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The Canary: Natural History, Science and Cultural Significance covers the ecology, evolution and conservation of the canary and related species, along with the history and cultural significance of the domestic canary worldwide and various scientific disciplines in which canaries have played a key role as a model species. The book synthesizes the multiple ways in which the canary and its relatives have been, and continue to be, an important scientific model in diverse areas and have influenced human culture. Each chapter is written by international experts in areas such as biogeography, animal behavior, evolutionary ecology, conservation, neurobiology, genetics, or ethnology.
In covering this eclectic array of topics, while always focusing on the canary and its close relatives, this book uses the immense appeal of the canary as a vehicle to present notions of ecology, evolution, biodiversity conservation, and so on, to a wide audience.
List of contents
Part I: From the Atlantic to peoples' homes1. Macaronesian birds and the natural environment of the canary
2. The wild canary - ecology and behavior in the Atlantic
3. The domestication and cultural significance of the canary
Part II: The canary and its relatives4. The family tree and biogeographic history of canary relatives
5. Ecology and conservation of the world's canaries
6. The peculiar cousins: lessons from the ecology and evolution of crossbills
7. Evolution of song and colour across the canary relatives
Part III: A model for science8. What the canary can tell us about singing and the brain
9. Eggs, hormones, and breeding
10. Canary domestication as a model for genomics research
About the author
Gonçalo C. Cardoso is a research scientist at CIBIO-University of Porto, Portugal, working in the fields of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He specializes in social behaviour, the function and evolution of sexual signals.
Ricardo Jorge Lopes is a research scientist at CIBIO and Curator of the Bird Collection at the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto (MHNC-UP). He is an evolutionary ecologist with a strong focus on conservation, and uses canaries as a model species to investigate the genomics of evolutionarily relevant traits.
Paulo Gama Mota is Associate Professor at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. Most of his field and laboratory research concerns animal communication and mate choice behaviour, using the canary and its closest relative (the European serin) as model study species. He has had a long experience as director of different science museums.
