Exploring Animal Behavior: Readings from American Scientist - Softcover

Published by Sinauer Associates, an imprint of Oxford University Press.

This anthology contains 37 articles published since 1974 in American Scientist, the journal of the scientific society Sigma Xi. While sequenced particularly to complement John Alcock's Animal Behavior, this readily comprehensible and richly illustrated reader can stand alone as a sampler of the excitement and diversity of research approaches and organisms that constitute the modern study of animal behavior.

Paul W. Sherman is Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University, where he teaches courses focusing on Animal Behavior and Darwinian Medicine. He was an undergraduate at Stanford, a graduate student at Michigan, and a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at Berkeley. Dr. Sherman has published or edited seven books and 195 papers and book chapters. His research has contributed to scientific understanding in six general areas: altruism and nepotism, kin recognition, eusociality, the evolution of sex, conservation biology (especially the concept of evolutionary traps), and Darwinian medicine (especially the adaptive significance of morning sickness, allergies, spice use, lactose intolerance, and senescence). Dr. Sherman was a Sigma Xi National Lecturer (2004-2006) and was elected a Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society (2004). In 2005, he was appointed an S. H. Weiss Presidential Fellow in recognition of effective, inspiring, and distinguished teaching. John Alcock is Regents' Professor Emeritus of Biology at Arizona State University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University under the direction of Ernst Mayr. His research deals with the behavioral ecology of insect mating systems, with projects that have taken him from Arizona to Costa Rica and Australia. He wrote The Triumph of Sociobiology, (2001) and coauthored The Evolution of Insect Mating Systems, (1983) with Randy Thornhill. Alcock has also written seven other books on animal behavior and natural history for general audiences. One of these―In a Desert Garden, received the Burroughs' Award for natural history writing in 1998. Dr. Alcock also received the Dean's Quality Teaching Award the first year it was given at Arizona State University.