Ecology of Sensing

Sense organs serve as a kind of biological interface between the environment and the organism. Therefore, the relationship between sensory systems and ecology is very close and its knowledge of fundamental importance for an understanding of animal behavior. The sixteen chapters of this book exemplify the diversity of the constraints and opportunities associated with the sensation of stimuli representing different forms of energy. The book stresses the events taking place in the sensory periphery where the animal is exposed to and gets in touch with its natural habitat and acquires the information needed to organize its interaction with its environment.
Ecology of Sensing brings together the leading experts in the field.

I. General Aspects.- 1 Physical Constraints in Sensory Ecology.- 2 Why Sensory Ecology Needs to Become More Evolutionary — Insect Color Vision as a Case in Point.- II. Sound and Hearing.- 1 Impedance Matching in Sound Production and Hearing: a Comparative Study.- 2 Ecological Constraints for Sound Communication: from Grasshoppers to Elephants.- 3 The Ecology of Avian Acoustical Signals.- III. Medium Flow and Vibrations.- 1 The Motion-Sensing Hairs of Arthropods: Using Physics to Understand Sensory Ecology and Adaptive Evolution.- 2 Vibration Communication in Vertebrates.- 3 Lateral Line Research: the Importance of Using Natural Stimuli in Studies of Sensory Systems.- IV. Light and Vision.- 1 The Metabolic Cost of Information — a Fundamental Factor in Visual Ecology.- 2 The Design of Compound Eyes and the Illumination of Natural Habitats.- 3 The Ecology of Teleost Fish Visual Pigments: a Good Example of Sensory Adaptation to the Environment?.- V. Odors and Chemoreception.- 1 Selectivity in Chemical Communication Systems of Arthropods.- 2 Sensory Ecology of Arthropods Utilizing Plant Infochemicals.- VI. Hygro- and Thermoreception.- 1 Problems in Hygro- and Thermoreception.- VII. Magnetic Field and Electroreception.- 1 The Geomagnetic Field and Its Role in Directional Orientation.- 2 Electric Fields and Electroreception: How Electrosensory Fish Perceive Their Environment.