Hormones and Animal Social Behavior

by Elizabeth Adkins-Regan

Overview

Research into the lives of animals in their natural environments has revealed a rich tapestry of complex social relationships and previously unsuspected social and mating systems. The evolution of this behavior is increasingly well understood. At the same time, laboratory scientists have made significant discoveries about how steroid and peptide hormones act on the nervous system to shape behavior. An exciting and rapidly progressing hybrid zone has developed in which these two fields are integrated, providing a fuller understanding of social behavior and the adaptive functions of hormones.


This book is a guide to these fascinating connections between animal social behavior and steroid and peptide hormones—a synthesis designed to make it easier for graduate students and researchers to appreciate the excitement, engage in such integrative thinking, and understand the primary literature. Throughout, Elizabeth Adkins-Regan emphasizes concepts and principles, hypothesis testing, and critical thinking. She raises unanswered questions, providing an unparalleled source of ideas for future research. The chapter sequence is by levels of biological organization, beginning with the behavior and hormones of individuals, proceeding to social relationships and systems, and from there to development, behavioral evolution over relatively short time scales, life histories and their evolution, and finally evolution over longer time scales. The book features studies of a wide variety of wild and domestic vertebrates along with some of the most important invertebrate discoveries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691092478
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	08/07/2005
Series:	Monographs in Behavior and Ecology , #28
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Adkins-Regan is Professor of Psychology and Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations and Tables ix

Preface xiii





Chapter 1: Hormonal Mechanisms 1

Why Does Social Behavior Need
Hormonal Regulation? 3

Steroids 4

Steroid Synthesis and Metabolism 7

Steroid Measurement and Dynamics 9

Neuropeptides and Prolactin 11

Where and How Do Steroids Act to
Alter Behavior? 13

Steroid Manipulation 18

Mechanisms of Peptide Action 19

Multiple Messengers,Multiple Behaviors 20

Hormones,Plasticity,and Development 21

How the Necessary Control of Steroids by the Environment Is Achieved: The HPG and HPA Axes 23

Diversity in Mechanisms 29

How "Costly" Are These Hormonal Mechanisms? 30





Chapter 2: Mating, Fighting, Parenting, and Signaling 34

Courtship and Mating 34

Individual and Species Variation in Hormone Dependence of Mating Behavior 42

Female Mating Behavior and Sex Differences in Hormone Dependence 44

Aggressive Behavior 49

Parental Behavior 52

How Hormones Alter Behavior: Circuits, Networks, and Processes 58

Daily and Seasonal Rhythms of Social Behavior 65

Hormones and Signaling 71

Hormonal Responses to Signals and Cues 82





Chapter 3: Social Relationships and Social Organization 92

Sociality 93

Dominance 94

Territoriality 98

Mating Systems 102

Mate Choice 108

Pairbonding 112

Parent -Offspring and Sibling Relationships 117

Cooperative Breeding and Alloparenting 122

Conclusions 130





Chapter 4: Development of Sexes and Types 131

Sex Determination and Morphological Sexual Differentiation 131

Sex Differences in Behavior and Brains 135

Sex Differences Due to Activational Hormone Effects 138

The Organization of Behavioral Sex Differences in Mammals 139

The Direct Genetic Differentiation Hypothesis 146

The Development of Sex Differences in Birds: Progress and Puzzles 148

Sexual Differentiation of Behavior in Other Vertebrates 155

Do Invertebrates Have Hormonally Organized Sex Differences in Behavior? 158

Sex-Changing Fish 160

Within-Sex Types (Within-Sex Dimorphism) 165

Comparative Overview 172





Chapter 5: Evolutionary Change and Species Differences 179

Heritable Phenotypic Variation: Individual Differences and Their Basis 179

Reproductive Success and Differential Fitness 187

Responses to Selection 193

Correlated Traits, Hormones,Costs, and Evolutionary Change 200

Hormones,Sexes,and Sexual Selection 202

Putting Hormonal Mechanisms in the Foreground 205

Genetic Architecture and Hormonally Based Sexual Dimorphism 213

The Perspective from Evolutionary Developmental Biology 214

Species Comparisons in Hormones and Behavior 218

Conclusions 222





Chapter 6: Life Stages and Life Histories 224

Life Histories,Fitness,and Hormones 224

Life Stages Prior to Reproductive Maturity 226

Onset of Reproductive Maturity: Puberty 233

Aging and Senescence 239

Hormones,Social Behavior, and Life History Trade-Offs 247

Conclusions 255





Chapter 7: Phylogeny:Conservation and Innovation 256

Oxytocin Family Peptides and Their Receptors 256

GnRH and Its Receptors 260

Steroid Receptors 263

Steroids and Steroidogenic Enzymes 266

Behavioral Phylogeny, Brains, and the Conservation Paradox 269

Steroid-Modulated Vocalization 272

Mating Behavior 276

Parental Behavior 277

Sex Determination and Sexual Differentiation 279

Conclusions 283





Afterword 285

References 287

Index 365

What People are Saying About This

David Crews

This book will, I predict, be immediately recognized as the first modern synthesis of behavioral endocrinology and behavioral ecology. Particularly attractive is its unusual organization. While beginning and ending with hormones, as have other leading texts, it differentiates itself by weaving through ascending levels of biological organization, showing readers how discovery at each level informs us about higher levels. In this way readers begin with DNA and by the end, in an almost seamless manner, find themselves contemplating the evolution of populations. Rather than a recitation of facts, the author poses and answers (when possible) a logical series of questions. Moreover, the writing is excellent.
— David Crews, University of Texas, Austin

From the Publisher

"This book will, I predict, be immediately recognized as the first modern synthesis of behavioral endocrinology and behavioral ecology. Particularly attractive is its unusual organization. While beginning and ending with hormones, as have other leading texts, it differentiates itself by weaving through ascending levels of biological organization, showing readers how discovery at each level informs us about higher levels. In this way readers begin with DNA and by the end, in an almost seamless manner, find themselves contemplating the evolution of populations. Rather than a recitation of facts, the author poses and answers (when possible) a logical series of questions. Moreover, the writing is excellent."—David Crews, University of Texas, Austin

"Adkins-Regan provides an excellent, well-written source of information that will be valuable not only to behavioral ecologists and endocrinologists but to a much wider audience within biology—where it will be valuable reading to anyone who thinks about why animals do what they do. She has incorporated and synthesized information at multiple levels, successfully bridging the gap from mechanisms to ultimate outcomes. I would be surprised if anyone who reads this book does not come away with both a new appreciation for the complexity of the relationships between hormones and behaviors, and some valuable new directions for their own research."—Stephan J. Schoech, University of Memphis

Schoech

Adkins-Regan provides an excellent, well-written source of information that will be valuable not only to behavioral ecologists and endocrinologists but to a much wider audience within biology—where it will be valuable reading to anyone who thinks about why animals do what they do. She has incorporated and synthesized information at multiple levels, successfully bridging the gap from mechanisms to ultimate outcomes. I would be surprised if anyone who reads this book does not come away with both a new appreciation for the complexity of the relationships between hormones and behaviors, and some valuable new directions for their own research.
— Stephan J. Schoech, University of Memphis

Editorial Reviews

"Elizabeth Adkins-Regan takes the reader sledding from brain behavior and from hormones to gene expression, up and down through levels of analysis that often change within a single sentence."—-Ellen D. Ketterson, Science

"Hormones and Animal Social Behavior masterfully achieves Adkins-Regan's goal of integrating behavioral endocrinology with ecological and evolutionary studies. . . . I predict that this outstanding book will soon become a classic in behavioral biology."—-Randy J. Nelson, BioScience

"

Adkins-Regan's book is a timely and very welcome contribution that will be hoped to set the standards for the study of the neuroendocrinological basis of behavior in the wild.

"—-Aldo Poiani, Austral Ecology

From the Publisher

Adkins-Regan's book is a timely and very welcome contribution that will be hoped to set the standards for the study of the neuroendocrinological basis of behavior in the wild.

Austral Ecology - Aldo Poiani

Hormones and Animal Social Behavior masterfully achieves Adkins-Regan's goal of integrating behavioral endocrinology with ecological and evolutionary studies. . . . I predict that this outstanding book will soon become a classic in behavioral biology.

BioScience - Randy J. Nelson

Elizabeth Adkins-Regan takes the reader sledding from brain behavior and from hormones to gene expression, up and down through levels of analysis that often change within a single sentence.

Science - Ellen D. Ketterson

Adkins-Regan's book is a timely and very welcome contribution that will be hoped to set the standards for the study of the neuroendocrinological basis of behavior in the wild.
— Aldo Poiani

Austral Ecology

Hormones and Animal Social Behavior masterfully achieves Adkins-Regan's goal of integrating behavioral endocrinology with ecological and evolutionary studies. . . . I predict that this outstanding book will soon become a classic in behavioral biology.
— Randy J. Nelson

BioScience

Elizabeth Adkins-Regan takes the reader sledding from brain behavior and from hormones to gene expression, up and down through levels of analysis that often change within a single sentence.
— Ellen D. Ketterson

Science