Search results for ""Author Luigi Boitani""

Wolves are some of the world's most charismatic and controversial animals, capturing the imaginations of their friends and foes alike. Highly intelligent and adaptable, they hunt and play together in close-knit packs, sometimes roaming over hundreds of square miles in search of food. Once teetering on the brink of extinction across much of the United States and Europe, wolves have made a tremendous comeback in recent years, thanks to legal protection, changing human attitudes, and efforts to reintroduce them to suitable habitats in North America.As wolf populations have rebounded, scientific studies of them have also flourished. But there hasn't been a systematic, comprehensive overview of wolf biology since 1970. In Wolves, many of the world's leading wolf experts provide state-of-the-art coverage of just about everything you could want to know about these fascinating creatures. Individual chapters cover wolf social ecology, behavior, communication, feeding habits and hunting techniques, population dynamics, physiology and pathology, molecular genetics, evolution and taxonomy, interactions with nonhuman animals such as bears and coyotes, reintroduction, interactions with humans, and conservation and recovery efforts. The book discusses both gray and red wolves in detail and includes information about wolves around the world, from the United States and Canada to Italy, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Israel, India, and Mongolia. Wolves is also extensively illustrated with black and white photos, line drawings, maps, and fifty color plates.Unrivalled in scope and comprehensiveness, Wolves will become the definitive resource on these extraordinary animals for scientists and amateurs alike. “An excellent compilation of current knowledge, with contributions from all the main players in wolf research. . . . It is designed for a wide readership, and certainly the language and style will appeal to both scientists and lucophiles alike. . . . This is an excellent summary of current knowledge and will remain the standard reference work for a long time to come.”—Stephen Harris, New Scientist “This is the place to find almost any fact you want about wolves.”—Stephen Mills, BBC Wildlife Magazine

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The present biodiversity crisis is rife with opportunities to make important conservation decisions; however, the misuse or misapplication of the methods and techniques of animal ecology can have serious consequences for the survival of species. Still, there have been relatively few critical reviews of methodology in the field. This book provides an analysis of some of the most frequently used research techniques in animal ecology, identifying their limitations and misuses, as well as possible solutions to avoid such pitfalls. In the process, contributors to this volume present new perspectives on the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data. Research Techniques in Animal Ecology is an overarching account of central theoretical and methodological controversies in the field, rather than a handbook on the minutiae of techniques. The editors have forged comprehensive presentations of key topics in animal ecology, such as territory and home range estimates, habitation evaluation, population viability analysis, GIS mapping, and measuring the dynamics of societies. Striking a careful balance, each chapter begins by assessing the shortcomings and misapplications of the techniques in question, followed by a thorough review of the current literature, and concluding with possible solutions and suggested guidelines for more robust investigations.

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Camera trapping is a powerful and now widely used tool in scientific research on wildlife ecology and management. It provides a unique opportunity for collecting knowledge, investigating the presence of animals, or recording and studying behaviour. Its visual nature makes it easy to successfully convey findings to a wide audience. This book provides a much-needed guide to the sound use of camera trapping for the most common ecological applications to wildlife research. Each phase involved in the use of camera trapping is covered: - Selecting the right camera type - Set-up and field deployment of your camera trap - Defining the sampling design: presence/absence, species inventory, abundance; occupancy at species level; capture-mark-recapture for density estimation; behavioural studies; community-level analysis - Data storage, management and analysis for your research topic, with illustrative examples for using R and Excel - Using camera trapping for monitoring, conservation and public engagement. Each chapter in this edited volume is essential reading for students, scientists, ecologists, educators and professionals involved in wildlife research or management.

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Camera trapping is a powerful and now widely used tool in scientific research on wildlife ecology and management. It provides a unique opportunity for collecting knowledge, investigating the presence of animals, or recording and studying behaviour. Its visual nature makes it easy to successfully convey findings to a wide audience. This book provides a much-needed guide to the sound use of camera trapping for the most common ecological applications to wildlife research. Each phase involved in the use of camera trapping is covered: - Selecting the right camera type - Set-up and field deployment of your camera trap - Defining the sampling design: presence/absence, species inventory, abundance; occupancy at species level; capture-mark-recapture for density estimation; behavioural studies; community-level analysis - Data storage, management and analysis for your research topic, with illustrative examples for using R and Excel - Using camera trapping for monitoring, conservation and public engagement. Each chapter in this edited volume is essential reading for students, scientists, ecologists, educators and professionals involved in wildlife research or management.

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