Description

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Since the last edition of this definitive textbook was published in 2013, much has happened in the field of animal behavior. In this fourth edition, Lee Alan Dugatkin draws on cutting-edge new work not only to update and expand on the studies presented, but also to reinforce the previous editions’ focus on ultimate and proximate causation, as well as the book’s unique emphasis on natural selection, learning, and cultural transmission. The result is a state-of-the-art textbook on animal behavior that explains underlying concepts in a way that is both scientifically rigorous and accessible to students. Each chapter in the book provides a sound theoretical and conceptual basis upon which the empirical studies rest. A completely new feature in this edition are the Cognitive Connection boxes in Chapters 2–17, designed to dig deep into the importance of the cognitive underpinnings to many types of behaviors. Each box focuses on a specific issue related to cognition and the particular topic covered in that chapter.

As Principles of Animal Behavior makes clear, the tapestry of animal behavior is created from weaving all of these components into a beautiful whole. With Dugatkin’s exquisitely illustrated, comprehensive, and up-to-date fourth edition, we are able to admire that beauty anew.

About the Author

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Lee Alan Dugatkin is an animal behaviorist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science in the Department of Biology at the University of Louisville. He is the author of more than one hundred and fifty papers and the author or coauthor of many books, including The Altruism Equation: Seven Scientists Search for the Origins of Goodness.

Praise For…

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“Up-to-date, highly integrative, and richly illustrated. It thus merits serious consideration by anyone looking for a textbook to support undergraduate offerings in animal behavior or behavioral ecology. . . . Principles of Animal Behavior is comprehensive and readable, summarizing not only what is well documented but more importantly where integrated understanding is lacking, and thus where further research will prove most profitable.”
— Animal Behaviour, on the first edition

“The book reveals a richly illustrated panoramic view of animal behavior and, where it can, it also provides examples of the physiological, neurobiological, and molecular genetic mechanisms that may underlie it. . . . Dugatkin’s text . . . can be enjoyed by anyone who has an interest in the beauty of animal behavior. . . . Excellent.”
— Times Higher Education, on the second edition

"Dugatkin offers a highly readable overview of the modern field of animal behavior, keeping up with the exponential growth over the last few decades. Instead of the usual choice between inborn and learned behavior, this book offers the reader with a fully integrated view."
— Frans de Waal, Emory University

"This is an up-to-date text that shows not only how theory and empirical data are combined, but how they are derived on the ground."
— Bernd Heinrich, University of Vermont