"From one man's persistent and elegant probing of the temperature biology of bees, we have been led to a deeper understanding of the whole biology of many insect taxa, and of their interactions with ecological and environmental stresses: all who work at the interfaces of physiology, ecology and behaviour have cause to be grateful, and all should certainly read this book." (Trends in Ecology & Evolution) "An outstanding source of information, and can be read with profit and satisfaction by the professional biologist and interested amateur alike." (Nature)

In Form and Function of Insect Wings Grodnitsky offers a comprehensive overview of the functional morphology of insect wings from the viewpoint of general biology and uses these data to help further explain animal morphology. Grodnitsky evaluates functional issues relating to insect diversification, particularly wing structure and kinematics. He discusses recent data on wing kinematics and structure from the point of view of modern insect flight aerodynamics and general evolutionary morphology. He is most concerned with the question of which features of an organism can be explained by natural selection of given functional variants and which cannot.

This book explores the profound importance of phenotypic plasticity as a central organizing theme for understanding biology. Chapters take a broad, integrative approach to explain how physical and biological environmental stimuli (temperature, photoperiod, nutrition, population density, predator presence, etc.), influence insect biochemical, physiological, learning, and developmental processes, altering phenotype, which then influences performance, ecology, life-history, survival, fitness, and subsequent evolution. Topics include endocrinology, development, body size, allometry, polyphenism, reproduction, reproductive and life-history tradeoffs, alternative mating and life-history strategies, density-dependent prophylaxis, physiological adaptation, acclimation, homeostasis, heat-shock proteins, learning, adaptive anti-predator behavior, and evolution of phenotypic plasticity.