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Southern California bas experienced rapid human population growth during the past 50 years. As housing continues to encroach into and abut previously undeveloped areas containing wildlife communities, conflicts between homeowners and predators have become common. Traditional methods of control (removal) of problem animals are often infeasible due to legislative constraints, local ordinances, public opinion, and environmental considerations. This necessitates developing alternative approaches to facilitate coexistence and diminish the opportunities for negative interactions. In the Defensible Space program, people are educated about local wildlife and provided animal behavior-based methods to respond to animal incursions. Though the system is not always 100% effective, it has diminished the overall number of complaints received and reduced most of the remaining complaints from panic-based to knowledge-based.

An analysis of environmental conservation and justice issues using the dynamical systems theory of groups suggests that the perception of common fate between various inhabitants of an ecosystem should be critical in extending personal self-interest to encompass ecological concerns. Analysis of 124 newspaper articles on the Key Deer Wildlife Refuge in Florida showed few depictions of common fate between humans and other species, little attention to long-term considerations, and a focus on surface threats to endangered species with "facts" disputed by developers and environ-mentalists. In a second study, only 30% of Big Pine residents described plant or animal species as part of the beauty and uniqueness of the island. Residents approved of the island's rural lifestyle and liked the deer, but neither factor predicted support for slowing the pace of development. The degree to which residents perceived common fate between themselves and the deer was a reliable predictor of all general and specific policy preferences. The growth of environmental conservation is discussed in the context of how groups and social identities are constructed and reflected in communities and society.

Laying foundations for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of evolution in communication systems with tools from evolutionary biology, linguistics, animal behavior, developmental psychology, philosophy, cognitive sciences, robotics, and neural network modeling.The search for origins of communication in a wide variety of species including humans is rapidly becoming a thoroughly interdisciplinary enterprise. In this volume, scientists engaged in the fields of evolutionary biology, linguistics, animal behavior, developmental psychology, philosophy, the cognitive sciences, robotics, and neural network modeling come together to explore a comparative approach to the evolution of communication systems. The comparisons range from parrot talk to squid skin displays, from human language to Aibo the robot dog's language learning, and from monkey babbling to the newborn human infant cry. The authors explore the mysterious circumstances surrounding the emergence of human language, which they propose to be intricately connected with drastic changes in human lifestyle. While it is not yet clear what the physical environmental circumstances were that fostered social changes in the hominid line, the volume offers converging evidence and theory from several lines of research suggesting that language depended upon the restructuring of ancient human social groups. The volume also offers new theoretical treatments of both primitive communication systems and human language, providing new perspectives on how to recognize both their similarities and their differences. Explorations of new technologies in robotics, neural network modeling and pattern recognition offer many opportunities to simulate and evaluate theoretical proposals. The North American and European scientists who have contributed to this volume represent a vanguard of thinking about how humanity came to have the capacity for language and how nonhumans provide a background of remarkable capabilities that help clarify the foundations of speech.

International audience Animal behavior is often altruistic. In the frame of the theory of natural selection, altruism can only exist under specific conditions like kin selection or reciprocal cooperation. We show that reciprocal cooperation, which is generally invoked to explain non-kin altruism, requires very restrictive conditions to be stable. Some of these conditions are not met in many cases of altruism observed in nature. In search of another explanation of non-kin altruism, we consider Zahavis's theory of prestige. We extend it to propose a 'political' model of altruism. We give evidence showing that non-kin altruism can evolve in the context of inter-subgroup competition. Under such circumstances, altruistic behavior can be used by individuals to advertise their quality as efficient coalition members. In this model, only abilities which positively correlate with the subgroup success can evolve into altruistic behaviors. ; jld-99091402

This article gives an overview of Facet Theory, a systematic approach to facilitating theory construction, research design, and data analysis for complex studies, that is particularly appropriate to the behavioral and social sciences. Facet Theory is based on (1) a definitional framework for a universe of observations in the area of study; (2) empirical structures of observations within this framework; (3) a search for correspondence between the definitional system and aspects of the empirical structure for the observations. The development of Facet Theory and Facet Design is reviewed from early scale analysis and the Guttman Scale, leading to the concepts of "mapping sentence," "universe of content," "common range," "content facets," and nonmetric multidimensional methods of data analysis. In Facet Theory, the definition of the behavioral domain provides a rationale for hypothesizing structural relationships among variables employed in a study. Examples are presented from various areas of research (intelligence, infant development, animal behavior, etc.) to illustrate the methods and results of structural analysis with Smallest Space Analysis (SSA), Multidimensional Scalogram Analysis (MSA), and Partial Order Scalogram Analysis (POSA). The "radex" and "cylindrex" of intelligence tests are shown to be outstanding examples of predicted spatial configurations that have demonstrated the ubiquitous emergence of the same empirical structures in different studies. Further examples are given from studies of spatial abilities, infant development, animal behavior, and others. The use of Facet Theory, with careful construction of theory and design, is shown to provide new insights into existing data; it allows for the diagnosis and discrimination of behavioral traits and makes the generalizability and replication of findings possible, which in turn makes possible the discovery of lawfulness. Achievements, issues, and future challenges of Facet Theory are discussed.

jld-99091402 ; International audience ; Animal behavior is often altruistic. In the frame of the theory of natural selection, altruism can only exist under specific conditions like kin selection or reciprocal cooperation. We show that reciprocal cooperation, which is generally invoked to explain non-kin altruism, requires very restrictive conditions to be stable. Some of these conditions are not met in many cases of altruism observed in nature. In search of another explanation of non-kin altruism, we consider Zahavis's theory of prestige. We extend it to propose a 'political' model of altruism. We give evidence showing that non-kin altruism can evolve in the context of inter-subgroup competition. Under such circumstances, altruistic behavior can be used by individuals to advertise their quality as efficient coalition members. In this model, only abilities which positively correlate with the subgroup success can evolve into altruistic behaviors.

Aggression and competition are customarily presented as the natural state of affairs in both human society and the animal kingdom. Yet, as this book shows, our species relies heavily on cooperation for survival as do many others-from wolves and dolphins to monkeys and apes. A distinguished group of fifty-two authors, including many of the world's leading experts on human and animal behavior, review evidence from multiple disciplines on natural conflict resolution, making the case that reconciliation and compromise are as much a part of our heritage as is waging war. Chimpanzees kiss and embrace after a fight. Children will appeal to fairness when fighting over a toy. Spotted hyenas, usually thought to be a particularly aggressive species, use reconciliation to restore damaged relationships. As these studies show, there are sound evolutionary reasons for these peacekeeping tendencies. This book also addresses the cultural, ecological, cognitive, emotional, and moral perspectives of conflict resolution

An examination of the impact of narratives of downed flyers (DFs) & US & British prisoners of war (POWs) stranded behind Soviet lines in 1945 maintains that the complex encounters of these men were reduced to simpler narratives that advanced a moral used to emphasize the Russians' poor behavior. The focus is on the causal relation between DF/POW narratives, interpretations of those narratives, & foreign policy decisions. The effect of stories about food, shelter, & comfort given to the stranded men by Poles who were hoping for intervention from the US & GB is discussed, along with how the emotional investment of men like US Ambassador to the USSR Averell Harriman sharpened disputes over the Yalta accords; how the assumptions & emotional tone of interpretations of the POW/DF issue held by top-level officials contrasted with the tone of statistical analyses by mid-level US Army officials; & the effect of these assumptions on disputes over such things as rescuing POWs in Poland. The usefulness of political/cultural documents for writing foreign relations history is discussed. J. Lindroth

The foraging behaviour of the yellow-bellied glider was observed for more than 3 years in south-eastern
New South Wales. The use of different substrates by foraging gliders followed an annual cycle which
was correlated with the phenological pattern in the forest. Flowering and bark shedding on eucalypts
were the characters of tree phenology most useful for predicting the behaviour of foraging animals.
Gliders concentrated their foraging efforts on ephemeral food resources, particularly those obtained
from under loose bark; this led to a seasonal pattern in the use of tree species and habitats in the study
area. The preferred habitat of P. australis is likely to be characterised by a mosaic of tree-species
associations, including those which flower in winter. Smooth-barked eucalypts are important because
of the diversity of foraging substrates, and hence food resources, which they provide. The patchy
distribution of these gliders may be explained by differences in floristic diversity and the complexity of
the habitat mosaic.

This innovative book challenges the perceived view, based largely on long observation of artificially-fed chimpanzees in Gombe and Mahale National Parks, Tanzania, of the typical social behaviour of chimpanzees as aggressive, dominance seeking, and fiercely territorial. In polar opposition, all reports from naturalistic (non-feeding) field studies are of non-aggressive chimpanzees living peacefully in non-hierarchical groups, on home ranges open to all. These reports have been ignored and downgraded by most of the scientific community. By utilising the data from these studies the author is able to construct a model of an egalitarian form of social organisation, based on a fluid role relationship of mutual dependence between many charismatic chimpanzees of both sexes and other more dependent members. This highly and necessarily positive mutual dependence system is characteristic of both (undisturbed) chimpanzees and (undisturbed) humans who live by the 'immediate-return' foraging system