Crossbills & Conifers One Million Years of Adaptation and Coevolution

About this book

Crossbills & Conifers explores an intimate natural historical connection, revealing why crossbills have become an exemplar of diversification and coevolution. Craig Benkman takes readers on his 40-year journey of research and discovery, exploring a series of unique and interrelated findings about the behaviour, ecology, evolution and conservation of a remarkable group of birds.

Key to revealing these insights is the ease with which one can measure how variation in bill structure, and conifer cone structure and phenology, influence the efficiency at which crossbills extract seeds from cones. Consumer-resource interactions are fundamental to much of ecology, but such relationships are rarely so readily quantified, not least with the coevolutionary arms race driving the evolution of the newly discovered Cassia Crossbill.

This accessible and handsomely illustrated book will appeal to a wide audience. Students of ornithology and evolutionary biology will gain a greater understanding of the value of natural history and especially the utility of knowing when who eats whom and why. Bird enthusiasts and naturalists will learn much about the world of crossbills, the causes of their diversity which has challenged and inspired many ornithologists, and the threats that these birds face.

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments

1. Why Crossbills? Crossbills, Conifers and the Origins of an Interaction
2. Challenges and Opportunities of Relying on Cone-seed
3. How Cone and Bill Structure Shape Conifer and Habitat Use
4. How and When Key Resources Favor Specialization
5. Coevolution: Crossbills Are More than Just Ornaments
6. Flocking, Patch Assessment and the Evolution of Contact Calls
7. Speciation in the Cassia Crossbill
8. Causes and Consequences of Variation in Reproductive Isolation
9. The Future of Crossbills: Climate Change and Other Threats
10. Epilogue

Glossary
References
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Craig Benkman is an evolutionary ecologist and ornithologist, and an Emeritus Professor and Robert B. Berry Distinguished Chair in Ecology at the University of Wyoming. Before moving to Wyoming in 2004, Craig was on the faculty in the Department of Biology at New Mexico State University. He received a B.A. from UC Berkeley, a M.S. from Northern Arizona University, a PhD from State University of New York at Albany, and conducted postdoctoral research at Princeton University and the University of British Columbia. He is a Fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science and received the E. O. Wilson Naturalist Award from the American Society of Naturalists and the William Brewster Memorial Award from the American Ornithological Society.