Pheromones and Animal Behaviour : Communication by Smell and Taste

by Wyatt, Tristram D.

• ISBN13: 9780511074219
• ISBN10: 0511074212
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2003-02-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

We are entering one of the most exciting periods in the study of chemical communication since the first pheromones were identified some 40 years ago. This rapid progress is reflected in this book, the first to cover the whole animal kingdom at this level for 25 years. The importance of chemical communication is illustrated with examples from a diverse range of animals including humans, marine copepods, Drosophila, Caenorhabditis elegans, moths, snakes, goldfish, elephants and mice. It is designed to be advanced, but at the same time accessible to readers whatever their scientific background. For students of ecology, evolution and behaviour, this book gives an introduction to the rapid progress in our understanding of olfaction at the molecular and neurological level. In addition, it offers chemists, molecular and neurobiologists an insight into the ecological, evolutionary and behavioural context of olfactory communication.

Table of Contents

Animals in a chemical world

Discovering pheromones

Sex pheromones: finding and choosing mates

Coming together and keeping apart: aggregation and host-marking pheromones

Scent marking and territorial behaviour

Pheromones and social organization

Pheromones and recruitment communication

Fight-or-flight: alarm pheromones

Perception and action of pheromones: from receptor molecules to brains and behaviour

Finding the source: pheromones and orientation behaviour

Breaking the code: illicit signallers and receivers of semiochemical signals

Using pheromones: applications

On the scent of human attraction: human pheromones?

An introduction to pheromones for non-chemists

References

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.