The African Wild Dog: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation (Monographs in Behavior and Ecology Book 65)

With only 5,000 surviving, the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) is one of the world's most endangered large carnivores--and one of the most remarkable. This comprehensive portrait of wild dogs incorporates previously scattered information with important new findings from a six-year study in Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve, Africa's largest protected area. The book emphasizes ecology, concentrating on why wild dogs fare poorly in protected areas that maintain healthy populations of lions, hyenas, or other top carnivores. In addition to conservation issues, it covers fascinating aspects of wild dog behavior and social evolution. The Creels use demographic, behavioral, endocrine, and genetic approaches to examine how and why nonbreeding pack mates help breeding pairs raise their litters. They also present the largest data set ever collected on mammalian predator-prey interactions and the evolution of cooperative hunting, allowing them to account for wild dogs' prowess as hunters. By using a large sample size and sophisticated analytical tools, the authors step well beyond previous research. Their results include some surprises that will cause even specialists to rethink certain propositions, such as the idea that wild dogs are unusually vulnerable to infectious disease. Several findings apply broadly to the management of other protected areas. Of clear appeal to ecologists studying predation and cooperation in any population, this book collects and expands a cache of information useful to anyone studying conservation as well as to amateurs intrigued by the once-maligned but extraordinary wild dog This Book Is Based On A Six Year Study Of African Wild Dogs, Lycaon Pictus, In Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve, The Largest Protected Area In Africa And One Of The Least-studied. Machine Generated Contents Note: 1 History And Natural History -- 1.1 Taxonomy And Phylogeny -- 1.2 Social Organization -- 1.3 Ecology -- 1.4 Conservation Issues -- 1.5 Issues Addressed By The Research And Organization Of The Book -- 2 The Selous, The Study Population, And General Methods -- 2.1 The Selous Game Reserve -- 2.2 The Study Area And Population -- 2.3 General Methods -- 3 Home Ranges And Habitat Selection -- 3.1 Specific Methods -- 3.2 Description Of Home Ranges -- 3.3 Exclusive Areas, Overlaps And Territorial Defense -- 3.4 Den Locations And Characteristics -- 3.5 Pack Size And Range Size -- 3.6 Habitat Selection -- 3.7 Effect Of Prey Distribution On Habitat Selection And Home Range Properties -- 3.8 Comparison With Other Wild Dog Populations -- 3.9 Summary -- 4 Cooperative Hunting And The Evolution Of Sociality -- 4.1 Specific Methods -- 4.2 Hunting And Foraging Success -- 4.3 Prey Selection And Hunting Success -- 4.4 Cooperative Hunting Behavior --^ 4.5 Characteristics Of Kill Sites -- 4.6 Quantitative Effects Of Pack Size On Hunting Benefits And Costs -- 4.7 Optimal Hunting Pack Size -- 4.8 Net Rate Of Food Intake Vs. Efficiency -- 4.9 Effects Of Group Size Unrelated To Hunting -- 4.10 Variance In Foraging Success -- 4.11 Other Wild Dog Populations -- 4.12 Communal Hunting And Group Size: Comparisons With Other Species -- 5 Prey Selection -- 5.1 Prey Availability And Encounter Rates -- 5.2 Encounters And Hunts -- 5.3 Hunts And Kills -- 5.4 Combined Effects Of Encounter, Hunting, And Killing Probabilities On Prey Selection -- 5.5 Quantitative Models Of Prey Selection -- 5.6 Summary -- 6 Ungulate Herd Sizes And The Risk Of Predation By Wild Dogs -- 6.1 Probability Of Being Encountered -- 6.2 The Probability Of Being Hunted Upon Encounter -- 6.3 Hunting Success -- 6.4 Kills Per Encounter, Dilution Of Risk, And Combined Measures Of Vulnerability -- 7 Demography-survival And Reproduction -- 7.1 Survival Rates -- 7.2 Reproduction --^ 7.3 Density Dependence -- 7.4 Genetic Effective Population Size -- 7.5 Demographic Effective Population Size -- 8 Dispersal -- 8.1 Defining Dispersal In Social Carnivores -- 8.2 Number And Size Of Dispersing Groups -- 8.3 Rates Of Dispersal -- 8.4 Size Of Dispersing Groups -- 8.5 Linear Dispersal Distance -- 8.6 The Duration And Circumstances Of Floating -- 8.7 Comparison With Dispersal In Other Wild Dog Populations -- 8.8 Mortality Risk Of Dispersal -- 8.9 Dispersal And Escape From Reproductive Suppression -- 8.10 Dispersal And Escape From Inbreeding -- 8.11 Integrating Forces That Drive Dispersal -- 9 Reproductive Suppression, Social Stress, And The Behavioral And Endocrine Correlates Of Rank -- 9.1 Are Dominants More Aggressive? -- 9.2 Do Dominants Mate More Often Or More Effectively? -- 9.3 Do Hormonal Differences Accompany Behavioral Differences? -- 9.4 Nonbreeder Lactation -- 9.5 Does Social Stress Mediate Reproductive Suppression Of Subordinates? --^ 9.6 How Effective Is Reproductive Suppression Of Subordinates? -- 9.7 Similarities And Differences Between The Sexes In The Correlates Of Rank -- 9.8 Interspecific Comparisons -- 9.9 Dominance And Stress -- 9.10 Do The Correlates Of Rank Relate To Dispersal And Social Organization? -- 10 Patterns Of Relatedness And The Fitness Consequences Of Dispersal, Philopatry, -- And Reproductive Suppression -- 10.1 Age-specific Relatedness Of Natal And Immigrant Subordinates To Breeders -- 10.2 Inclusive Fitness Of Nondispersers -- 10.3 Inclusive Fitness Of Dispersers -- 10.4 Incomplete Reproductive Suppression: Breeding By Subordinates -- 11 Interspecific Competition With Larger Carnivores -- 11.1 Specific Methods -- 11.2 Carnivore Densities And Distributions In Selous -- 11.3 Correlations Between Species Densities -- 11.4 Diet Overlap -- 11.5 Direct Competition At Kills -- 11.6 Interactions Away From Kills -- 11.7 Impact Of Interspecific Competition --^ 11.8 Adaptations To Interspecific Competition -- 12 Infectious Diseases -- 12.1 Canine Distemper Virus -- 12.2 Rabies Virus -- 12.3 Anthrax -- 12.4 Canine Parvovirus -- 12.5 Other Pathogens -- 12.6 Behavior And Epidemiology -- 12.7 Impact Of Diseases On Population Dynamics And Density -- 13 Extinction Risk And Conservation -- 13.1 Analysis Of Extinction Risk With Leslie Matrix Projections -- 13.2 Stochastic Individual-based Modeling Of Extinction Risk -- 13.3 Sensitivity Analysis And Results -- 13.4 Summary And Recommendations -- References -- Index. Scott Creel And Nancy Marusha Creel. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [311]-338) And Index. The scientific name of the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) means painted wolf, a reference to their patchwork coats of brown, black, and white, which Angier (1996) aptly called "a furred version of combat fatigues."