Overview

Naturalists have long known that wildlife is often unpredictable.The erratic escape movements of prey and the ""crazy dances"" of predators are examples that can readily be observed, but the phenomenon has wider implications that go far beyond the interactions of predators and prey - it extends to such different realms as human behaviour and the biochemistry of the AIDS virus. This book aims to answer the question of how randomness is advantageous to an organism. The authors present the results of 25 years' research into the problem of unpredictability of protean behaviour. They show that apparent randomness is only unpredictable enough to confuse the enemy and they describe, classify and analyze protean behaviours. Having established the concept of ""systematic unpredictability"", the authors discuss the evolutionary aspects of the phenomenon and its wider applications. Their account aims to be of especial value to those concerned with the behavioural sciences but to be of interest to biologists generally and to students of natural history.

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9780198571704

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