Book

Atlas of Biodivesity Risk, edited by J. Settele, L. Peney, T. Georgiev, R. Grabaum & V. Grobelnik. 2010. Pensoft Publishers. 300pp. ISBN: 978-9546424464. This is the first book to describe and summarise the major pressures, impacts and risks of biodiversity loss at a global level. It identifies the main risks as global climate and land use change, environmental pollution, loss of pollinators and biological invasions. It also analyzes the impacts and consequences of biodiversity loss, with a strong focus on socio-economic drivers and their effects on society. Contents: 1. Biodiversity baseline information; 2. Research approaches for biodiversity and impacting factors; 3. Climate change impacts on biodiversity; 4. Land use change and their impacts; 5. Environmental chemicals and biodiversity; 6. Biological invasions; 7. Decline of pollinators and its impact; 8. Socio-economy and its role in biodiversity loss; 9. Combined biodiversity effects of major drivers and pressures; 10. The future of biodiversity and biodiversity research.

Primate Anti-Predator Strategies, edited by S. Gursky & K. A. I. Nekaris. 2010. Springer. 396pp. ISBN: 9781441941909. This volume details the different ways that nocturnal primates avoid predators. It is a first of its kind within primatology, and is therefore the only work giving a broad overview of predation. Contents: 1. Predation and primate congnitive evolution—K. Zuberbühler; 2. Predation on primates: a biogeographical analysis-D. Hart; 3. Primates and other prey in the seasonally variable diet of Cryptoprocta ferox in western Madagascar—L. Dollar, J. U. Ganzhorn & S. M. Goodman; 4. Predation on lemurs in the rainforest of Madagascar by multiple predator species—S. M. Karpanty & P. C. Wright; 5. Predation, communication and cognition in lemurs M. Scheumann, A. Rabesandratana & E. Zimmermann; 6. A consideration of leaping locomotion as a means of predator avoidance in prosimian primates—R. H. Crompton & W. I. Sellers; 7. Anti—predator strategies of cathemeral primates—I. C. Colquhoun; 8. Moonlight and behavior in nocturnal and cathemeral primates—L. T. Nash; 9. A comparison of calling patterns in two nocturnal primates, Otolemur crassicaudatus and Galago moholi as guide to predation risk—S. K. Bearder; 10. Predator defense by slender Lorises ans Pottos—K. A. I. Nekaris, E. R. Pimley & K. M. Albard; 11. The response of spectral trasiers toward avian and terrestrial predators—S. L. Gursky; 12. Talking defensively a dual use for brachial and gland exudates of slow and pygmy lorises—L. R. Hagey, B. G. Fry & H. F. Snyder; 13. Anti-predator strategies in diurnal prosimian—L. Gould & M. L. Sarther; 14. Howler monkeys and harpy eagles: a communication arms race—R. Gil-da-Costa; 15. Effects of habitat structure on perceived risk of predation and anti-predator behavior of vervet and patas monkeys—K. L. Enstam; 16. Predation risk and habitat use in Chacma baboons—R. A. Hill & T. Weingrill; 17. Reconstructing hominin interactions with mammalian carnivores—A. Treves & P. Palmqvist.

Primate Locomotion: Linking Field and Laboratory Research, edited by K. D'Août & E. E. Vereecke. 2010. Springer. 364pp. ISBN: 978-1441914194. This book brings together the two aspects of primate locomotion studies: laboratory studies based on biomechanics and energetics, and the field studies focused on behavior and ecology. Contents: 1. Introduction: primate locomotion, towards a synergy of in situ and ex situ research—Vereecke et al.; 2. Experimental and computational studies of bipedal locomotion in the bipedally-trained Japanese monkey—Ogihara et al.; 3. Scapula movements and their contribution to the three dimensional forelimb excursions in quadruped primates—Schmidt & Krause; 4. The kinematics of load carrying in great apes, implications for the evolution of human bipedalism — Watson et al.; 5. Field and experimental approaches to the study of locomotor ontogeny in Propithecus verreauxi—Wunderlinch et al.; 6. Comparisons of limb structural properties in habituated chimpanzees from Kibale, Gombe, Mahale and Taï communities—Carlson et al.; 7. Gait and kinematics of arboreal quadrupedal walk of free-ranging red howlers (Alouatta seniculus) in French Guiana—Youlatos & Gasc; 8. Implications of chimpanzee bipedal feeding for the evolution of hominid posture and locomotion—Stanford; 9. Linking in situ and ex situ approaches for studying primate locomotor responses to support stability—Stevens; 10. Leaping, body size, predation and energetic efficiency of locomotion - Blanchard et al.;11. Translating primate locomotor biomechanical variables from the laboratory to the field—Schmitt.

Review of: Seeds of Amazonian Plants, by Fernando Cornejo and John Janovec, 2010. Princeton, Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-14647-8 (Paperback), 978-0-691-11929-8 (Hardcover). 155 pages, 750 colour illustrations, 2 b/w plates. Price: US-$ 35.00 (Pbk.), US-$ 75.00 (Hard.). < http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9139.html>.

“Wonderful” and “most helpful” are the two terms with which I can describe this book in the shortest possible ways. Published in the Princeton Field Guides series, this book provides high-quality colour photographs of seeds from many Amazonian plant genera, along with a short account of the principal characteristics and distribution of the respective genus. A clear and simple key that is comprehensible and thus useful also to non-botanists precedes the descriptive part. Since many plant families possess specific seed characteristics that are easily recognized, the arrangement of families in alphabetic order makes it also possible to go strait to a family and then search for the correct genus. When I browsed through this book for the first time, I immediately recognized many seeds that my students and I had recovered from tamarin faeces and feeding residuals during field work in north-eastern Perú. This book will be useful to every primatologist working on the feeding ecology of or on seed dispersal and seed predation by New World monkeys and who needs to get a decent taxonomic identification of plants consumed, dispersed or preyed by their study subjects. Given the huge diversity of Neotropical plants, this guide cannot be comprehensive. The range of families and genera is certainly biased towards western Amazonia, where the field work was performed upon which this book is based. But many families and genera dealt with in this book have a very broad distribution, even ranging into Mesoamerica, so the book will be useful over a wider geographic area. As with van Roosmalen's “Fruits of the Guianan Flora” (which is also restricted to a specific area) “Seeds of Amazonian Plants” will at least help to get a first identification in the field in many if not in most cases. In sum, I highly recommend this book to Neotropical primatologists. “Seeds of Amazonian Plants” will make ecological field work on New World monkeys a bit easier.