The concept of this book arises from a symposium entitled “Human-Macaque Interactions: Traditional and Modern Perspectives on Cooperation and Conflict ” organized at the 23rd Congress of the International Primatological Society, that was held in Kyoto in September 2010. The symposium highlighted the many aspects of human-macaque relations and some of the participants were invited to contribute to this volume. The volume will include about 11 chapters by a variety of international authors and some excerpts from published literature that illustrate cultural notions of macaques. Contributions from invited authors will engage with four main perspectives – traditional views of macaques, cooperative relationships between humans and macaques, current scenarios of human-macaque conflict, and how living with and beside humans has affected macaques. Authors will address these concerns through their research findings and reviews of their work on the Asian, and the lone African, macaques.
Judged by population size and distribution, homo sapiens are clearly the most successful primates. A close second, however, would be rhesus macaques, who have adapted to—and thrived in—such diverse environments as mountain forests, dry grasslands, and urban sprawl. Scientists have spent countless hours studying these opportunistic monkeys, but rhesus macaques have long been overshadowed in the public eye by the great apes, who, because of their greater intelligence, are naturally assumed to have more to teach us, both about other primates and about humans as well. Dario Maestripieri thinks it is high time we shelve that misperception, and with Macachiavellian Intelligence he gives rhesus macaques their rightful turn in the spotlight. The product of more than twenty years studying these fascinating creatures, Macachiavellian Intelligence caricatures a society that is as much human as monkey, with hierarchies and power struggles that would impress Machiavelli himself. High-status macaques, for instance, maintain their rank through deft uses of violence and manipulation, while altruism is almost unknown and relationships are perpetually subject to the cruel laws of the market. Throughout this eye-opening account, Maestripieri weds his thorough knowledge of macaque behavior to his abiding fascination with human society and motivations. The result is a book unlike any other, one that draws on economics as much as evolutionary biology, politics as much as primatology. Rife with unexpected connections and peppered with fascinating anecdotes, Macachiavellian Intelligence has as much to teach us about humans as it does about macaques, presenting a wry, rational, and wholly surprising view of our humanity as seen through the monkey in the mirror.
This book has brought together leading investigators who work in the new arena of brain connectomics. This includes ‘macro-connectome’ efforts to comprehensively chart long-distance pathways and functional networks; ‘micro-connectome’ efforts to identify every neuron, axon, dendrite, synapse, and glial process within restricted brain regions; and ‘meso-connectome’ efforts to systematically map both local and long-distance connections using anatomical tracers. This book highlights cutting-edge methods that can accelerate progress in elucidating static ‘hard-wired’ circuits of the brain as well as dynamic interactions that are vital for brain function. The power of connectomic approaches in characterizing abnormal circuits in the many brain disorders that afflict humankind is considered. Experts in computational neuroscience and network theory provide perspectives needed for synthesizing across different scales in space and time. Altogether, this book provides an integrated view of the challenges and opportunities in deciphering brain circuits in health and disease.
Long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) have a wide geographical distribution and extensively overlap with human societies across southeast Asia, regularly utilizing the edges of secondary forest and inhabiting numerous anthropogenic environments, including temple grounds, cities and farmlands. Yet despite their apparent ubiquity across the region, there are striking gaps in our understanding of long-tailed macaque population ecology. This timely volume, a key resource for primatologists, anthropologists and conservationists, underlines the urgent need for comprehensive population studies on common macaques. Providing the first detailed look at research on this underexplored species, it unveils what is currently known about the population of M. fascicularis, explores the contexts and consequences of human-macaque sympatry and discusses the innovative programs being initiated to resolve human-macaque conflict across Asia. Spread throughout the book are boxed case studies that supplement the chapters and give a valuable insight into specific field studies on wild M. fascicularis populations.
This open access book summarizes the multi-disciplinary results of one of China’s main primatological research projects on the endemic Tibetan macaque (Macaca thibetana), which had continued for over 30 years, but which had never been reported on systematically. Dedicated to this exceptional Old World monkey, this book makes the work of Chinese primatologists on the social behavior, cooperation, culture, cognition, group dynamics, and emerging technologies in primate research accessible to the international scientific community. One of the most impressive Asian monkeys, and the largest member of its genus, the Tibetan macaque deserves to be better known. This volume goes a long way towards bringing this species into the spotlight with many excellent behavioral analyses from the field. - Frans de Waal, Professor of Psychology, Emory University, USA. Macaques matter. To understand primate patterns and trends, and to gain important insight into humanity, we need to augment and expand our engagement with the most successful and widespread primate genus aside from Homo. This volume focuses on the Tibetan macaque, a fascinating species with much to tell us about social behavior, physiology, complexity and the macaque knack for interfacing with humans. This book is doubly important for primatology in that beyond containing core information on this macaque species, it also reflects an effective integrated collaboration between Chinese scholars and a range of international colleagues—exactly the type of collaborative engagement primatology needs. This volume is a critical contribution to a global primatology. - Agustín Fuentes, Professor of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, USA. I have many fond memories of my association with Mt. Huangshan research beginning in 1983, when together with Professor Qishan Wang we established this site. It is such a beautiful place and I miss it. It is gratifying to see how far research has progressed since we began work there, becoming more internationalized and very much a collaborative endeavor under the long-term direction of Professor Jin-Hua Li and colleagues. This book highlights the increased interest in this species, representing a variety of disciplines ranging from macro aspects of behavior, cognition and sociality, to micro aspects of microbes, parasites and disease, authored by a group of renowned Chinese and international primatologists. I applaud their efforts and expect more interesting work to come from this site in the years ahead. - Kazuo Wada, Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University, Japan.
The discovery of mirror neurons caused a revolution in neuroscience and psychology. Nevertheless, because of their profound impact within life sciences, mirror neuron are still the subject of numerous debates concerning their origins and their functions. With more than 20 years of research in this area, it is timely to synthesise the expanding literature on this topic. 'New frontiers in Mirror Neurons' provides a comprehensive overview of the latest advances in mirror neurons research - accessible both to experts and to non-experts. In the book, leading scholars draw on the latest research to examine methodological approaches, theoretical implications, and the latest findings on mirror neurons research. A broad range of topics are covered within the book: basic findings and new concepts in action-perception theory, functional properties and evolution, development, and clinical implications. In particular, the last two sections of the book outline the importance of the plasticity and development of the mirror neuron system. This knowledge will be key in future research for helping us understand possible disorders associated with impairments in the mirror neurons system, as well as in helping us design new therapeutic tools for interventions within the field of neurodevelopmental disorders and in neurorehabilitation. 'New Frontiers in Mirror Neurons' is an exciting new work for neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers of mind.
Primate Adaptation and Evolutionis the only recent text published in this rapidly progressing field. It provides you with an extensive, current survey of the order Primates, both living and fossil. By combining information on primate anatomy, ecology, and behavior with the primate fossil record, this book enables students to study primates from all epochs as a single, viable group. It surveys major primate radiations throughout 65 million years, and provides equal treatment of both living and extinct species. ï Presents a summary of the primate fossilsï Reviews primate evolutionï Provides an introduction to the primate anatomyï Discusses the features that distinguish the living groups of primatesï Summarizes recent work on primate ecology
