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Thoroughly revised and updated, Mammals of Colorado, Second Edition is a comprehensive reference on the nine orders and 128 species of Colorado's recent native fauna, detailing each species' description, habitat, distribution, population ecology, diet and foraging, predators and parasites, behavior, reproduction and development, and population status. An introductory chapter on Colorado's environments, a discussion of the development of the fauna over geologic time, and a brief history of human knowledge of Coloradan mammals provide ecological and evolutionary context. The most recent records of the state's diverse species, rich illustrations (including detailed maps, skull drawings, and photographs), and an extensive bibliography make this book a must-have reference. Amateur and professional naturalists, students, vertebrate biologists, and ecologists as well as those involved in conservation and wildlife management in Colorado will find value in this comprehensive volume. Co-published with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Mathematical modeling is critical to our understanding of how infectious diseases spread at the individual and population levels. This book gives readers the necessary skills to correctly formulate and analyze mathematical models in infectious disease epidemiology, and is the first treatment of the subject to integrate deterministic and stochastic models and methods. Mathematical Tools for Understanding Infectious Disease Dynamicsfully explains how to translate biological assumptions into mathematics to construct useful and consistent models, and how to use the biological interpretation and mathematical reasoning to analyze these models. It shows how to relate models to data through statistical inference, and how to gain important insights into infectious disease dynamics by translating mathematical results back to biology. This comprehensive and accessible book also features numerous detailed exercises throughout; full elaborations to all exercises are provided. Covers the latest research in mathematical modeling of infectious disease epidemiologyIntegrates deterministic and stochastic approachesTeaches skills in model construction, analysis, inference, and interpretationFeatures numerous exercises and their detailed elaborationsMotivated by real-world applications throughout

A narrative guide to help scientists improve their collaboration techniques and build trusting relationships with their research teams.The days of scientists conducting solitary inquiries in isolated labs are effectively over, with most researchers instead collaborating in cross-functional teams. In addition to mastering the technical skills necessary in their respective fields, scientists must now learn strategies for better communication and relationship building to succeed in reaching increasingly sophisticated and interdisciplinary research goals. In Scientific Collaboration, biosecurity researcher and animal disease ecologist Jeanne M. Fair shares exciting—and occasionally cringeworthy—stories of scientists working together as an approachable way to introduce and explain the principles crucial to effective scientific collaboration. From the global community of scientists measuring sea ice decline to cooperative private-public sector investigations of harrowing virus outbreaks, the real-life experiences provide examples of and insights into how scientists rise to meet challenges together. Fair highlights principles for fostering community, integrity, loyalty, communication, and compassion among teams. Scientists can adopt and apply these principles to research collaborations to improve communication and trust among their team members all while working toward the common goal of discovery. Covering multidisciplinary research teams that have led to transformational breakthroughs as well as stories of hurdles and tough lessons learned, Scientific Collaboration provides a foundation for increasing research productivity while bringing more fun and joy into the collaborative process. This book will appeal to any scientists and team leaders who need to function in this new scientific world, wherein the most important breakthroughs happen through cooperation, combined effort, and mutual trust.

Asymmetry of the brain and behaviour (lateralization) has traditionally been considered unique to humans. However, research has shown that this phenomenon is widespread throughout the vertebrate kingdom and found even in some invertebrate species. A similar basic plan of organisation exists across vertebrates. Summarising the evidence and highlighting research from the last twenty years, the authors discuss lateralization from four perspectives - function, evolution, development and causation - covering a wide range of animals, including humans. The evolution of lateralization is traced from our earliest ancestors, through fish and reptiles to birds and mammals. The benefits of having a divided brain are discussed, as well as the influence of experience on its development. A final chapter discusses outstanding problems and areas for further investigation. Experts in this field, the authors present the latest scientific knowledge clearly and engagingly, making this a valuable tool for anyone interested in the biology and behaviour of brain asymmetries.

Life in Stone is the first book to focus on British Columbia's fossils. Each of its chapters is written by a specialist for a general audience, and each is devoted to a separate fossil group that is particularly well represented in the province. Richly illustrated with photographs and drawings, Life in Stone will provide fascinating reading for anyone interested in learning more about the animals and plants that inhabited British Columbia during prehistoric times.

The authors recount twelve millennia of history along the lower San Juan River, much of it the story of mostly unsuccessful human attempts to make a living from the river's arid and fickle environment. From the Anasazi to government dam builders, from Navajo to Mormon herders and farmers, from scientific explorers to busted miners, the San Juan has attracted more attention and fueled more hopes than such a remote, unpromising, and muddy stream would seem to merit.

This book is a comprehensive guide to the natural history of the North Slope, the only arctic tundra in the United States. The first section provides detailed information on climate, geology, landforms, and ecology. The second provides a guide to the identification and natural history of the common animals and plants and a primer on the human prehistory of the region from the Pleistocene through the mid-twentieth century. The appendix provides the framework for a tour of the natural history features along the Dalton Highway, a road connecting the crest of the Brooks Range with Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean, and includes mile markers where travelers may safely pull off to view geologic formations, plants, birds, mammals, and fish. Featuring hundreds of illustrations that support the clear, authoritative text, Land of Extremes reveals the arctic tundra as an ecosystem teeming with life.

From the introduction: \"Standing at the threshold of modern times, Francis Bacon saw in experimental science and technological innovation the keys to humanity's future. Human history to that point, he thought, was an endlessly repeated cycle of despair and false hopes. The false hopes were fed by the old illusion that a few cheap tricks and the right magical formulas would unlock nature's treasury where unlimited wealth and power lay. The despair arose from humanity's seeming inability to escape from subjection to the natural forces that periodically visited famine, disease, pestilence, and destruction upon it.\"

The modern research university originated in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, largely due to the creation and expansion of the teaching and research laboratory. The universities and the sciences underwent a laboratory revolution that fundamentally changed the nature of both. This revolutionary development began in chemistry, where Justus Liebig is credited with systematically employing his students in his ongoing research during the 1830s. Later, this development spread to other fields, including the social sciences and the humanities. The consequences for the universities were colossal. The expansion of the laboratories demanded extensive new building programs, reshaping the outlook of the university. The social structure of the university also diversified because of this laboratory expansion, while what it meant to be a scientist changed dramatically. This volume explores the spatial, social, and cultural dimensions of the rise of the modern research laboratory within universities and their consequent reshaping.

Fish travel in schools, birds migrate in flocks, honeybees swarm, and ants build trails. How and why do these collective behaviors occur? Exploring how coordinated group patterns emerge from individual interactions,Collective Animal Behaviorreveals why animals produce group behaviors and examines their evolution across a range of species. Providing a synthesis of mathematical modeling, theoretical biology, and experimental work, David Sumpter investigates how animals move and arrive together, how they transfer information, how they make decisions and synchronize their activities, and how they build collective structures. Sumpter constructs a unified appreciation of how different group-living species coordinate their behaviors and why natural selection has produced these groups. For the first time, the book combines traditional approaches to behavioral ecology with ideas about self-organization and complex systems from physics and mathematics. Sumpter offers a guide for working with key models in this area along with case studies of their application, and he shows how ideas about animal behavior can be applied to understanding human social behavior. Containing a wealth of accessible examples as well as qualitative and quantitative features,Collective Animal Behaviorwill interest behavioral ecologists and all scientists studying complex systems.