Exploring Animal Behavior in Laboratory and Field: An Hypothesis-testing Approach to the Development, Causation, Function, and Evolution of Animal Behavior

Rating:
Summary: An assemblage of studious, college-level essays
Review: Collaboratively assembled and edited by Bonnie J. Ploger (Hamline University) and Ken Yasukawa (Beloit College), Exploring Animal Behavior In Laboratory And Field is a scholarly compendium offering a variety of diverse approaches to the development, function, and evolution of animal behavior, with contribution each being grounded in the creation and careful testing of scientific hypotheses. An assemblage of studious, college-level essays on select topics ranging from the response of tree squirrels to different types of alarm calls, to human nonverbal communications, to chemoreception in lizards, and a great deal more, Exploring Animal Behavior In Laboratory And Field would make an especially welcome addition to Zoological Studies reference collections and Wildlife Studies reading lists.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource for those teaching behavior labs
Review: This is a fantastic and much-needed book. As a resource for someone setting up a laboratory course in animal behavior, this book is full of excellent ideas, and I would advise anyone to get a copy of this book. The problem with adopting it as a lab book for students is that there are over 30 labs presented here. As many are multiweek projects, the most that could reasonably be done in a semester is 7-10 labs. Anyone who has taught students knows that having them purchase a book ... for which they will only use 1/4 or 1/3 of the chapters is only inviting a tremendous amount of griping. This is my only complaint with this book, which the publisher was pushing as a lab manual for students, instead of a resource for instructors.