Insect Physiological Ecology: Mechanisms and Patterns

This book provides a modern, synthetic overview of interactions between insects and their environments from a physiological perspective that integrates information across a range of approaches and scales. It shows that evolved physiological responses at the individual level are translated into coherent physiological and ecological patterns at larger, even global scales. This is done by examining in detail the ways in which insects obtain resources from the environment, process these resources in various ways, and turn the results into energy which alloews them to regulate their internal environment as well as cope with evvironmental extremes of temperture and water availability. The book demonstrates that physiological responses are not only characterized by substantial temporal variation, but also show coherent variation across several spatial scales. At the largest, global scale, there appears to be substantial variation associated with the hemisphere in which insects are found. Such variation has profound implication as well as responses to climate change, and these implications are explicitly discussed. The book provides a novel integration of the understanding gained from broad-scale field studies of many species and the more narrowly focused laboratory investigations of model organisms. In so doing it reflects the growing realization that an integration of mechanistic and large-scale comparative physiology can result in unexpected insights into the diversity of insects.

Chown (zoology, University of Stellenbosch) and Nicolson (zoology and entomology, University of Pretoria) overview interactions between insects and their environments from a physiological perspective that integrates information across a range of approaches and scales. They examine the ways in which insects obtain resources from the environment, process these resources, and turn the results into energy which allows them to regulate their internal environment and cope with extremes in the external environment. The book integrates the understanding gained from broad-scale field studies of many species with narrowly focused laboratory investigations of model organisms. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Steven Chown is head of the Spatial, Physiological and Conservation Ecology Group in the Department of Zoology at University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Sue Nicolson is Head of the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the University of Pretoria, South Africa