Book Description

Many invertebrates are serious pests of agriculture (e.g., mites and locusts), vectors of disease (e.g., mosquitoes and aquatic snails) and venomous (e.g., scorpions), whilst others are beneficial to humans as pollinators, food sources, and detritivores. Despite their obvious ecological, medical, and economic importance, this is the first comprehensive review of invertebrate diseases to be available within a single volume. Concurrent molecular and bioinformatics developments over the last decade have catalysed a renaissance in invertebrate pathology. High-throughput sequencing, handheld diagnostic kits, and the move to new technologies have rapidly increased our understanding of invertebrate diseases, generating a large volume of fundamental and applied research on the topic. An overview is now timely and this authoritative work assembles an international team of the leading specialists in the field to review the main diseases and pathologic manifestations of all the major invertebrate groups. Each chapter adopts a common plan in terms of its scope and approach to achieve a succinct and coherent synthesis. Invertebrate Pathology is aimed at graduate students and researchers in the fields of disease ecology, invertebrate biology, comparative immunology, aquaculture, fisheries, veterinary science, evolution, and conservation. It will be particularly useful for readers new to the field as well as a broader interdisciplinary audience of practitioners and resource managers.