Pheromones and Animal Behavior
Chemical Signals and Signatures

This book explains how animals use chemical communication, emphasising the evolutionary context and covering fields from ecology to neuroscience and chemistry.

Tristram D. Wyatt (Author)

9780521112901, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 January 2014

424 pages, 151 b/w illus. 10 tables
24.6 x 18.5 x 2.5 cm, 1.04 kg

Review of the first edition: 'It would be hard to overstate the importance of this book for its contribution to the understanding of animal behavior.' Human Nature Review

Pheromones and other kinds of chemical communication underlie the behavior of all animals. Building on the strengths of the first edition, widely recognized as the leading text in the subject, this is a comprehensive overview of how pheromones work. Extensively revised and expanded to cover advances made over the last ten years, the book offers a thorough exploration of the evolutionary and behavioral contexts of chemical communication along with a detailed introduction to the molecular and neural basis of signal perception through olfaction. At a time of ever increasing specialization, Wyatt offers a unique synthesis, integrating examples across the animal kingdom. A final chapter critically considers human pheromones and the importance of olfaction to human biology. Its breadth of coverage and readability make the book an unrivaled resource for students and researchers in a range of fields from chemistry, genetics, genomics, molecular biology and neuroscience to ecology, evolution and behavior.

Preface
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
List of SI prefixes
1. Animals in a chemical world
2. Methods for identifying and studying semiochemicals
3. Pheromones, chemical cues and sexual selection
4. Coming together and keeping apart: aggregation pheromones and host-marking pheromones
5. Territorial behavior, pheromones and signature mixtures
6. Pheromones and social organization
7. Pheromones and recruitment communication
8. Fight or flight: alarm pheromones and cues
9. Perception and response to chemical communication: from chemosensory receptors to brains, behavior and development
10. Finding the source: pheromones and orientation behavior
11. Breaking the code: illicit signalers and receivers of semiochemicals
12. Using semiochemicals: applications of pheromones and signature mixtures
13. On the scent of human attraction: human pheromones?
Appendix. An introduction to some chemical terms for non-chemists
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Zoology: Mammals [PSVW7], Animal ecology [PSVS], Animal behaviour [PSVP], Animal physiology [PSVD], Zoology & animal sciences [PSV], Social, group or collective psychology [JMH]