Insect Diapause

Captures the full scope of the literature, integrating ecological and molecular mechanisms that enable insects to enter a dormant state.

Written by the world's primary authority on insect diapause, this book explains how environmental cues elicit diapause and probes the underlying molecular mechanisms that bring about the dormant state. Invaluable for professionals and students interested in diapause and the implications it has for advancing other areas of science.Our highly seasonal world restricts insect activity to brief portions of the year. This feature necessitates a sophisticated interpretation of seasonal changes and enactment of mechanisms for bringing development to a halt and then reinitiating it when the inimical season is past. The dormant state of diapause serves to bridge the unfavourable seasons, and its timing provides a powerful mechanism for synchronizing insect development. This book explores how seasonal signals are monitored and used by insects to enact specific molecular pathways that generate the diapause phenotype. The broad perspective offered here scales from the ecological to the molecular and thus provides a comprehensive view of this exciting and vibrant research field, offering insights on topics ranging from pest management, evolution, speciation, climate change and disease transmission, to human health, as well as analogies with other forms of invertebrate dormancy and mammalian hibernation.