Environmental conditions change considerably in the course of 24 h with
respect to abiotic factors and intra- and interspecific interactions.
These changes result in limited time windows of opportunity for animal
activities and, hence, the question of when to do what is subject to
fitness maximisation. This volume gives a current overview of
theoretical considerations and empirical findings of activity patterns
in small mammals, a group in which the energetic and ecological
constraints are particularly severe and the diversity of activity
patterns is particularly high. Following a comparative ecological
approach, for the first time activity timing is consequently treated in
terms of behavioural and evolutionary ecology, providing the conceptual
framework for chronoecology as a new subdiscipline within behavioural
ecology. An extensive Appendix gives an introduction to methods of
activity modelling and to tools for statistical pattern analysis.