Crossbills and Conifers: One Million Years of Adaptation and Coevolution

Author:   Craig Benkman
Publisher:   Pelagic Publishing
ISBN:  

9781784275525


Pages:   224
Publication Date:   15 July 2025
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
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Crossbills and Conifers: One Million Years of Adaptation and Coevolution


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Overview

Crossbills and 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 behavior, 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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Craig Benkman
Publisher:   Pelagic Publishing
Imprint:   Pelagic Publishing
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.611kg
ISBN:  

9781784275525


ISBN 10:   1784275522
Pages:   224
Publication Date:   15 July 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

Table of 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

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Author Information

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 Ph.D. 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.

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