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- Pages : 776
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"Modern zoological research [...] aims to study the animal in its own dwelling place.” Otto Zacharias, a German plankton specialist and former science journalist, made this claim in 1905. More than hundred years later, it might sound surprising. When we think of sites of animal research that symbolize modernity, the first places that come to mind are not--to use Zacharias’s example--the parts of inland lakes favored by freshwater plankton. The period around 1900, after all, witnessed the rise of grand urban research institutes that housed industrial-type laboratories filled with mercury pumps, new-fangled microscopes, galvanometers, electric centrifuges, gas motors, and spectrometers. Yet Zacharias belonged to a group of zoologists who were establishing a novel way of studying nature in the field. They developed what ecologists today describe as "place-based research.” It focuses on complex systems of interacting organisms, usually through studies over long periods of time in a natural field context. This was a modern approach and, as such, it needed modern infrastructure: the field station. Beginning in the 1870s, a growing number of biological field stations were founded--first in Europe and later elsewhere around the world. Thousands of zoologists received their training and performed their research at these sites. By revealing the intricate activities that enabled them to perform science in the animal’s "dwelling place,” Raf de Bont is the first to give this history of how life scientists were brought closer to living nature.
The Nuthatches is based on the European Nuthatch, with comparative information on the other west Paleartic and world species. The nuthatches are common and widespread birds throughout the Northern Hemisphere, but only poorly studied until quite recently. Erik Matthysen's extensive studies, started in 1982, have done much to illuminate the ecology of the Eurasian species, and to create a rich picture both of this bird and its 23 fellows around the world. The nuthatches are familiar for their peculiar, head-down, foraging style on the trunks of mature woodland trees. They are also noteworthy for their generally elaborate nest building behaviour - ten of the nuthatch species use mud to reduce the nest cavity entrance Ca behaviour otherwise shown only by hornbills) while others make elaborate constructs entirely of mud, or use resin to repel nest predators. They also exhibit a complex territorial system and associated behavioural repertoire, occupying a territory as a pair, year round, perhaps as an adaptation to their reliance on stored food during the winter months. The intricate dynamics of pair-bond stability, territory size and the various strategies of floating, non-territory holders is the subject of an entire and fascinating chapter. The habitat fragmentation that has accompanied widespread disruption of woodland habitats everywhere has had a profound effect on territorial and social behaviour and this too is dealt with at length. Following a detailed description of the ecology and behaviour of the Eurasian Nuthatch, Erik Matthysen goes on to consider what is known of the other species, and to compare and contrast their biology. Although many are poorly known, this part of the book enables many fascinating insights and sets the scene for further work which may explain the links between the ecology, behaviour, habitat and evolutionary relationships of the various species. David Quinn' s excellent drawings complete an interesting and authoritative volume.