Pine Bark Beetles, the latest release in the Advances in Insect Physiology series, provides readers with the latest interdisciplinary reviews on the topic. It is an essential reference source for invertebrate physiologists, neurobiologists, entomologists, zoologists, and insect chemists.
Insect Molecular Genetics, Third Edition, summarizes and synthesizes two rather disparate disciplines—entomology and molecular genetics. This volume provides an introduction to the techniques and literature of molecular genetics; defines terminology; and reviews concepts, principles, and applications of these powerful tools. The world of insect molecular genetics, once dominated by Drosophila, has become much more diverse, especially with the sequencing of multiple arthropod genomes (from spider mites to mosquitoes). This introduction includes discussion of honey bees, mosquitoes, flour beetles, silk moths, fruit flies, aphids, house flies, kissing bugs, cicadas, butterflies, tsetse flies and armyworms. This book serves as both a foundational text and a review of a rapidly growing literature. With fully revised and updated chapters, the third edition will be a valuable addition to the personal libraries of entomologists, geneticists, and molecular biologists.
Advances in Insect Physiology is committed to publishing volumes containing comprehensive and in-depth reviews on all aspects of insect physiology. First published in 1963, these volumes are an essential reference source for invertebrate physiologists, insect neurobiologists, entomologists, zoologists and insect biochemists. This volume is themed on small RNAs and RNAi in insects.
Socio-Genetics seeks to understand both the genetic and environmental contributions to individual variations in behavior. Behaviors, like all complex traits, involve multiple genes, a reality that complicates the search for genetic contributions. As with much other research in genetics, studies of genes and behavior require analysis of families and populations for comparison of those who have the trait in question with those who do not. The result commonly is a statement of "heritability," a statistical construct that estimates the amount of variation in a population that is attributable to genetic factors. The explanatory power of heritability figures is limited, however, applying only to the population studied and only to the environment in place at the time the study was conducted. If the population or the environment changes, the heritability most likely will change as well. Focused on the genetics of complex traits in a variety of organisms—honeybees, mice, and nematodes—this volume discusses environmental influence on genetic programs and evolutionary genetics. Such research is proving important in furthering our understanding of the genetic basis of such diseases as obesity, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, and autism, to name a few.
Biological rhythms, such as the sleep-wake cycle or circadian clock, are an intriguing aspect of biology. The regulation of daily rhythmicity has long been a mystery, up until the mid-1980's when a key gene in the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster, was molecularly identified. Genetic and molecular chronobiology of Drosophila has been a driving force in this field of inquiry ever since. Genetics and Molecular Biology of Rhythms in Drosophila and Other Insects describes and evaluates all of the studies of this sort, discussing the manner by which these investigations have spread out in various directions of rhythmic biology, including genetic and molecular approaches used on other insect species.