Insect Hormones

The goal of this textbook is to provide students and non-specialists with an overview of the dynamic and wide-ranging science that insect endocrinology has become since its beginnings nearly 80 years ago in the study of insect metamorphosis. The author offers a comprehensive survey of the many roles that hormones play in the biology of insects. Among the topics discussed are the control of moulting, metamorphosis, reproduction, caste determination in social insects, diapause, migration, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism, diuresis and behaviour. The account features a summary of the most current and accurate thinking on the complex roles of ecdysone and juvenile hormone in the control of metamorphosis, a process still misunderstood and misrepresented in biological textbooks and many professional reviews. Throughout, the book's emphasis is on the biology of the organism and the ways in which physiological and developmental regulatory mechanisms are integrated into the insect's life cycle.