Technology for modifying the genotypes and phenotypes of insects and other arthropods has steadily progressed with the development of more precise and powerful methods, most prominently transgenic modification. For many insect pests, there is now almost unlimited ability to modify phenotypes to benefit human health and agriculture. Precise DNA modifications and gene drive have the power to make wild-type populations less harmful in ways that could never have been performed with previous tr...

Imagine scientists controlling the transmission of certain diseases through the genetic modification of mosquitoes. Eradicating harmful insects without the use of pesticides. Or increasing the fertility of some insects who in turn eat harmful arthropods or even a plant pathogen. Those are just a few of the real-world applications of insect transgen

A single species of fly, Drosophila melanogaster, has been the subject of scientific research for more than one hundred years. Why does this tiny insect merit such intense scrutiny?Drosophila’s importance as a research organism began with its short life cycle, ability to reproduce in large numbers, and easy-to-see mutant phenotypes. Over time, laboratory investigation revealed surprising similarities between flies and other animals at the level of genes, gene netw...

This book contains the proceedings of the International Symposium on the Mechanisms of Sexual Reproduction in Animals and Plants, where many plant and animal reproductive biologists gathered to discuss their recent progress in investigating the shared mechanisms and factors involved in sexual reproduction. This now is the first book that reviews recent progress in almost all fields of plant and animal fertilization. It was recently reported that the self-sterile mechanism of a hermaphrodit...

This book explains the ecology of viruses by examining their interactive dynamics with their hosting species (in this volume, in microbes and plants), including the types of transmission cycles that viruses have evolved encompassing principal and alternate hosts, vehicles, and vectoring species. Examining virology from an organismal biology approach and focusing on the concept that viral infections represent areas of overlap in the ecologies of the involved species, Viral Ecology ...

The Evolution of the Genome provides a much needed overview of genomic study through clear, detailed, expert-authored discussions of the key areas in genome biology. This includes the evolution of genome size, genomic parasites, gene and ancient genome duplications, polypoidy, comparative genomics, and the implications of these genome-level phenomena for evolutionary theory. In addition to reviewing the current state of knowledge of these fields in an accessible way, the various chapters a...

The explosion of the field of genetics over the last decade, with the new technologies that have stimulated research, suggests that a new sort of reference work is needed to keep pace with such a fast-moving and interdisciplinary field. Brenner's Encyclopedia of Genetics, Second Edition, Seven Volume Set, builds on the foundation of the first edition by addressing many of the key subfields of genetics that were just in their infancy when the first edition was published. The curren...

Due to its prolific reproduction and the external development of the transparent embryo, the zebrafish is the prime model for genetic and developmental studies, as well as research in genomics. While genetically distant from humans, nonetheless the vertebrate zebrafish has comparable organs and tissues that make it the model organism for study of vertebrate development.This book, one of two new volumes in the Reliable Lab Solutions series dealing with zebrafish, brings together a robust an...

Under continual attack from both microbial pathogens and multicellular parasites, insects must cope with immune challenges every day of their lives. However, this has not prevented them from becoming the most successful group of animals on the planet. Insects possess highly-developed innate immune systems which have been fine-tuned by an arms race with pathogens spanning hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history. Recent discoveries are revealing both an unexpected degree of spe...

The annual Evolutionary Biology Meetings in Marseille aim to bring together leading scientists, promoting an exchange of state-of-the-art knowledge and the formation of inter-group collaborations. This book presents the most representative contributions to the 13th meeting, which was held in September 2009. It comprises 21 chapters, which are organized into the following three categories: • Evolutionary Biology Concepts • Genome/Molecular Evolution • Morphological Evolution/Speciation This...

This book examines how the growing knowledge of the huge range of protist-, animal-, and plant-bacterial interactions, whether in shared ecosystems or intimate symbioses, is fundamentally altering our understanding of biology. The establishment and maintenance of these interactions and their contributions to the health and survival of all partners relies on continuous cell-to-cell communication between them. This dialogue may be concerned with all aspects of the biology of both partners. T...

Parasitoids are parasitic insects that kill their insect hosts in immature pre-reproductive stages. Parasitoids are employed in biological control programs worldwide to kill insect pests and are environmentally safe and benign alternatives to chemical pesticides. As resistance to chemical pesticides continues to escalate in many pest populations, attention is now refocusing on biologically-based strategies to control pest species in agriculture and forestry as well as insect vector populat...