Ecology and evolution of cooperative breeding in birds / edited by Walter D. Koenig Janis L. Dickinson.

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Evolutionary origins / J. David Ligon, D. Brent Burt -- Delayed dispersal / Jan Ekman [and others] -- Fitness consequences of helping / Janis L. Dickinson, Ben J. Hatchwell -- Parental care, load-lightening and costs / Robert G. Heinsohn -- Mating systems and sexual conflict / Andrew Cockburn -- Sex-ratio manipulation / Jan Komdeur -- Physiological ecology / Morne A. Du Plessis -- Endocrinology / Steven J. Schoech [and others] -- Incest and incest avoidance / Walter D. Koenig, Joseph Haydock -- Reproductive skew / Robert D. Magrath [and others] -- Joint laying systems / Sandra L. Vehrencamp, James S. Quinn -- Conservation biology / Jeffrey R. Walters [and others] -- Mammals : comparisons and contrasts / Andrew F. Russell -- Summary / Stephen Pruett-Jones.

Cooperative breeders are species in which more than a pair of individuals assist in the production of young. Cooperative breeding is found in only a few hundred bird species world-wide, and understanding this often strikingly altruistic behaviour has remained an important challenge in behavioural ecology for over 30 years. This book highlights the theoretical, empirical and technical advances that have taken place in the field of cooperative breeding research since the publication of the seminal work Cooperative Breeding in Birds: Long-term Studies of Behavior and Ecology (1990, HB ISBN 0521 372984, PB ISBN 0521 378907). Organized conceptually, special attention is given to ways in which cooperative breeders have proved fertile subjects for testing modern advances to classic evolutionary problems including those of sexual selection, sex-ratio manipulation, life-history evolution, partitioning of reproduction and incest avoidance. It will be of interest to both students and researchers interested in behaviour and ecology.