This book presents a broad review of the biology of grasshoppers and plague locusts, as well as katydids, crickets, mantises and other economically important orthopteroid insects. While grasshopper and locust plagues have decreased recently in North America, they continue unabated in many other parts of the world, including South America, Australia, the Middle East, Africa and western and southern Asia. Similarly, katydids attack cereals, orchards and other cultivated vegetation, and crickets damage tea, coffee and tuber crops among other plants. There have been considerable advances in our knowledge of these groups since other books addressing this subject were published. These other books have also focused on a more limited range of taxa. This book is written from a broad, comparative biological, behavioral and evolutionary approach best expressed by the neglected term bionomics. It thus covers systematics, distribution, behavior, physiology and genetics, as well as pest control and conservation. Written by authorities from the USA, Canada, UK, Spain, Israel, South Africa, India and Russia, it represents a major work for entomologists and those concerned with crop protection from pest Orthoptera.

Katydids are among the most commonly seen Australian insects. They range in size from about 5 mm to well over 90 mm and occur in many habitats all over Australia. Katydids are masters of deception, imitating twigs, bark, leaves and stems, as well as other insects. A few are brightly coloured and are distasteful to predators. They continue to be research subjects in many university curricula, where students study their behaviour, acoustical physiology and ecology. A Guide to the Katydids of Australia explores this diverse group of insects from the family Tettigoniidae, which comprises more than 1000 species in Australia, including Norfolk and Lord Howe islands. It highlights their relationships to plants, humans and the environment, and includes colour photographs of many species. 2011 Whitley Award Commendation for Field Guide.

This overview of the roles of alien species in insect conservation brings together information, evidence and examples from many parts of the world to illustrate their impacts (often severe, but in many cases poorly understood and unpredictable) as one of the primary drivers of species declines, ecological changes and biotic homogenisation. Both accidental and deliberate movements of species are involved, with alien invasive plants and insects the major groups of concern for their influences on native insects and their environments. Risk assessments, stimulated largely through fears of non-target impacts of classical biological control agents introduced for pest management, have provided valuable lessons for wider conservation biology. They emphasise the needs for effective biosecurity, risk avoidance and minimisation, and evaluation and management of alien invasive species as both major components of many insect species conservation programmes and harbingers of change in invaded communities. The spread of highly adaptable ecological generalist invasive species, which are commonly difficult to detect or monitor, can be linked to declines and losses of numerous localised ecologically specialised insects and disruptions to intricate ecological interactions and functions, and create novel interactions with far-reaching consequences for the receiving environments. Understanding invasion processes and predicting impacts of alien species on susceptible native insects is an important theme in practical insect conservation.

Palms constitute one of the largest botanical families and include some of the world's most important economic plants. This book reviews the interrelationships between palms and insects. The host plants, distribution and bionomics of representative insects are discussed.

Acridids (grasshoppers and locusts) can range from being rare curiosities to abundant menaces. Some are threatened with extinction and become subjects of intensive conservation efforts, while others are devastating pests and become the objects of massive control programmes. Even within a species, there are times when the animal is so abundant that its crushed masses cause the wheels of trains to skid (the Rocky Mountain grasshopper, Melanoplus spretus Walsh in western North America in the 1860s and I 870s), while at other times the animal is alarmingly scarce (the Rocky Mountain grasshopper went extinct in the early 1900s). Why are there these extremes in one insect family, and even in a single species? The NATO workshop examined this paradox and its implications for Environmental Security, which must address both the elements of land use (agricultural production and pest management) and conservation of biodiversity. The reconciliation of these objectives clearly demands a critical assessment of current knowledge and policies, identification of future research, and close working relationships among scientists. Insects can present two clear faces, as well as the intervening gradation. These extremes require us to respond in two ways: conservation of scarce species and suppression of abundant (harmful) species. But perhaps most important, these opposite poles also provide the opportunity for an exchange of information and insight.