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chapter, by May & Rubenstein, discusses reproductive strategies, beginning with the familiar, and surely outdated, distinction between r and K selection and going on to a survey of the relationships between body size, litter size and the timing of reproductive episodes during an animal's lifetime . In chapter 2, Short continues this theme and examines differences between species in their reproductive biology in terms of adaptation to different environments . Chapter 3, on genetics and reproduction, represents an addition to the ground covered in the corresponding volume of the first edition . R . B . Land reviews the evidence on the relative roles of genetic and environmental factors in determining such reproductive parameters as litter size. He also discusses the genetic basis of reproductive physiology and suggests that considerable physiological advances can be made using genetic differences as a tool . In a particularly lucid chapter, Follett outlines the relationship between the environment and reproduction, beginning with photoperiodism and going on to consider nutrition, rainfall, temperature and social effects . As in certain of the other chapters, quite a lot of the data presented by Follett come from studies of humans . In chapter 5 . Keverne has the somewhat daunting task of reviewing reproductive behaviour . In fact, apart from short opening sections on parental investment theory and mating systems, he limits his discussion to the influence of hormones on sexual and parental behaviour . Chapter 6, by Alexander & Anderson, provides a fascinating discussion of immunological factors in reproduction . Successful reproduction requires that mammals modify their considerable abilities to protect themselves from foreign cells ; not only are sperm and the fetus alien to the mammalian mother, but so also might her own ova be categorized as 'non-self' by her immune system and destroyed . Infertility can result from a failure of the reproductive and immune systems to interact with one another correctly . In the final chapter, on reproductive senescence, Adams reviews the effects of ageing on the reproductive output of animals . The value of this book is that it provides the undergraduate reader with a very accessible introduction to a wide range of related topics . The standard of writing is uniformly high and the illustrations are appropriate and of high quality . There are places where certain of the authors allow themselves rather greater speculative licence than is really appropriate in a book of this kind . For example, Short associates monogamy in marmosets and tamarins with a habitat in which food resources are abundant, a hypothesis that is at variance both with the conventional wisdom on m onogamy . a s expressed in Keverne's chapter, and

with what has been described of the natural history of these animals . The range of chapters in this volume emphasizes the fact that the modern biologist can no longer specialize in a particular discipline within zoology . such as ethology, ecology or physiology . if he or she is to aspire to a full understanding of the subject . As our knowledge in each area has expanded, it has become more and more common for workers in one discipline to draw upon data and expertise from another . This makes the book of value to postgraduate readers, since it provides access to topics that may be outside their previous experience . This is why 1 . at least, found Alexander & Anderson's chapter so fascinating, providing as it does a glimpse of an area of current research that is so different from the familiar behavioural ecology and environmental physiology that comprise much of the hook . Tim

HALLIDAY

.Animal Behaviour Research Group, Department of Biology . The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, U .K .

The Amphibian Ear . By ERNEsT GLEN Wi:vnR .

Princeton . New Jersey : Princeton University Press (1985) . Pp . viii+488 . Price £70 .00 . This long and scholarly text is a treatise in cony parative anatomy and will be a disappointment to the reader expecting to find material relating directly to current research on vocal communication in frogs and toads . Wever's approach is a taxonomic one, working through the three amphibian orders family by family . For each family there are detailed accounts of the gross and neuroanatomy of the ear, with abundant anatomical drawings and graphs showing frequency sensitivity functions for many species . For the reader used to working on the behaviour or ecology of whole a nimals . i t comes as a surprise that most of these graphs show data derived from only one or two specimens . It is also curious that a hook about the ear contains so little discussion of the role that hearing plays in the behaviour of living animals : the links with the extensive work by such workers as Gerhardt and Capranica on sound localization and auditory processing are minimal . For workers in anuran behaviour and neurobiology this book is . however, a source of valuable anatomical data . The material presented in this book provides the basis for an evolutionary thesis presented in the final chapter . This is that the living reptiles are not direct descendents of the amphibians in a conti-

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nuous progression of vertebrate forms . Rather, Wever uses his data to support the argument that the two groups represent separate evolutionary lines from fishes . TIM HALLIDAY

Animal Behaviour Research Group, Department of Biology, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6A A, U .K .

Behavioural Ecology : Ecological Consequences of Adaptive Behaviour . Edited by R . M . SIBLEY & R . H . SMITH . Oxford : Blackwell Scientific Publication (for the British Ecological Society) (1985) . Pp . ix + 620 . Price £48 . 00 hardback, £19 . 50 paperback . Every now and then in the development of scientific disciplines, workers from neighbouring fields, who have hitherto soldiered on in dutiful oblivion of one another, feel the need to lean over the fence and exchange ideas . The results of the exchange rarely live up to the heady optimism that precedes it, but at least contact is established and future dialogue made easier and therefore, hopefully, more likely . Last year at Reading, an all-star cast of behavioural, population and community ecologists assembled to explore the complex interrelationships between their respective subjects in an attempt to point the way towards understanding how the structure and dynamics of natural populations and communities might result from the behaviour of individual organisms . The sheer breadth of debate involved is amply represented by the papers and short communications brought together in this volume by the principal organizers of the symposium, Richard Sibly and Robert Smith . Matching up to the theme of the symposium was a tall order, given the continuing independence of the various branches of ecology, and it has to be said that the papers vary in their success . Nevertheless, that such a concerted attempt at dialogue was made at all is cause for optimism . The books falls into five sections : a selective review and four sections dealing with population dynamics in relation to foraging ; spacing ; breeding; and social behaviour respectively . Chapters swing from the very general to the highly specific, a mixture of broad reviews and detailed worked examples . On the whole this is no bad thing, though there are one or two cases where general principles are covered only in the context of specific populations and some of the broader impact is lost . The selective review is certainly selective, with three of the seven chapters (Sibly & Calow ; Begon ;

Atkinson) devoted to life-history strategies and one (O'Connor) to the behavioural regulation of bird populations . All explore interesting problems, but their bias makes an otherwise useful introductory section patchy and polarized . The most telling chapters are the first two (Hassell & May ; Parker) which arc broad-based explorations of the central theme of the symposium . Hassell & May tackle the connection between behaviour and populations from the classical population model end and, in doing so, underline the problem of injecting behavioural realism into models whose primary function is to describe population and community level processes . These models work well with behaviourally homogeneous populations but become quite unmanageable when realistic behavioural alternatives are introduced . This is not to say that they are defunct in the context of behavioural variation, nor that Hassell & May do not go some way towards a helpful solution, though the aspects of behaviour they consider are very broad and their effects (spacing, dispersal, etc .) also have several other causes . Rather, the essence of the models needs to be integrated with a body of mathematics more specifically geared for the job . I must say I share Parker's optimism that ESS theory is currently the front-runner: it starts from the right end of the scale of complexity and already has the machinery to deal with individual variation . Parker's initial soundings (both in chapter 2 and later with Sutherland) look very promising . Finally, Harvey's chapter reminds us of the ever-present problem of levels of selection and cautions us against undue dismissal of specialized group selection models . Each of the remaining sections is a mixed bag of general reviews and more specific treatments . While it is impossible here to mention each of their 26 chapters, there are obviously both triumphs and disappointments among them . Although their chapter occurs in the foraging section, Partridge & Green (feeding specializations) point to the conflicting theoretical and practical requirements for investigating broad, population-level processes : the minutiae of individual behaviour which bedevil building bridges between them in any context are largely the reason the task has been avoided . Their plea that this should be remedied is reinforced in particular by Kacelnik & J . R . Krebs (learning and foraging) and Sutherland & Parker (competitive ability and distribution) whose excellent chapters show how radical may be the change in our predictions about population dynamics if we start with individual variation and work up . Goss-Custard (foraging and carrying capacities in waders), C . J . Krebs (population cycles in voles) and McCleery & Perrins (territoriality and population dynamics in