Dormancy and Developmental Arrest: Experimental Analysis in Plants and Animals discusses the experimentation on states of suspended animation of living organisms. The book presents the range and complexity of interconnected processes involving structural, physiological, and molecular alterations in the organism. The text describes the physiological responses of animals and plants to environmental signals. It discusses the activities of nucleic acid and protein synthesis prior to dormancy state. The text also describes plant embryo development and the regulation of body temperature in dormant states. The book will provide valuable insights for biologists, zoologists, botanists, students, and researchers in the field of biology.

Soil invertebrates make up diverse communities living in soil pores and on the soil surface, digging burrows and tunnels, processing organic matter and interacting with microbes. Soil is also a habitat of growing concern as many human activities cause soil degradation. This book documents the evolutionary history of soil invertebrates and their multitude of adaptations. Soil invertebrates live in a twilight zone: some have gone down to seek stability, constancy and rest, others have gone up and faced environmental variation, heat, cold and activity. And it all happens in a few decimetres, millimetres sometimes. Check out the wonderful life below ground in this book.

Many authors of this new book were participants at the workshop on diapause in aquatic invertebrates (Pallanza, Italy 2003). This book consists of two major parts: phenomenology of diapause and significance of this adaptation in scientific and practical uses. It combines the theoretical part with the application of knowledge on diapause in the wide spectrum of scientific and applied fields.

Our highly seasonal world restricts insect activity to brief portions of the year. This feature necessitates a sophisticated interpretation of seasonal changes and enactment of mechanisms for bringing development to a halt and then reinitiating it when the inimical season is past. The dormant state of diapause serves to bridge the unfavourable seasons, and its timing provides a powerful mechanism for synchronizing insect development. This book explores how seasonal signals are monitored and used by insects to enact specific molecular pathways that generate the diapause phenotype. The broad perspective offered here scales from the ecological to the molecular and thus provides a comprehensive view of this exciting and vibrant research field, offering insights on topics ranging from pest management, evolution, speciation, climate change and disease transmission, to human health, as well as analogies with other forms of invertebrate dormancy and mammalian hibernation.