Writing the Definitive Book on How Insects Breathe

Insects are by far the most successful and diverse group of animals on the planet. They include over 1 million described species, and taxonomists estimate that there are between 2 and 30 million species in total. Their remarkable success emerges from several key factors, including that they are small-bodied typically with large population sizes and have complex life cycles in which juveniles specialize on feeding and growth whereas adults specialize on dispersal and reproduction. Insects also have unusual – and astonishing – systems for gas exchange. Unlike the familiar cardiovascular systems used by terrestrial mammals (breathing air cyclically into lungs, with gas transport coupled to blood flow), insects breathe using tracheal systems, air-filled tubes that ramify finely throughout the body, delivering oxygen and removing carbon dioxide almost directly from individual cells and mitochondria. Tracheal systems are highly flexible, supporting both the massive metabolic rates needed for flight and the very low metabolic rates necessary for surviving long periods of unfavorable conditions. Despite the centrality of tracheal systems to insect life, no books have yet synthesized the past fifty years of progress on understanding them. At Stiαs, the team intends to write the first draft of what we envision as the definitive book on insect gas exchange.