Series Editor: Peter Calow, Department of Zoology, University of
Sheffield, England The main aim of this series will be to illustrate and
to explain the way organisms 'make a living' in nature. At the heart of
this - their functional biology - is the way organisms acquire and then
make use of resources in metabolism, movement, growth, reproduction, and
so on. These processes will form the fundamental framework of all the
books in the series. Each book will concentrate on a particular taxon
(species, family, class or even phylum) and will bring together
information on the form, physiology, ecology and evolutionary biology of
the group. The aim will be not only to describe how organisms work, but
also to consider why they have come to work in that way. By
concentration on taxa which are well known, it is hoped that the series
will not only illustrate the success of selection, but also show the
constraints imposed upon it by the physiological, morphological and
developmental limitations of the groups. Another important feature of
the series will be its organismic orientation. Each book will emphasize
the importance of functional integration in the day- to-day lives and
the evolution of organisms. This is crucial since, though it may be true
that organisms can be considered as collections of gene- determined
traits, they nevertheless interact with their environment as integrated
wholes and it is in this context that individual traits have been
subjected to natural selection and have evolved.
