P. Calow – författare

As time progresses, biology becomes more and more fragmented and specialized and it becomes increasingly difficult to see how all the dis- ! parate facts fit together. It is completely proper that biologists should have sought to reduce complex biological wholes into their parts, and it is natural that studies on the products of this reduction should have diverged from more holistic studies on evolution and ecology. Yet the biological parts, what they do and how they are organized are products of an evolutionary process which fits organisms for life in particular ecological circumstances. Physiology, developmental biology, ecology and evolutionary biology must not be allowed to grow too far apart, therefore, because all these disciplines and the way their subject matters interact are crucial to understanding organisms - and it is this, it seems to me, which is the fundamental goal of the biological sciences. This book has been written in the spirit of unification and synthesis. It is, in a sense, a general biology of the organism - not, however, of organisms as static unchanging systems, but of organisms as dynamic entities which progress through a definite cycle of events from birth to maturity. The central theme, therefore, will be the life cycle, and the book is organized around the three main phases which are characteristic of all life cycles; growth (Part II), reproduction (Part III) and ageing (Part IV).

Physiological ecology is concerned with the way that physiological traits fit organisms for the ecological circumstances in which they live, so there is always an implicit evolutionary component to it. This book is concerned with physiological studies that make the evolutionary considerations explicit. The first part explores physiological models that predict how, under different ecological pressures, resources should be invested in such metabolic processes as costs of maintenance, growth patterns and allometries, ageing and physiological adaptability. In the context of the integrated metabolism of whole organisms, the second part of the volume considers aspects of the physiological ecology of specific organisms. The underlying theme of these chapters is the link between genotype and physiological phenotype.

Courses on the invertebrates have two principal aims: (1) to introduce students to the diversity of animal life and (2) to make them aware that organisms are marvellously integrated systems with evolutionary pasts and ecological presents. This text is concerned exclusively with the second aim and assumes that the reader will already know something about the diversity and classification of invertebrates. Concepts of whole-organism function, metabolism and adaptation form the core of the subject-matter and this is also considered in an ecological setting. Hence, the approach is multi-disciplinary, drawing from principles normally restricted to comparative morphology and physiology, ecology and evolutionary biology. Invertebrate courses, as with all others in a science curriculum, also have another aim - to make students aware of the general methods of science. And these I take to be associated with the so-calledhypothetico­ deductive programme. Here, therefore, I make a conscious effort to formulate simple, some might say naive, hypotheses and to confront them with quantitative data from the real world. There are, for example, as many graphs in the book as illustrations of animals. My aim, though, has not been to test out the principles of Darwinism, but rather to sharpen our focus on physiological adaptations, given the assumption that Darwinism is approximately correct. Whether or not I succeed remains for the reader to decide.

As time progresses, biology becomes more and more fragmented and specialized and it becomes increasingly difficult to see how all the dis- ! parate facts fit together. It is completely proper that biologists should have sought to reduce complex biological wholes into their parts, and it is natural that studies on the products of this reduction should have diverged from more holistic studies on evolution and ecology. Yet the biological parts, what they do and how they are organized are products of an evolutionary process which fits organisms for life in particular ecological circumstances. Physiology, developmental biology, ecology and evolutionary biology must not be allowed to grow too far apart, therefore, because all these disciplines and the way their subject matters interact are crucial to understanding organisms - and it is this, it seems to me, which is the fundamental goal of the biological sciences. This book has been written in the spirit of unification and synthesis. It is, in a sense, a general biology of the organism - not, however, of organisms as static unchanging systems, but of organisms as dynamic entities which progress through a definite cycle of events from birth to maturity. The central theme, therefore, will be the life cycle, and the book is organized around the three main phases which are characteristic of all life cycles; growth (Part II), reproduction (Part III) and ageing (Part IV).

Courses on the invertebrates have two principal aims: (1) to introduce students to the diversity of animal life and (2) to make them aware that organisms are marvellously integrated systems with evolutionary pasts and ecological presents. This text is concerned exclusively with the second aim and assumes that the reader will already know something about the diversity and classification of invertebrates. Concepts of whole-organism function, metabolism and adaptation form the core of the subject-matter and this is also considered in an ecological setting. Hence, the approach is multi-disciplinary, drawing from principles normally restricted to comparative morphology and physiology, ecology and evolutionary biology. Invertebrate courses, as with all others in a science curriculum, also have another aim - to make students aware of the general methods of science. And these I take to be associated with the so-calledhypothetico­ deductive programme. Here, therefore, I make a conscious effort to formulate simple, some might say naive, hypotheses and to confront them with quantitative data from the real world. There are, for example, as many graphs in the book as illustrations of animals. My aim, though, has not been to test out the principles of Darwinism, but rather to sharpen our focus on physiological adaptations, given the assumption that Darwinism is approximately correct. Whether or not I succeed remains for the reader to decide.

Courses on the invertebrates have two principal aims: (1) to introduce students to the diversity of animal life and (2) to make them aware that organisms are marvellously integrated systems with evolutionary pasts and ecological presents. This text is concerned exclusively with the second aim and assumes that the reader will already know something about the diversity and classification of invertebrates. Concepts of whole-organism function, metabolism and adaptation form the core of the subject-matter and this is also considered in an ecological setting. Hence, the approach is multi-disciplinary, drawing from principles normally restricted to comparative morphology and physiology ,ecology and evolutionary biology. Invertebrate courses, as with all others in a science curriculum, also have another aim - to make students aware of the general methods of science. And these I take to be associated with the so-called hypothetico­ deductive programme. Here, therefore, I make a conscious effort to formulate simple, some might say naive, hypotheses and to confront them with quantitative data from the real world. There are, for example, as many graphs in the book as illustrations of animals. My aim, though, has not been to test out the principles of Darwinism, but rather to sharpen our focus on physiological adaptations, given the assumption that Darwinism is approximately correct. Whether or not I succeed remains for the reader to decide.