Ecological and Environmental Physiology of Insects

• Focuses on the comparative physiology of insects, providing a control theory context to each physiological system
• Provides an explicit comparison of short-term, developmental plasticity and evolutionary responses
• Explores the ecological and evolutionary consequences of trade-offs
• Provides a synthesis of current research and suggests a future agenda
• Incorporates the latest experimental techniques
• Tackles broader evolutionary questions with significant human relevance such as understanding the past and possible future effects of global climate change

Readership: Graduate level students and researchers in the fields of comparative physiology and insect physiological ecology, including specialist courses in insect ecology. It will also be of relevance and use to professional entomologists, ecologists, molecular biologists, and evolutionary biologists seeking a concise but authoritative overview of the topic.

Jon F. Harrison, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, USA, H. Arthur Woods, Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, USA, and Stephen P. Roberts, Department of Biology, Central Michigan University, USA

Jon Harrison is a Professor of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, where he is also Director of Research Infrastructure and Facilities and is also a Fellow of AAAS. He has been studying the ecological and evolutionary physiology of insects since 1982, earning his PhD from the Univ. of Colorado, Boulder. His ecophysiological research interests have included lizards, grasshoppers, bees, caterpillars, beetles, cockroaches, dragonflies, and fruit flies, with primary emphases on the metabolic, respiratory, and nutritional physiology of insects.

Art Woods is an Associate Professor at The University of Montana. He earned his PhD from The University of Washington in 1998 and has been studying insects ever since. He is interested in diverse aspects of insect physiology and ecology, and more recently in how insects interact with their host plants. His current work focuses on interactions between Manduca sphinx moths and their host plants in the American Southwest.

Stephen Roberts is Professor and Chair of Biology at Central Michigan University. He has been studying insect physiology since 1990, earning his PhD from Arizona State Univ. He has studied grasshoppers, bees, and fruit flies to address basic questions about thermoregulation, thermotolerance, flight energetics, biomechanics, and aging in insects.

"If you are seriously interested in how the environment affects insects, and want to understand this process at a mechanistic level, you should own this book." - Spencer T. Behmer, Ecology

1: Introduction
2: Basic insect functional anatomy and physiological principles
3: Temperature
4: Water
5: Nutrition, growth, and size
6: Oxygen
7: Techniques and applications
8: Conclusions and future directions
References
Index

Series website