| Preface | Understanding How Evolution Works |
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| | Discover how quickly evolution can occur in nature, and the role natural selection and sexual selection play in adaptation. Selection is an amazingly simple process, but often misunderstood in how it produces adaptation. What exactly is adaptation, anyway? Lift the hood on the engine of evolution, and its parts of natural selection, sexual selection and fitness to see how easy it can be to understand. Once you learn to look through the lens of evolution, your view of the world around you will become vastly richer! |
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| 1 | Understanding Science of Behaviour |
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| | Discover why we are so fascinated by animal behaviour, what the scientific study of behaviour looks like, and how an understanding of animal behaviour is central to our broader understanding of evolution and ecology. Investigating behaviour from its underlying physiology through to its historic and present-day adaptive function is often key to deciphering why animals do what they do. The science of animal behaviour sits at the nexus of diverse biological fields and has something for everyone. |
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| 2 | Understanding Neuroethology |
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| | Discover which neurological and sensory pathways shape how animals perceive and interact with the world, and the way those pathways are formed by natural selection. These same neurological and sensory pathways are also targeted by exploiters, who themselves can help scientists understand the inner workings of animal minds. Animal instinct, it’s a thing! Ants are hardcore mathematicians. And it’s true, zombies are real. Neuroethology will push the boundaries of what you think possible in nature. |
| 3 | Understanding Learning & Cognition |
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| | Discover how learning works and why learning is adaptive. From bees to chimpanzees, an animal’s capacity to change its behaviour through experience and by processing complex information will confront your notions of what ‘smart’ looks like. Animals count, recall past events, teach solutions to other animals, and make tools in their day-to-day activities in a way previously thought to be exclusive to humans, all because of the outcome of natural selection. |
| 4 | Understanding Communication | | PDF | ebook |
| | Discover why animals communicate with one another, what influences how and when animals communicate, and what’s even considered to be communication in the first place (it’s not straightforward!). Regardless of the sensory modality animals rely on - sound, sight, smell, touch or even electric - and regardless of the species of animal - mammal, bird, lizard, fish, frog, insect - there are common principles operating on all forms of communication. |
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| 5 | Understanding Finding A Mate |
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| | Discover why the interests of females often deviate from the interests of males, and how this conflict explains much of the behaviour and appearances of animals in nature. Finding a mate and producing offspring that in turn survive and reproduce themselves lies at the heart of much of what animals do. With a basic understanding of the reproductive physiology of females and males, it is possible to explain the evolutionary origins of the mating behaviours exhibited by many animals, including us! |
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| 6 | Understanding Conflict |
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| | Discover the causes and consequences of conflict—among rivals, between the sexes and even within the family—and how conflict explains the way animals look and behave, including us. What is the true reason giraffes have long necks? Why are the sexes so often at odds when they must cooperate to reproduce? How does the tension between parent and offspring originate? Look through the lens of evolution for relationship and parenting tips trialled over millions of years. |
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| 7 | Understanding Social behaviour |
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| | Discover why animals form groups or cooperate, and what the adaptive value of being social might be. What exactly is social behaviour, anyway? We might think of it as seeking out the company of others, but sociality in nature is broader and more interesting than just that. It involves being tolerant, actively choosing to form groups, and working together, but also social policing and dominance hierarchies. Being social can take some surprising turns as well, and seem more selfish than selfless. |
| 8 | Understanding Finding A Home |
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| | Discover how animals make decisions about where to live and when to move. Explore some of the amazing architectures animals create as their homes, and the millions of years natural selection has honed their design. The behaviour associated with selecting a habitat, and why some individuals settle where they do, can explain broader patterns of animal movement and dispersal, as well as the success of some conservation efforts. For all animals, finding a home is essential for survival and reproduction. |
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| 9 | Understanding Finding Food |
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| | Discover the optimal strategies animals use to find food, and the challenge faced by animals in avoiding being eaten themselves. Many animals have antipredator behaviours that expose them to predators, yet still reduce attack. How does that work? Prey have startle displays that spook predators or show warning colours that advertise unpalatability. The arms-race between predator and prey is adaptive evolution on a knife edge, and the origin of some adaptations has been a vexing mystery to scientists. |
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| 10 | Understanding Origins of Behaviour |
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| | Discover what the behaviour of animals alive millions of years ago was like, how bizarre behaviours we observe in nature today originated, and why reconstructing animal behaviour from the evolutionary past helps us understand the behaviours of animals in the present-day. Investigating the origins of behaviour requires creative detective work that weaves tapestries of evidence from hints revealed by fossils, observing how animals behave today, and the power of statistical inference. |
| Epilogue | Understanding Natural Queer |
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| | Discover the true natural diversity of social behaviour, mating systems and sex identities in the wild. Pairs are not always male and female, and same-sex families are often parenting alongside mixed sex pairs. Some animals form long-term bonds with same-sex partners, sometimes for life. And then there are animals whose adaptive strategy is to transition between female and male, or not even bother with two sexes at all. Queer behaviour is natural, widespread and amazingly diverse in the wild. [Co-authored with Daphne Willemsen, Neve Kelly, Cody Williams and Caitlin Creak] |
