Alternative Reproductive Tactics: An Integrative Approach

The study of alternative reproductive tactics (the behavioural strategies used by individuals to increase their reproductive success) is an evolutionary puzzle, and one of great interest to researchers. For instance, why do some males guard both nest and eggs, while others sneak into nests while pairs are spawning and fertilise those eggs? The field offers a special opportunity to study the evolution and functional causes of phenotypic variation, which is a general problem in the field of evolutionary biology. By integrating both mechanistic (psychological) and evolutionary (behavioural ecology) perspectives and by covering a great diversity of species, Alternative Reproductive Tactics addresses this integrated topic of longstanding interest, bringing together a multitude of otherwise scattered information in an accessible form that is ideal for graduate students and researchers.

Rui F. Oliveira is Associate Professor in Behavioural Biology at the Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Portugal. He is a consulting Editor of the Hormones and Behaviour journal and Chief-Editor of the Acta Ethologica journal. He also served on the council of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour between 1999 and 2004.

H. Jane Brockmann is currently a Professor of Zoology at the University of Florida. She has extensive teaching experience in Animal Behavior, Ethology, Behavioral Ecology and Evolution and has been awarded many honors, including the Animal Behavior Society's Distinguished Service Award in 2000.