This book draws together the most relevant and recent advances in the area of ionic transport in animals. In particular, it describes the role of modern cell and molecular biology research techniques in this rapidly advancing field. These techniques have led to important advances in our knowledge of cellular mechanisms of ion transporting epithelia, the role and expression of osmoregulatory hormones and a new understanding of whole body salt and water balance.

In the 40 years since the classic review of osmotic and ionic regulation written by Potts and Parry, there has been astonishing growth in scientific productivity, a marked shift in the direction and taxonomic distribution of research, and amazing changes in the technology of scientific research" It is indicative of the growth of the subject that as

The fifth edition of The Physiology of Fishes represents a compendium of knowledge across fish physiology, collecting up-to-date research into an easy-to-access single textbook. Written by the leaders in the field, it provides a comprehensive, accessible review of the core topics, integrating physiology with environmental science, ecology, evolution, and molecular cell biology. New chapters address Epigenetics, Biomechanics and Locomotion, and Behaviour and Learning. Each chapter contains an extensive bibliography, providing readers with the best sources from the primary literature. Almost three decades after the publication of the first edition, this book remains the only published single-volume work on fish physiology. The fifth edition provides an important reference for new students of fish biology, marine and freshwater biologists, ichthyologists, fisheries scientists, and comparative physiologists.

The need for ion and water homeostasis is common to all life. For fish, ion and water homeostasis is an especially important challenge because they live in direct contact with water and because of the large variation in the salt content of natural waters (varying by over 5 orders of magnitude). Most fish are stenohaline and are unable to move between freshwater and seawater. Remarkably, some fishes are capable of life in both freshwater and seawater. These euryhaline fishes constitute an estimated 3 to 5% of all fish species. Euryhaline fishes represent some of the most iconic and interesting of all fish species, from salmon and sturgeon that make epic migrations to intertidal mudskippers that contend with daily salinity changes. With the advent of global climate change and increasing sea levels, understanding the environmental physiology of euryhaline species is critical for environmental management and any mitigative measures. This volume will provide the first integrative review of euryhalinity in fish. There is no other book that focuses on fish that have the capacity to move between freshwater and seawater. The different challenges of salt and water balance in different habitats have led to different physiological controls and regulation, which heretofore has not been reviewed in a single volume. - Collects and synthesizes the literature covering the state of knowledge of the physiology of euryhaline fish - Provides the foundational information needed for researchers from a variety of fields, including fish physiology, conservation and evolutionary biology, genomics, ecology, ecotoxicology, and comparative physiology - All authors are the leading researchers and emerging leaders in their fields

Ecologists have always believed, at least to a certain extent, that physiological mechanisms serve to underpin ecological patterns. However, their importance has traditionally been at best underestimated and at worst ignored, with physiological variation being dismissed as either an irrelevance or as random noise/error. Spicer and Gaston make a convincing argument that the precise physiology does matter! In contrast to previous works which have attempted to integrate ecology and physiology, Physiological Diversity adopts a completely different and more controversial approach in tackling the physiology first before moving on to consider the implications for ecology. This is timely given the recent and considerable interest in the mechanisms underlying ecological patterns. Indeed, many of these mechanisms are physiological. This textbook provides a contemporary summary of physiological diversity as it occurs at different hierarchical levels (individual, population, species etc.), and the implications of such diversity for ecology and, by implication, evolution. It reviews what is known of physiological diversity and in doing so exposes the reader to all the key works in the field. It also portrays many of these studies in a completely new light, thereby serving as an agenda for, and impetus to, the future study of physiological variation. Physiological Diversity will be of relevance to senior undergraduates, postgraduates and professional researchers in the fields of ecology, ecological physiology, ecotoxicology, environmental biology and conservation. The book spans both terrestrial and marine systems.

For a long time, the tight junction (TJ) was known to form and regulate the paracellular barrier between epithelia and endothelial cell sheets. Starting shortly after the discovery of the proteins forming the TJ—mainly the two families of claudins and TAMPs—several other functions have been discovered, a striking one being the surprising finding that some claudins form paracellular channels for small ions and/or water. This Special Issue includes 43 articles covering numerous dedicated topics including pathogens affecting the TJ barrier, TJ regulation via immune cells, the TJ as a therapeutic target, TJ and cell polarity, function and regulation by proteins of the tricellular TJ, TJ as a regulator of cellular processes, organ- and tissue-specific functions, TJ as sensors and reacting to environmental conditions, and last but not least, TJ proteins and cancer.