ask how they move, (i.e. the physiological and neurological causes of movement) and why they move. To answer this latter question, behavioralists generally turn to evolutionary explanations. The Encyclopedia gives equal weight to these ‘how’ (proximate) and `why` (ultimate) explanations of animal behavior. The third edition updates and expands the previous version to cover all substantive topics in the field. Animal behavior is one of the largest subdisciplines in biology. Therefore, chapters focus on broad concepts and avoid becoming entrapped in taxon-specific detail. To illustrate this, one could consider the topic ‘cooperative hunting’. One way to cover this topic would be to have individual chapters on hunting in lions, mongoose, African wild dogs, army ants, dolphins etc. But it would serve the reader much better if a comparative approach was taken to see if there are commonalities across taxa. For example, is communication necessary for cooperative hunting? Is there any evidence of planning or is every hunt opportunistic? This comparative approach requires authors to provide a synthesis, pushing beyond specific taxa of expertise, but helps readers making useful connections. This is a fundamental feature of this work. This edition retains chapters on the historical development of the field, which is important to our understanding of where the discipline sits today, but similarly the work is forward leaning, including the authors` perspective of where their discipline is headed. Structured chapters and cross-references help readers following their interests with ease. Like a bird field guide, this encyclopedia is an entrée to deeper knowledge. Readers of the encyclopedia are encouraged to explore beyond individual chapters via links to related ones, key reviews and relevant online material.