The Canary Natural History, Science and Cultural Significance

About this book

The Canary: Natural History, Science and Cultural Significance covers the ecology, evolution, and conservation of the canary and related species, the history and cultural significance of the domestic canary worldwide, and the various scientific disciplines in which canaries have played a key role as a model species. This book synthesizes the multiple ways in which the canary and its relatives have been, and continue to be, an important scientific model in diverse areas and have influenced human culture.

Each chapter is written by international experts in areas such as biogeography, animal behaviour, evolutionary ecology, conservation, neurobiology, genetics, or ethnology, and all are actively researching the canary or closely related species. In covering this eclectic array of topics, while always focusing on the canary and its close relatives, this book uses the immense appeal of the canary as a vehicle to present notions of ecology, evolution, biodiversity conservation, and so on, to a wide audience.

The Canary: Natural History, Science and Cultural Significance is a vital resource for ornithologists, conservationists, and biodiversity researchers and practitioners.

Contents

Part I: From the wild to a cage
1. Macaronesian birds and the natural environment of the canary
2. The wild canary - ecology and behavior in the Atlantic
3. Canary domestication and cultural significance

Part II: The canary and its relatives
4. The family tree and biogeographic history of canary relatives
5. Ecology and conservation of the world's canaries
6. Lessons from the ecology and evolution of crossbills
7. Evolution of song and coloration across canary relatives

Part III: A model for science
8. What the canary can tell us about singing and the brain
9. Eggs, hormones, and breeding
10. Canary domestication as a model for genomics research

Part I: From the wild to a cage
1. Macaronesian birds and the natural environment of the canary
2. The wild canary - ecology and behavior in the Atlantic
3. Canary domestication and cultural significance

Part II: The canary and its relatives
4. The family tree and biogeographic history of canary relatives
5. Ecology and conservation of the world's canaries
6. Lessons from the ecology and evolution of crossbills
7. Evolution of song and coloration across canary relatives

Part III: A model for science
8. What the canary can tell us about singing and the brain
9. Eggs, hormones, and breeding
10. Canary domestication as a model for genomics research

Customer Reviews

Biography

Goncalo C. Cardoso is a research scientist at CIBIO-University of Porto, Portugal, working in the fields of behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology. He specializes in social behaviour, and the function and macro-evolution of sexual signals, and uses comparative studies of the canary and its relatives. He is currently an Associate Editor for the journals Animal Behaviour, Acta Ethologica, and Animal Biodiversity and Conservation.

Ricardo Jorge Lopes is a research scientist at CIBIO-University of Porto, Portugal, and Curator of Birds at the Natural History & Science Museum (MHNC), University of Porto. He is an ecologist and conservation geneticist and uses canaries as a model species to investigate the genomics of ecologically relevant traits. His recent publications have been featured on the covers of journals such as Science and Current Biology.

Paulo Gama Mota is an Associate Professor at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. Most of his field and laboratory research concerns animal communication and mate choice behaviour and uses the closest relative of the canary (the European serin) and the domestic canary as model study species. He was Director of the Science Museum, University of Coimbra, for over 10 years, and has wide experience in science communication and citizen-science projects.