Kunz, T. H., and S. Parsons (eds.). 2009. ECOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL METHODS FOR THE STUDY OF BATS. 2nd ed. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 901 pp. ISBN 978-0-8018-9147-2, price (hardbound), $100.00

Abstract

T. H. Kunz, S. Parsons (eds.). 2009. Ecological and Behavioral Methods for the Study of Bats. 2nd ed. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 901 pp. ISBN 978-0-8018-9147-2, price (hardbound), $100.00. I had written “Sometime in 1989” just inside the front cover of my copy of Ecological and Behavioral Methods for the Study of Bats (Kunz 1988), a book that I had purchased from the fine representatives of Smithsonian Institution Press at the American Society of Mammalogists Annual Meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1989. The next page is signed “best regards and good batting! Thomas H. Kunz.” The rest of the book is now tattered with slips of paper inserted here and there with notes scribbled on them. For someone who was contemplating the study of bats, I could not wait for this book! It became an instant classic. Now, just 20 years later, the 2nd edition is published and is about twice the size—Kunz (1988) is 533 pages, Kunz and Parsons (2009) is 901 pages—and has more than twice the contributors (35 authors in 1988, 84 in 2009), an additional 14 chapters, and well more than twice the number of citations (notably, each chapter has more than doubled the citations; Table 1). View this table: Table 1 Comparison of 4 metrics between the 1st (Kunz 1988) and 2nd (Kunz and Parsons 2009) editions of Ecological and Behavioral Methods for the Study of Bats . The numbers of chapters could be considered a metric for number of separate or distinct subject areas where methods could be applied for the study of bat biology. If this is true, knowledge and investigation into bat ecology has nearly doubled in the last 2 decades. Clearly, the 1st edition (Kunz 1988) was an anticipated classic and provided significant guidance to a cohort of scientists primed to test their ideas under the tutelage of contributors that Kunz (1988) assembled. The 2nd edition placed chapters into parts that include Monitoring and Tracking; Populations and Assemblages; Reproduction and Development; Behavior of …