Book reviews
An Introduction to Behavioral Endocrinology
Randy J. Nelson, Sinauer Associates, Inc., Sunderland, MA, USA, Second Edition, 1999, 659 pp., US$ 64.95, ISBN 0-87893-616-5 (hardcover)
This is the second edition of a widely used and well respected textbook of behavioral endocrinology Ð a ®eld which involves the study of the two-way interaction between behavior and endocrine systems. The author is a professor at Johns Hopkins University and has published extensively in top quality journals on such topics as photoperiod and seasonality, and on animals as diverse as laboratory rats and garter snakes. It is safe to assume that he knows his stuff.
The book has 12 chapters of the original edition and adds a new chapter on stress. On two randomly selected pages of the reference section, I counted 25 references published since 1995 (the year of the ®rst edition) out of a total of 101 references. Only three of these new references dealt speci®cally with the new chapter on stress. This suggests, in agreement with my subjective impression, that considerable new information has been added to this edition. The book contains introductory chapters on the history of methods used in behavioral endocrinology, as well as a brief outline of the endocrine system. There are chapters on learning and memory, hormones and mood, af®liative behavior and aggression (®ghting), homeostasis (feeding), stress (¯eeing), and four chapters on the ®nal `F' of life, reproduction, or its usual consequence, parental behavior. Since the chapters on stress and aggression also contain information on reproductive behavior, this book fails to disabuse us of the notion that behavioral endocrinologists are obsessed with sex. (In this context, the review editor advised me not to draw too much attention to the author's ®rst name).
Physically, the book is a pleasure to look at, hold, feel and smell, and an intellectual pleasure to read. It is a textbook, so it is not a book that will be read at a single sitting, and it does not really tell a story. Boxes are used to contain infobites that are peripheral to the main ¯ow of the chapter, or which provide historical context. Each chapter includes a summary of the main points, a list of suggested readings, and some questions for discussion.
Gratifyingly, the author discusses research done on a wide range of species, not just the standard laboratory animals. Even invertebrates get a mention. The range of behavioral styles that exist in nature is revealed, thus illustrating a reason why comparative psychology failed to ful®ll its original goal: to throw light on human behavior by studying `simpler' species.
The author places the research ®ndings within the context of the natural life of the species in its home environment, rather than in a stainless steel cage. This is the strong point
Applied Animal Behaviour Science 70 (2001) 245±248
of this book. Dealing as it does with animals as unfamiliar to the laboratory psychologist as snakes and kangaroos, the book gives welcome detail about the natural behaviour of the species and is generously illustrated. The author makes a deliberate attempt to relate the ®ndings of behavioral endocrinology to behavioral ecology and evolution. At a physio-logical level, the author moves away from simply considering the traditional endocrine system to including discussion of the neural systems, hormone receptors, etc., that will be involved in explaining the link between behavior and endocrinology. In fact this contextual information takes up so much of each chapter (and is so interesting) that I was led to wonder why the ®eld of behavioral endocrinology actually still exists as a separate sub-discipline (assuming it does). In an ideal world, wouldn't we have integrated textbooks on behavior, including ecology, evolution, neuroscience, cognition, endocrinology, etc.? At times it seemed a little odd to have a textbook covering topics as disparate as the mating behavior of garter snakes and seasonal affective disorder in people simply because they involve hormones.
As well as the emphasis on the ecological context, the author also takes every opportunity to relate the material to humans. One of his goals is clearly to bring the results of behavioural endocrinology to people working on human behavior. However, he does not try to establish such links with applied animal ethology. Farm animals are admirably suited to studies of behavioral endocrinology, being numerous, easy to handle and observe, and having large volumes of blood that can be extracted for hormone assays. We probably know as much or more about the endocrinology of pigs and cattle as we do of any other species. However, farm animals rate barely a mention in this book apart from a box on maternal behavior in sheep. The new chapter on stress would seem relevant to those working on animal welfare, but it is not the strongest chapter in the book. It includes a somewhat uncritical discussion of Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome model, but little real discussion of the dif®culties it raises; and there is a surprising lack of information on neuroendocrine mechanisms (such as those involving CRH) that integrate both behavioral and physiological responses to stress. Having read Robert Sapolsky's books just prior to this one, I felt that this chapter suffered by comparison.
The unfortunate omission of research on domestic farm animals reduces the value of this book to the readers of this journal. Nevertheless, the high quality of the publication, the authority of the author, and the excellent bibliography make this an invaluable source of supplementary information for courses in applied ethology. I am very happy to have a copy and can recommend it to others interested in the interactions between behavior and physiology.
Jeff Rushen
Dairy and Swine Research and Development Centre Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada PO Box 90, Lennoxville Que. Canada J1M 1Z3
Fax:1-819-5645507
E-mail address: rushenj@em.agr.ca (J. Rushen) PII: S 0 1 6 8 - 1 5 9 1 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 5 3 - 2
