Equids--zebras, Asses, and Horses
Equids--zebras, Asses, and Horses

Author: Patricia Des Roses Moehlman

Publisher: IUCN

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9782831706474

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The new Equid Action Plan provides current knowledge on the biology, ecology and conservation status of wild zebras, asses, and horses. It specifies what information is lacking, and prioritizes needed conservation actions. The Action Plan also provides chapters on equid taxonomy, genetics, reproductive biology, and population dynamics. These chapters highlight unsolved issues of taxonomy and genetics. They also provide information and insight into the special demographic and genetic challenges of managing small populations. The chapter on disease provides a review of documented equine disease and epidemiology and focuses on priorities for equid conservation health. The final chapter deals with the importance of developing an assessment methodology that explicitly considers the role of equids in ecosystems and the ecological processes that are necessary for ecosystem viability. The approach of combining ecological field studies and ecosystem modeling should prove useful for the scientific management and conservation of wild equids worldwide. These chapters provide research and conservation practitioners with new information and paradigms.

Wild Equids
Wild Equids

Author: Jason I. Ransom

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2016-06-01

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1421419106

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The first expert synthesis of the diverse studies conducted on wild equids worldwide. Wild horses, zebras, asses, and feral equines exhibit intriguing and complex social structures that captivate the human imagination and elicit a wide range of emotions that influence conservation and management efforts. This book, spearheaded by Jason I. Ransom and Petra Kaczensky, brings together the world's leading experts on equid ecology, management, and conservation to provide a synthesis of what is known about these iconic species and what needs to be done to prevent losing some of them altogether. The most comprehensive conservation book on wild equids in decades, this title will enlighten not only equid researchers, but also mammalogists, conservationists, and equine professionals. Readers will find new insight into the lives of the world's horses, zebras, and asses, understand the basis of our relationships with these animals, and develop a greater understanding of where equids come from and why they are worth conserving. Included in this book are detailed, state-of-the-science syntheses on Social structure, behavior, and cognition Habitat and diet Ecological niches Population dynamics Roles of humans in horse distribution through time Human dimensions and the meaning of wild Management of free-roaming horses Captive breeding of wild equids Conservation of wild equids Conservation of migrations Reintroductions Genetics and paleogenetics

Zebra Stripes
Zebra Stripes

Author: Timothy M. Caro

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 022641101X

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Why do zebras have stripes? Popular explanations range from camouflage to confusion of predators, social facilitation, and even temperature regulation. It is a challenge to test these proposals on large animals living in the wild, but using a combination of careful observations, simple field experiments, comparative information, and logic, Caro concludes that black-and-white stripes are an adaptation to thwart biting fly attack.

Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program
Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2013-10-04

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 0309264944

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Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program: A Way Forward reviews the science that underpins the Bureau of Land Management's oversight of free-ranging horses and burros on federal public lands in the western United States, concluding that constructive changes could be implemented. The Wild Horse and Burro Program has not used scientifically rigorous methods to estimate the population sizes of horses and burros, to model the effects of management actions on the animals, or to assess the availability and use of forage on rangelands. Evidence suggests that horse populations are growing by 15 to 20 percent each year, a level that is unsustainable for maintaining healthy horse populations as well as healthy ecosystems. Promising fertility-control methods are available to help limit this population growth, however. In addition, science-based methods exist for improving population estimates, predicting the effects of management practices in order to maintain genetically diverse, healthy populations, and estimating the productivity of rangelands. Greater transparency in how science-based methods are used to inform management decisions may help increase public confidence in the Wild Horse and Burro Program.

Fossil Horses
Fossil Horses

Author: Bruce J. MacFadden

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1994-06-24

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780521477086

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The horse has frequently been used as a classic example of long-term evolution because it possesses an extensive fossil record. This book synthesizes the large body of data and research relevant to an understanding of fossil horses from perspectives such as biology, geology, paleontology.

Ecology of Social Evolution
Ecology of Social Evolution

Author: Judith Korb

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2008-02-23

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 3540759573

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The time is ripe to investigate similarities and differences in the course of social evolution in different animals. This book brings together renowned researchers working on sociality in different animals to deal with the key questions of sociobiology. For the first time, they compile the evidence for the importance of ecological factors in the evolution of social life, ranging from invertebrate to vertebrate social systems, and evaluate its importance versus that of relatedness.

The White River Badlands
The White River Badlands

Author: Rachel C. Benton

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2015-05-25

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0253016088

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This guide to the South Dakota region that houses the world’s richest fossil beds does “an excellent job of presenting the current state of knowledge” (Choice). The forbidding Big Badlands in Western South Dakota contain the richest fossil beds in the world. Even today these rocks continue to yield new specimens brought to light by snowmelt and rain washing away soft rock deposited on a floodplain long ago. The quality and quantity of the fossils are superb: most of the species to be found there are known from hundreds of specimens. The fossils in the White River Group (and similar deposits in the American west) preserve the entire late Eocene through the middle Oligocene, roughly 35-30 million years ago and more than thirty million years after non-avian dinosaurs became extinct. The fossils provide a detailed record of a period of abrupt global cooling and what happened to creatures who lived through it. This book is a comprehensive reference to the sediments and fossils of the Big Badlands, and also touches on National Park Service management policies that help protect such significant fossils. Includes photos and illustrations “A worthy successor to the work of O’Harra.” —Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology

The Rise of Horses
The Rise of Horses

Author: Jens Lorenz Franzen

Publisher:

Published: 2010-02

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13:

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Accessibly written and featuring full-color photographs and illustrations throughout, The Rise of Horses is the complete chronicle of the evolution of the equids.

Equine Genomics
Equine Genomics

Author: Bhanu P. Chowdhary

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-04-15

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 0813815630

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Analysis of the equine genome began just over a decade ago, culminating in the recent complete sequencing of the horse genome. The availability of the equine whole genome sequence represents the successful completion of an important era of equine genome analysis, and the beginning of a new era where the sequence information will catalyze the development of new tools and resources that will permit study of a range of traits that are economically important and are significant to equine health and welfare. Equine Genomics provides a timely comprehensive overview of equine genomic research. Chapters detail key accomplishments and the current state of research, as well as looking forward to possible applications of genomic technologies to horse breeding, health, and welfare. Equine Genomics delivers a global overview of the topic and is seamlessly edited by a leading equine genomics researcher. Equine Genomics is an indispensible source of information for anyone with an interest in this increasingly important field of study, including equine genomic researchers, clinicians, animal science professionals and equine field veterinarians.

Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe
Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe

Author: George B. Schaller

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2000-05

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9780226736532

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The Chang Tang, the vast, remote Tibetan steppe, is one of the most forbidding places on earth. Yet this harsh land is home to a unique assemblage of large mammals, including Tibetan antelope, gazelle, argali sheep, wild ass, wild yak, wolves, snow leopards, and others. Since 1985, George B. Schaller and his Chinese and Tibetan co-workers have surveyed the flora and fauna of the Chang Tang. Their research provides the first detailed look at the natural history of one of the world's least known ecosystems.