Symposium Insect Behavioral Ecology

Insects provide excellent model systems for understanding evolutionary ecology. They are abundant, small, and relatively easy to rear, and these traits facilitate both field and laboratory experiments. This book has been developed from the Royal Entomological Society's 22nd international symposium, held in Reading in 2003. Topics include speciation and adaptation; life history, phenotype plasticity and genetics; sexual selection and reproductive biology; insect-plant interactions; insect-natural enemy interactions; and social insects.

Insects display a staggering diversity of behaviors. Studying these systems provides insights into a wide range of ecological, evolutionary, and behavioral questions including the genetics of behavior, phenotypic plasticity, chemical communication, and the evolution of life-history traits. This accessible text offers a new approach that provides the reader with the necessary theoretical and conceptual foundations, at different hierarchical levels, to understand insect behavior. The book is divided into three main sections: mechanisms, ecological and evolutionary consequences, and applied issues. The final section places the preceding chapters within a framework of current threats to human survival - climate change, disease, and food security - before providing suggestions and insights as to how we can utilize an understanding of insect behavior to control and/or ameliorate them. Each chapter provides a concise, authoritative review of the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological foundations of each topic.

Insect behavior; The biological basis of insect behavior; Insect bahavior as field of study; The programming and integration of behavior; Nervous coordinating mechanisms; Hormonal coordinating mechanisms; Internal communication; The increase of information; Spatial adjustment; Locomotion; Orientation; Dispersal; Thermoregulation; Feeding behavior; Herbivores and plants; Food location; Social feeding behaviors; Food recognition and acceptance; Regulation of feeding; Chemical communication; Mechanisms of chemical comuunication; Odor production and chemoreception; Types of chemical communications; The functions of chemical. Visual communication; Light production; Light reception; Functions of visual communication; Mechano-communication; Defense survival catalogue. Reprocuctive behavior. Brood care and social life.