Nematodes - Ecology, Adaptation and Parasitism is a collection of high-impact scientific chapters written by eminent researchers from all over the globe. The book discusses frontier areas of nematode biology, including ecological features, adaptability power, and parasitic nature of Phylum Nemathelminthes. The authors report on the comparative diversity, abundance, and bioindicative capabilities of nematode community structures in natural and contaminated habitats. The book also examines topics such as ecological significance and potential implications of entomopathogenic nematodes on sustainable pest control management, the parasitic adaptation of plant parasitic nematodes, and their interaction with other microorganisms. It also discusses the application of a new generation of chemical nematicides and herbal nematicides to control plant parasitic nematodes. This book is a valuable resource on the biology of nematodes and is useful for students, researchers, and scientists working in nematology.

By joining phylogenetics and evolutionary ecology, this book explores the patterns of parasite diversity while revealing diversification processes.

Plant Parasitic Nematodes, Volume III provides a comprehensive discussion of the different advances in plant nematology. This includes biochemical techniques to taxonomy and innovation in transmission and scanning electron microscopy technology. It explains a broadened basis for understanding nematode physiology and behavior and the sensory mechanisms that govern nematode actions and plant host-nematode interactions. The book discusses the development of modern approaches to the evaluation and reduction of crop losses. The emphasis of this volume is on plant parasites and insights gained through research on other nematodes. In particular, the book explains the anatomical, developmental, behavioral, and genetic studies on the free-living nematode Cenorhabditis elegans, which is a widely used laboratory model for examining various biological problems. The information provided by various researches on C. elegans increases our understanding about the relevance of nematodes to general biological processes in higher organisms, including man. The book is divided into 19 chapters which cover the following concepts of plant nematology: biochemistry, cytochemistry, and genetics; morphology and function; host-parasite relations; and evaluation and control of crop losses. The present volume is an excellent reference for students, lecturers, and research professionals in plant parasitology and related fields.

These chapters provide up-to-date information on nematophagous fungi, particularly those of the Orbiliaceae in Ascomycota, whose asexual states produce nematode-trapping devices. The authors consider fungal-nematode interactions, fossil fungi, the biodiversity, ecology and geographical distribution of nematode-trapping fungi, and their potential use in biocontrol of nematodes, all in detail. Nematode-trapping fungi with adhesive or mechanical hyphal traps are the main focus of this book which begins with an overview of the data on nematode-trapping fungi, including their taxonomy, phylogeny and evolution. Subsequent chapters expand upon the methods and techniques used to study these fascinating fungi. Keys for genera of Arthrobotrys, Drechslerella and Dactylellina, which include all reported species of predatory orbiliaceous fungi are presented and numerous species from these genera are morphologically described and illustrated. The ecology of nematode-trapping fungi is expertly presented: their occurrence and habitats, their geographical and seasonal distribution and the effects of soil conditions and nematode density on their distribution all feature amongst the relevant themes. Further chapters examine the use of nematode-trapping fungi in biological control and the authors consider nematicidal activities in detail, exploring the many compounds from fungi that feature in nematicidal activities and of course useful paths for further study on this topic. This is a highly informative and carefully presented book, providing scientific insight for scholars with an interest in fungi and in biological control of nematodes.

The contemporary crisis of emerging disease has been a century and a half in the making. Human, veterinary, and crop health practitioners convinced themselves that disease could be controlled by medicating the sick, vaccinating those at risk, and eradicating the parts of the biosphere responsible for disease transmission. Evolutionary biologists assured themselves that coevolution between pathogens and hosts provided a firewall against disease emergence in new hosts. Most climate scientists made no connection between climate changes and disease. None of these traditional perspectives anticipated the onslaught of emerging infectious diseases confronting humanity today. As this book reveals, a new understanding of the evolution of pathogen-host systems, called the Stockholm Paradigm, explains what is happening. The planet is a minefield of pathogens with preexisting capacities to infect susceptible but unexposed hosts, needing only the opportunity for contact. Climate change has always been the major catalyst for such new opportunities, because it disrupts local ecosystem structure and allows pathogens and hosts to move. Once pathogens expand to new hosts, novel variants may emerge, each with new infection capacities. Mathematical models and real-world examples uniformly support these ideas. Emerging disease is thus one of the greatest climate change–related threats confronting humanity. Even without deadly global catastrophes on the scale of the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, emerging diseases cost humanity more than a trillion dollars per year in treatment and lost productivity. But while time is short, the danger is great, and we are largely unprepared, the Stockholm Paradigm offers hope for managing the crisis. By using the DAMA (document, assess, monitor, act) protocol, we can “anticipate to mitigate” emerging disease, buying time and saving money while we search for more effective ways to cope with this challenge.

Nematodes are renowned for their ability to survive severe environmental fluctuations. Their mechanisms to withstand temperature extremes, desiccation, and osmotic and ionic stress are presented here together with information on the underlying biochemical basis contributing to survival. Highlighting parallels and contrasts between parasitic and free-living nematode groups, this book integrates strategies that enable nematodes to persist in the absence of food with tactics used by parasitic forms to survive the defence responses of a plant or animal host. This functional study is an essential resource for researchers in nematology, parasitology and zoology.

Parasites that manipulate the behaviour of their hosts represent striking examples of adaptation by natural selection. This field of study is now moving beyond its descriptive phase and into more exciting areas where the processes and patterns of such dramatic adaptations can be better understood. This innovative text provides an up-to-date, authoritative, and challenging review of host manipulation by parasites that assesses the current state of developments in the field and lays out a framework for future research. It also promotes a greater integration of behavioral ecology with studies of host manipulation (behavioral ecology has tended to concentrate mainly on behaviour expressed by free living organisms and is far less focused on the role of parasites in shaping behaviour). To help achieve this, the editors adopt a novel approach of having a prominent expert on behavioral ecology (but who does not work directly on parasites) to provide an afterword to each chapter.