Insect Behavior From Mechanisms to Ecological and Evolutionary Consequences

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.

Alex Córdoba-Aguilar completed his PhD at Sheffield University and has been a researcher at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México since 2003. Daniel González-Tokman did his doctoral studies at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and has been a researcher at the Instituto de Ecología, A. C. since 2015. Isaac González-Santoyo did his doctoral studies at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and has been a lecturer in the same university since 2015.