The control of fish migration

Book Reviews Experimental Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology . Edited by BERT HOLLDOBLER & MARTIN LINDAUER . Stuttgart : Gustav Fischer (1985) . Pp . xiv+488 . Price DM 148 .00 . This is the proceedings of a conference held in memory of Karl von Frisch . Few other causes could have brought together such a distinguished collection of authors from both sides of the Atlantic: the result is an excellent volume in which von Frisch would have taken great delight . Its title will . perhaps, be somewhat surprising to those who think of behavioural ecology and sociobiology as fields of recent origin and uncertain experimental basis . But such doubts are quickly dispelled . Not only do many of the chapters show how work in this area has moved into a new, more rigorous phase, but they also emphasize how this approach is simply following in von Frisch's footsteps . Though the words may be new, the field is precisely that in which he was a pioneer . The book ranges widely, to cover virtually all the currently exciting areas on which its title might bear. But it also has depth, and this is of course especially in the study of social insects . Of the 28 chapters, 17 are devoted totally or partially to work on them . These are spread throughout the book . the chapters being loosely grouped under five . rather unnatural, headings : Orientation, Learning . Foraging ; Analysis of Communication Signals ; Communication and Reproductive Behaviour : Social Organization ; Physiology and Societies . As a prologue there are two brief memoirs on von Frisch by Holldobler and Lindauer ; there is an epilogue on animal cognition by Griffin . This last is one of several contributions on topics their authors have explored in some detail before, including Marler on representational signals in primates, Wilson on caste evolution, Emlen & Vehrencamp on cooperative breeding in birds and Sherman & Holmes on kin recognition . Bradbury takes a careful and cautious approach to comparing and contrasting mating systems which have been described as leks in vertebrates and in insects . But perhaps the most original and stimulating of these more wide-ranging articles is that on communication by Markl : it provides a detailed assessment of the proposition that animal communication is a process of receivers being manipulated by senders . He argues that such unbalanced benefit should be unusual or transitory and that, within social groups, communication should normally be cooperative . This is not a conventional line, and I was not entirely convinced (though it is tempting to believe an author whose communication extols the virtues of honesty in communication!) . The chapters on insects, and especially those on

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bees, go far to justify von Frisch's likening of this field to a magic well from which 'the more you draw out of it, the more there is to draw' . There is a very detailed chapter by Wehner & Rossel on the bee's celestial compass : tough going at the outset of a book of this sort. Cheverton et al . present data on bumble bee foraging and provide a thoughtful discussion of constraints on optimal foraging and on the currencies in which it might be assessed . It is particularly useful to have here a consideration of the interplay between function and mechanism . Other chapters on social insects range over learning, reproduction and endocrinology, evolution and social organization, temperature regulation within the hive and, of course, the dance language . Here Lindauer gives an historical account, but points also to problems for the future . I found his evidence that daily peaks of foraging activity could be transmitted culturally from one cohort of workers to the next especially fascinating . His chapter is followed by one describing recent work on the dance language by Gould et al . : an excellent review of some quite exceptional work . All in all, then, this is a fine book which deserves to be widely read . A pity it was not produced in paperback at a fraction of the price! P . J . B . SLATER Department o/ Zoology and Marine Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. The Control of Fish Migration . By R . J . F . SMITH . Berlin : Springer-Verlag (1985) . Pp . xv+243 . Price DM 136 .00. The title is ambiguous . A book on the control of fish migration could have been concerned with fishery management, manipulation of fish movement patterns to improve fishing, farming or other exploitation . Instead, R . J . F . Smith's fine book is a review of those physiological mechanisms by which the timing, direction and distance of fish migrations are regulated by natural stimuli . Of c ourse . a n understanding of this latter type of 'control' is a prerequisite for the former . In contrast to the now classic book on fish migration by Harden-Jones (1968), Smith pays little attention to migration routes and the ways in which these were identified . Instead, the author concentrates on reviewing research aimed at identifying the information involved in the initiation, execution and termination of migration . Among studies of vertebrates, fish rank second only to birds in the amount that is now known about the factors involved in orientation, navigation, the timing of migration and the recognition of areas

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Animal Behaviour, 34, 1

along migration routes . A single-author overview of this rapidly expanding field is well timed . Perhaps the most important general message in Smith's book is that, like birds, fish are now known to use many sources of information about their environment in the execution of their migratory feats . Information gained from perception of olfactory, visual, thermal and acoustic landmarks is combined with other information from celestial and geomagnetic compass systems as fish travel from one part of their migration route to another . The review of the literature is comprehensive up until 1980 with some references through to 1982 . It is also well balanced : better balanced, in fact, than the literature available . As Smith points out, research has advanced unevenly . Over 2000 papers have been published on fish temperature preference while other areas, such as magnetoreception and genetic variation in migratory behaviour, have until recently been relatively little studied . The structure of the book is based on the different sources of environmental information, with separate chapters devoted to cues such as light, chemicals, mechanical stimuli, temperature, and electrical and magnetic fields . Each of these chapters is then subdivided along broadly similar lines . Each contains, for example, sections on the involvement of the cue in the timing, direction and distance of migration . One of my few criticisms is that I found this structure cumbersome and perhaps even counter-productive . For example, the important message that a whole series of environmental sources are involved in orientation and timing of migration would, for me, have had much more impact had there been chapters on 'timing' and 'orientation', perhaps then subdivided according to the different environmental cues . Perhaps predictably, also, I felt little enthusiasm for the author's definition of migration : 'adaptive, long-distance movements that occur predictably in the life cycle of the species' . This formal definition, however, is rendered unimportant . Smith makes sure the reader is aware of its shortcomings (`how far is long?') . Moreover, when the results could be of wider significance, he does not hesitate to refer to studies of movements that some authors might consider to be non-migration . Although typically overpriced by Springer, Smith's book is pleasant to handle, attractively produced, and a rich reference source . It fills a valuable niche in the migration literature . I am pleased to have it on my shelf . R . ROBIN BAKER

Department of Zoology, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, U .K.

Reference Harden-Jones, F . R . 1968 . Fish Migration . London : Edward Arnold . Evolutionary Theory : the Unfinished Synthesis . By

G . B . REIN . Beckenham, Kent : Croom Helm (1985) . Pp . 405 . Price £25 .00 . ROBERT

Kant suggested that the difference between mechanisms and organisms is that, in the former, the parts exist for one another so as to make a functional totality, whereas in the latter, the parts exist for and by means of one another, so that they constitute a structural as well as a functional whole-i .e . organisms create their own functional parts within a structural unity . The history of biological thought can be seen as a continuous dialogue between those attempting to understand organisms as mechanisms, subject to an external causality, and those who see them as creative entities subject to an imminent causality as well as an external necessity . The difference here can also be described as that between making and doing, that which is created in contrast to that which creates itself, or that which obeys laws and that which creates its own . There is no doubt about the dominant belief in contemporary biology : organisms are created by natural selection, an external agency, and obey the law of survival . Anyone who claims otherwise is on the slippery slope to vitalism . than which there is no deeper sin . Robert Reid has undertaken a historical survey of biological ideas in his scholarly and entertaining book Evolutionary Theory : the Unfinished Synthesis, and his delight at the richness of the feast in contrast to the thin gruel of contemporary orthodoxy shines out in every page . His view is 'that the illusion of a finished synthesis created an intellectual inertia that is unique in the history of modern science, but the prospects for further intellectual progress are in reality unlimited' . The book plots a dialectical course through the last two centuries of biological thought that is well-informed and comprehensive, though inevitably somewhat superficial . This keeps the plot bouncing from thesis to antithesis : from Cuvier to Lamarck to Darwin to Bateson to Poulton, and so on . It is organized around concepts as much as chronology, so that the warp of Reid's tapestry is history and the woof, ideas . His professional specialization in comparative physiology puts him in a position to cast a detached eye over much of the evolutionary literature, and he does a particularly good job on current outsiders such as Lamarck, Baldwin, Berg and Smuts . At the same time he gives due weight to the achievements of the main-liners such as Fisher, Haldane and Wright, as who could not?