Mike Smeltzer for critical reading of this manuscript.
This work was partially supported by NIH grants
HD48462 and HD40722 (JTC), MH67396 (BJA),
MH58616 and MH67396 (ZXW)
18 Bennett G. Galef Jr.: I thank Paul Sherman for his
thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of the manu-
script. The author’s research described here was sup-
ported for 35 years by the Natural Science and Engi-
neering Research Council of Canada.
21 Eileen A. Lacey and Paul W. Sherman: The ideas pre-
sented in this paper reflect 25 years of collaborative in-
teractions between the authors regarding sociality in ro-
dents. For insights and encouragement along the way
we thank R. D. Alexander, J. U. M. Jarvis, M. L. Mor-
ton, C. K. Sherman, J. S. Sherman, J. R. Wieczorek, J. O.
Wolff, E. Yensen, the Animal Behavior Lunch Bunch at
Cornell University, and the many graduate and under-
graduate students who have assisted with our field and
laboratory studies of subterranean rodents. Our work
with social rodents has been supported by the National
Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society,
Sigma Xi, the Center for Latin American Studies at the
University of California, Berkeley, and the College of
Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University.
22 S. Craig Roberts: I thank Morris Gosling, Paul Sherman,
Jerry Wolff, and Sarah Zala for their comments on the
manuscript.
23 Luis A. Ebensperger and Daniel T. Blumstein: We thank
the editors for inviting us to write this chapter, and for
comprehensive suggestions, which improved the origi-
nal manuscript considerably. Comments by Bob Elwood
and Stefano Parmigiani also are greatly appreciated.
During the writing of this article, LAE was supported
by the Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Ecología &
Biodiversidad (FONDAP 1501-001) and by a FONDE-
CYT grant No. 1020861.
25 Eviatar Nevo: This chapter is based on the research pro-
gram of speciation and adaptive radiation in Israeli sub-
terranean mole-rats that started in the early 1950s. The
subset of aggression studies was initiated in 1975. The
Spalax ehrenbergisuperspecies research program incor-
porates the extensive Israeli and worldwide collabora-
tions of active students, colleagues, and collaborators of
subterranean mammals. The Spalaxresearch program
has been documented since 1961 in some 280 multidis-
ciplinary scientific publications. Much of the evidence
in this chapter stems from the aforementioned collabo-
rations. We acknowledge all participants’ contributions
with much appreciation.
I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to my col-
leagues at the Institute of Evolution, whose generous
and devoted help made this chapter possible: Mr. Mi-
chael Margulis and Mrs. Robin Permut.
I also appreciate the continuous financial support
of the University of Haifa, Israeli Discount Bank Chair
of Evolutionary Biology, the Ancell-Teicher Research
Foundation for Genetics and Molecular Evolution, the
Israeli Ministries of Science and Absorption, and grants
from the Israel Science Foundation, BSF, the Israel Acad-
emy of Sciences, and Guggenheim Foundation.
26 Donald H. Owings and Richard G. Coss: We are in-
debted to Eric Charles and the editors for their careful
reviews of drafts of this manuscript.
27 Daniel T. Blumstein: I thank Alexander Nikolskii for in-
troducing me to the Russian literature on alarm com-
munication and Luis Ebensberger for an introduction to
South American rodents; neither is responsible for an-
ticipated omissions. I thank Janice Daniel, Kim Pollard,
and my reviewers —Jan Randall and Ron Swaisgood —
for constructive comments on previous versions, and
Erin Shelly, who found reports of genera of alarm calling
rodents that I originally missed. I amextremelygrateful
to Paul Sherman, who went out of his way to improve
the clarity of this chapter, and to remind me of the im-
portance of the “limits of nepotism”— a hypothesis that
is likely to explain interspecific variation in the adap-
tive utility of alarm communication and other nepotis-
tic behaviors.
28 Hannu Ylönen and Joel S. Brown: We thank the editors
for inviting us to join the team of Rodent Societies. It
was a great honor. For our experiences and journeys
into the fascinating world of desert rodents, voles, and
the ecology of fear, we owe much to the help, instruc-
tion, and good ideas of a number of colleagues and
friends, too many to mention by name, but denizens of
Fennoscandia, North America, the Middle East, and
Australia. We are grateful to them all.
31 Jan A. Randall: I am grateful to my Russian collabo-
rators on the gerbil project, especially Kostya Rogo-
vin, who kindly provided references from the Russian
literature and constructed table 31.1. I thank all the
students who participated in my research on kangaroo
rats and gerbils over the years, and Bruce MacEvoy for
his support and editing skills. He, Debra Shier, Kostya
Rogovin, and Jerry Wolff provided helpful comments
on the manuscript. I thank the National Science Foun-
dation, National Institute of Health, National Geo-
graphic Society, and the Research and Development
Foundation for grant support. This chapter is dedicated
to John Eisenberg, who conducted the early studies on
the behavior of desert rodents and encouraged me to
study them.
32 Manuel Berdoy and Lee C. Drickamer: The authors
would like to thank J. Galef, A. Hanson, P. Honess,
G. Singleton, A. Voight, J. Webster, and S. Wolfensohn
for helpful comments on this chapter.xivAcknowledgments