Scott Creel, Nancy Marusha Creel

The African Wild Dog

Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

With only 5,000 surviving, the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) is one of the world's most endangered large carnivores--and one of the most remarkable. This comprehensive portrait of wild dogs incorporates previously scattered information with important new findings from a six-year study in Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve, Africa's largest protected area. The book emphasizes ecology, concentrating on why wild dogs fare poorly in protected areas that maintain healthy populations of lions, hyenas, or other top carnivores. In addition to conservation issues, it covers fascinating aspects of wild dog behavior and social evolution. The Creels use demographic, behavioral, endocrine, and genetic approaches to examine how and why nonbreeding pack mates help breeding pairs raise their litters. They also present the largest data set ever collected on mammalian predator-prey interactions and the evolution of cooperative hunting, allowing them to account for wild dogs' prowess as hunters. By using a large sample size and sophisticated analytical tools, the authors step well beyond previous research. Their results include some surprises that will cause even specialists to rethink certain propositions, such as the idea that wild dogs are unusually vulnerable to infectious disease. Several findings apply broadly to the management of other protected areas. Of clear appeal to ecologists studying predation and cooperation in any population, this book collects and expands a cache of information useful to anyone studying conservation as well as to amateurs intrigued by the once-maligned but extraordinary wild dog.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Seitenzahl: 356
• Erscheinungstermin: 9. Juni 2002
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 156mm x 20mm
• Gewicht: 541g
• ISBN-13: 9780691016542
• ISBN-10: 0691016542
• Artikelnr.: 21836340

Autorenporträt

Scott Creel & Nancy Marusha Creel

Inhaltsangabe

Preface xi
Chapter 1: History and Natural History 1
1.1 Taxonomy and Phylogeny 3
1.2 Social Organization 4
1.3 Ecology 7
1.4 Conservation Issues 7
1.5 Issues Addressed by the Research and Organization of the Book 11
Chapter 2: The Selous, the Study Population, and General Methods 15
2.1 The Selous Game Reserve 15
2.2 The Study Area and Population 23
2.3 General Methods 25
Chapter 3: Home Ranges and Habitat Selection 36
3.1 Specific Methods 36
3.2 Description of Home Ranges 39
3.3 Exclusive Areas, Overlaps and Territorial Defense 41
3.4 Den Locations and Characteristics 50
3.5 Pack Size and Range Size 51
3.6 Habitat Selection 52
3.7 Effect of Prey Distribution on Habitat Selection and Home Range
Properties 55
3.8 Comparison with Other Wild Dog Populations 59
3.9 Summary 65
Chapter 4: Cooperative Hunting and the Evolution of Sociality 67
4.1 Specific Methods 69
4.2 Hunting and Foraging Success 73
4.3 Prey Selection and Hunting Success 74
4.4 Cooperative Hunting Behavior 76
4.5 Characteristics of Kill Sites 84
4.6 Quantitative Effects of Pack Size on Hunting Benefits and Costs 84
4.7 Optimal Hunting Pack Size 88
4.8 Net Rate of Food Intake vs. Efficiency 89
4.9 Effects of Group Size Unrelated to Hunting 95
4.10 Variance in Foraging Success 96
4.11 Other Wild Dog Populations 97
4.12 Communal Hunting and Group Size: Comparisons with Other Species 98
Chapter 5: Prey Selection 103
5.1 Prey Availability and Encounter Rates 105
5.2 Encounters and Hunts 109
5.3 Hunts and Kills 111
5.4 Combined Effects of Encounter, Hunting, and Killing Probabilities on
Prey Selection 112
5.5 Quantitative Models of Prey Selection 114
5.6 Summary 122
Chapter 6: Ungulate Herd Sizes and the Risk of Predation by Wild Dogs 124
6.1 Probability of Being Encountered 126
6.2 The Probability of Being Hunted upon Encounter 130
6.3 Hunting Success 130
6.4 Kills per Encounter, Dilution of Risk, and Combined Measures of
Vulnerability 133
Chapter 7: Demography-Survival and Reproduction 145
7.1 Survival Rates 145
7.2 Reproduction 159
7.3 Density Dependence 173
7.4 Genetic Effective Population Size 175
7.5 Demographic Effective Population Size 176
Chapter 8: Dispersal 179
8.1 Defining Dispersal in Social Carnivores 181
8.2 Number and Size of Dispersing Groups 184
8.3 Rates of Dispersal 184
8.4 Size of Dispersing Groups 184
8.5 Linear Dispersal Distance 186
8.6 The Duration and Circumstances of Floating 187
8.7 Comparison with Dispersal in Other Wild Dog Populations 190
8.8 Mortality Risk of Dispersal 191
8.9 Dispersal and Escape from Reproductive Suppression 194
8.10 Dispersal and Escape from Inbreeding 195
8.11 Integrating Forces that Drive Dispersal 200
Chapter 9: Reproductive Suppression, Social Stress, and the Behavioral and
Endocrine Correlates of Rank 201
9.1 Are Dominants More Aggressive? 205
9.2 Do Dominants Mate More Often or More Effectively? 207
9.3 Do Hormonal Differences Accompany Behavioral Differences? 210
9.4 Nonbreeder Lactation 214
9.5 Does Social Stress Mediate Reproductive Suppression of Subordinates?
215
9.6 How Effective Is Reproductive Suppression of Subordinates? 216
9.7 Similarities and Differences between the Sexes in the Correlates of
Rank 217
9.8 Interspecific Comparisons 218
9.9 Dominance and Stress 218
9.10 Do the Correlates of Rank Relate to Dispersal and Social Organization?
222
Chapter 10: Patterns of Relatedness and the Fitness Consequences of
Dispersal, Philopatry, and Reproductive Suppression 223
10.1 Age-specific Relatedness of Natal and Immigrant Subordinates to
Breeders 226
10.2 Inclusive Fitness of Nondispersers 231
10.3 Inclusive Fitness of Dispersers 238
10.4 Incomplete Reproductive Suppression: Breeding by Subordinates 240
Chapter 11: Interspecific Competition with Larger Carnivores 245
11.1 Specific Methods 246
11.2 Carnivore Densities and Distributions in Selous 248
11.3 Correlations between Species Densities 253
11.4 Diet Overlap 257
11.5 Direct Competition at Kills 259
11.6 Interactions Away from Kills 263
11.7 Impact of Interspecific Competition 265
11.8 Adaptations to Interspecific Competition 266
Chapter 12: Infectious Diseases 269
12.1 Canine Distemper Virus 271
12.2 Rabies Virus 274
12.3 Anthrax 277
12.4 Canine Parvovirus 279
12.5 Other Pathogens 281
12.6 Behavior and Epidemiology 284
12.7 Impact of Diseases on Population Dynamics and Density 286
Chapter 13: Extinction Risk and Conservation 288
13.1 Analysis of Extinction Risk with Leslie Matrix Projections 290
13.2 Stochastic Individual-Based Modeling of Extinction Risk 295
13.3 Sensitivity Analysis and Results 298
13.4 Summary and Recommendations 308
References 311
Index 339

Rezensionen

This book is essential for anyone interested in the behavior and conservation of large carnivores. The advanced statistical techniques and in-depth discussions of dispersal, hunting, and sociality should be of interest to most behavioral ecologists, and the smooth integration of behavioral observations and analytical conservation biology serves as a model for future studies of endangered species.