Predator Prey Interactions Co Evolution Between Bats And Their Prey

This book provides a comprehensive review of the evolution of traits associated with predation and predator defense for bats and all of their prey, both invertebrates (e.g. insects) and vertebrates (e.g. frogs), in the context of co-evolution. It reviews current knowledge of how echolocation and passive hearing are used by bats to hunt prey in complete darkness. Also it highlights how prey have evolved counter measures to bat echolocation to avoid detection and capture. This includes the whole range of prey responses from being active at times when bats are inactive to the use of acoustic signals of their own to interfere with the echolocation system of bats.

This book addresses the fundamental issues of predator-prey interactions, with an emphasis on predation among arthropods, which have been better studied, and for which the database is more extensive than for the large and rare vertebrate predators. The book should appeal to ecologists interested in the broad issue of predation effects on communities.

The Springer Handbook of Auditory Research presents a series of compre hensive and synthetic reviews of the fundamental topics in modern auditory research. The volumes are aimed at all individuals with interests in hearing research, including advanced graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and clinical investigators. The volumes are intended to introduce new in vestigators to important aspects of hearing science and to help established investigators to better understand the fundamental theories and data in fields of hearing that they may not normally follow closely. Each volume is intended to present a particular topic comprehensively, and each chapter serves as a synthetic overview and guide to the literature. As such, the chapters present neither exhaustive data reviews nor original research that has not yet appeared in peer-reviewed journals. The volumes focus on topics that have developed a solid data and conceptual foundation, rather than on those for which a literature is only beginning to develop. New research areas will be covered on a timely basis in the series as they begin to mature.

Bats have a poor image for the public at large because they are often feared. This is usually due to ignorance. In this book, we have eight chapters on bats covering countries such as Algeria, Bulgaria, France, Pakistan, Poland, the UK and the USA and subjects ranging from acoustic monitoring of bat species for distribution and conservation purposes to various bat-borne and bat-carried diseases. These diseases cannot be taken lightly but should not be a reason for panic or to fear or even kill bats. Bats will not cause any harm if we let them live in peace. With the added knowledge through this book, we should know how best to cope with bats, which need all our support in the changing environments and climates.

This book addresses the fundamental issues of predator-prey interactions, with an emphasis on predation among arthropods, which have been better studied, and for which the database is more extensive than for the large and rare vertebrate predators. The book should appeal to ecologists interested in the broad issue of predation effects on communities.

Can we can use the patterns and processes of convergent evolution to make inferences about universal laws of life, on Earth and elsewhere? In this book, Russell Powell investigates whether we can use the patterns and processes of convergent evolution to make inferences about universal laws of life, on Earth and elsewhere. Weaving together disparate philosophical and empirical threads, Powell offers the first detailed analysis of the interplay between contingency and convergence in macroevolution, as it relates to both complex life in general and cognitively complex life in particular. If the evolution of mind is not a historical accident, the product of convergence rather than contingency, then, Powell asks, is mind likely to be an evolutionarily important feature of any living world? Stephen Jay Gould argued for the primacy of contingency in evolution. Gould's “radical contingency thesis” (RCT) has been challenged, but critics have largely failed to engage with its core claims and theoretical commitments. Powell fills this gap. He first examines convergent regularities at both temporal and phylogenetic depths, finding evidence that both vindicates and rebuffs Gould's argument for contingency. Powell follows this partial defense of the RCT with a substantive critique. Among the evolutionary outcomes that might defy the RCT, he argues, cognition is particularly important—not only for human-specific issues of the evolution of intelligence and consciousness but also for the large-scale ecological organization of macroscopic living worlds. Turning his attention to complex cognitive life, Powell considers what patterns of cognitive convergence tell us about the nature of mind, its evolution, and its place in the universe. If complex bodies are common in the universe, might complex minds be common as well?

What does God's creation of humanity through the process of evolution mean for human flourishing? The emerging field of evolutionary psychology remains controversial, perhaps especially among Christians. Yet according to Justin Barrett and Pamela Ebstyne King it can be a powerful tool for understanding human nature and our distinctively human purpose. Thriving with Stone Age Minds provides an introduction to evolutionary psychology, explaining key concepts like hyper-sociality, information gathering, and self-control. Combining insights from evolutionary psychology with resources from the Bible and Christian theology, Barrett and King focus fresh attention on the question, What is human flourishing? When we understand how humans still bear the marks of our evolutionary past, new light shines on some of the most puzzling features of our minds, relationships, and behaviors. One key insight of evolutionary psychology is how humans both adapt to and then alter our environments, or "niches." In fact, we change our world faster than our minds can adapt—and then gaps in our "fitness" emerge. In effect, humans are now attempting to thrive in modern contexts with Stone Age minds. By integrating scientific evidence with wisdom from theological anthropology, we can learn to close up nature-niche gaps and thrive, becoming more what God has created us to be. BioLogos Books on Science and Christianity invite us to see the harmony between the sciences and biblical faith on issues including cosmology, biology, paleontology, evolution, human origins, the environment, and more.

“It is not only the species that change evolutionarily through interactions . . . the interactions themselves also change.” Thus states John N. Thompson in the foreword to Interaction and Coevolution, the first title in his series of books exploring the relentless nature of evolution and the processes that shape the web of life. Originally published in 1982 more as an idea piece—an early attempt to synthesize then academically distinct but logically linked strands of ecological thought and to suggest avenues for further research—than as a data-driven monograph, Interaction and Coevolution would go on to be considered a landmark study that pointed to the beginning of a new discipline. Through chapters on antagonism, mutualism, and the effects of these interactions on populations, speciation, and community structure, Thompson seeks to explain not only how interactions differ in the selection pressures they exert on species, but also when interactions are most likely to lead to coevolution. In this era of climate change and swiftly transforming environments, the ideas Thompson puts forward in Interaction and Coevolution are more relevant than ever before.